The present study tackles the metallurgical subjects involving the thin slab-direct hot rolling process, i.e. mini-mill process. In order to clarify the effect of chemical composition of steel and MnS precipitation behaviors on the development of edge cracking during hot rolling, the content of manganese and sulfur in low carbon steel was varied and the isothermal treatment prior to roughing was applied. Edge cracking during roughing in the hot-rolling process of mini-mill was effectively prevented by means of the isothermal treatment at 115$0^{circ}C$ for 5 minutes in the 0.4% manganese steel containing sulfur lower than 0.013%. With the increase in manganese content in low carbon steel, coarser MnS developed. The edge cracking index which denotes the total length of edge crack per unit edge-length of rolled specimens was proposed in this paper. It was found that the edge cracking index linearly decreased with the increase in the ratio of MnS.