2018م - 1444هـ
ISSN 2456-8066

International Journal of Advanced Engineering and Management

Vol. 3, No. 4, pp. 127-133, 2018

Murtada Elshiekh, Khalid Eltayeb and Osama Mohammed Elmardi Suleiman, “Development of Quality Control System

for Cement Manufacturing using Software Techniques,” International Journal of Advanced Engineering and

Management, Vol. 3, No. 4, pp. 127-133, 2018

Development of Quality Control System for Cement

Manufacturing using Software Techniques

Murtada Elshiekh1*, Khalid Eltayeb2 and Osama Mohammed Elmardi Suleiman3

1,2Department of Manufacturing Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Technology- Nile Valley University – Atbara – Sudan

3Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Technology- Nile Valley University – Atbara – Sudan

Corresponding author E-mail: [email protected]

Abstract—The cement material is considered to be of great

importance in different aspects of building development

projects and as a commodity for export and investment.

Accordingly, the product should be compatible with the

standard specifications within manufacturing stages to

ensure acceptable quality. This research paper focuses on

creating a system that monitors and records daily readings

of cement physical tests at quality laboratories of cement

factory and accordingly the control charts for each test

were established. The importance of control charts for the

variables lies in the expression of the system status (inside

or outside the control limits); normally the points which

are located outside the borders indicate that the system is

out of control. But in some cases, the points are within the

control limits but took an abnormal distribution. First, the

system determines the style of pattern type, analyzes and

then finds out the expected causes and suggests the

solutions. The system was tested by inserting different

records in different intervals of time; the results obtained

were reasonable and had explained the effectiveness of the

system.

Keywords—Quality control; Control charts; patterns;

cement laboratory.

I. INTRODUCTION

Recently, the River Nile State had witnessed a great leap in

cement industry due to the fact that all production elements

were available; raw materials (lime stone), which is available

in most areas extending from Atbara to Abu Hammad[1].

Moreover, the availability of transport means (paved roads and

railway tracks) linking production sites with national markets

and ports of export, in addition to the availability of power

sources and skilled labors [2]. Based on the above-mentioned

reasons, the policy of supply and demand overshadows the

local and regional market, making these companies at a big

challenge to obtain the trust and the customer satisfaction[3].

Due to an increasing competition in products, consumers have

become more critical in choosing products[4]. The quality of

products has become more important. Statistical process

control (SPC) is usually used to improve the quality of

products and reduce rework and scrap so that the quality

expectation can be attained.

II. PROBLEM STATEMENT

All the industries and institutions are keen to optimize the

profit, and to be friendly with environment[5]. This will help

these companies to keep its position and status within the

market, such process will be maintained by developing and

promoting the manufacturing systems as well as applying the

total quality control principles[6][7].

Control charts are the most popular charts widely used in

industry to detect abnormal process behavior[8]. The most

typical form of control charts consists of a central line and two

control limits representing the specifications of the product

and the variant range limits[9]. This provides a useful method

for monitoring variations in the product manufacturing

process[10]. However, these control charts do not provide

pattern-related information because they focus only on the

latest plotted data points.

There are five cement factories in River Nile State; all these

factories are highly recommending improving their quality

control system (mainly the physics lab) to be within the

present international market competition. The process is

applied through monitoring and documenting the results of

different trails, analysis and decision making.

III. THE OBJECTIVES

The purpose of this research is to develop a quality control

system of cement manufacturing using software technique,

which is aiming to achieve the following objectives:-

To record daily results for various physical tests.

To draw control charts for variables (average, X), (range,

R) for any period of time required.

To find different patterns, then analyze and identify

corrective action accordingly for each pattern.

To Display the results of all tests at any time and obtain

respective reports.

IV. METHODOLOGY

General information about the system, which includes

machines, production stages, and sequence of operations etc,

were gathered.

Historical data of previous physical test results were

collected, and the causes of poor quality were analyzed.

Computer program created by using Visual Basic language

will be used to control the quality and to evaluate and indicate

the subgroup pattern and its analysis.