Key Process Parameters in the Manufacturing Process - Assignment Example

Scenario 1: QUESTION ONE Extruder: The polymer is heated in the extruder to attain plastic flow. To attain plastic flow, the extruder must be subjected to high temperatures to attain enough heat to melt the polymer. The heat changes the form of the polymer form solid to liquid in the process there are gasses released from the extruder which are toxic to the environment and are toxic when inhaled by humans. The heat is also hazardous to the operators of the extruder and they will require enough protective gear. Cooled casting drum. In the cooled casting drum, the plastic is cooled and prepared for rolling; the plastic at this point is cooling and in the process also releasing heat and other toxic gasses. It is also hot and poses great risk to human health and safety. Roller and nip. At this point the plastic flow is in motioned that is standardised and controlled .the material moves at 100m/min while entering the roller system and exits at 300m/min, this flow must be maintained and controlled to achieve desired results. Risks may arise from machine faults which may cause poor material; it may also hamper the production process. Heating The temperatures are again raised at this point to make the plastic malleable so it can be moulded to required shape and length by the rollers. The raise in temperature increases the risks to human health. The increase in temperature should be regulated and keenly monitored; risks may arise if proper monitoring is not done as this may result in overheating which may cause harm to human beings and to the materials used in the manufacturing. The excess heat may also cause fires that may be disastrous to the company and to the human health and safety. Stenter oven After the stretching in the rollers and the nips the plastic material enters an oven where it is repeatedly heated and cooled and finally crystallized to produce the final desired product. The operation of the stenter oven involves a series of cooling, heating and crystallization. These are processes that are characterised by high temperatures and low temperatures. The heating and cooling poses a risk if not well managed. The processes require accurate and proper timing to avoid damage to the plastic material, risks to human health and safety and damage to infrastructure materials in the company. QUESTION TWO Key process parameters that must be controlled in the manufacturing process are those that involve heating cooling, crystallization and rolling. This process involves a great deal of precision and measurements. The heating of the polymer requires heating to a particular temperature to prevent damage to product and machinery, therefore control systems must be used to control the temperature and roller speed. The plastic material must be tested for quality at the end of each stage to prevent faults carried on to the next stage. The best control strategy is the use of computer aided manufacturing. The system entails a series of networked hardware and software that work in a real time environment to control all the operations in the company. The use of real time processing ensures these processes are effectively controlled and monitored according to the set standards. One of the key parameters is temperature, the temperature that is required to heat the polymer to the desired state can be controlled by a computerised real time system, and the system can detect the temperature changes and adjust the temperatures accordingly. QUESTION THREE Partitioning the computer based control system for the company improves the scalability, the manageability and cost reduction over time. The following considerations should be followed when implementing the partitioning; Performance: the integration and communication between the partitioned components should be maintained to ensure continuity of operation and performance. The components should securely communicate and interact with each other with jeopardising the performance. Services and operating systems which include transaction support system distributed systems and authentication should be considered in order to simplify the system design and improve interoperability. Complexity: the complexity of the interfaces and the systems that used at the different sites where partitioning has been implemented should be reduced. The system may have frequent calls from the different stations during the processing therefore a highly granulated interface should be used across the separate machines. We should also consider separating critical processes for instance temperature regulation and monitoring, from other processes that might fail. This is done by using separate physical cluster and identifying a failover strategy. Also identify the best way for implementing additional hardware components and servers to enhance availability and performance. Partitioning can be achieved through several ways in this case , a mainframe computer controls the entire operations through logical partitioning. The local partition is a subset of the processor, it supports an operating system . it is a subsystem that is composed of all the components and functions as an independent system.the mainframe can be portioned into multiple logical partitions. Processor resource system manager , a firmware inbuilt to the mainframe provides the partitioning services in the control system. they basically create and run the local partitions Its the role of the system administrator to assign the portions of the mainframe memory to the different partions created. QUESTION FOUR A large scale system requires critical considerations of various factors to be considered when choosing the network technologies: Cost Efficiency Networking technologies for the company should be able to meet the objectives and requirements of the company at the lowest possible cost. Considerations however should be made on the importance of the technology and the quality of improvement its injecting to the company. For instance the use of Ethernet networking technology is cheaper than using the Token ring technology, however the token ring has more performance benefits to the company. Therefore the company should critically consider the cost of the technology and the improvement it’s bound to bring to the company. The bottom line is faster and effective technologies are expensive. It is also important to consider the granularity of switched and shared segments of the networking technologies. Switched network technologies that have full duplex operations have a significantly high performance but they are more expensive. Maintainability The networking technology adopted in the company will eventually need maintenance. The level of maintenance and how regular it should be done is a factor that must be considered. Some network technologies require alot of maintenance that is expensive thus increase in company expenditure. Therefore the company should consider technologies that require minimal and less costly maintenance. Performance The network technologies should effectively support the company operations and processes. It should be able to effectively and efficiently offer the services it was intended to. Technologies that are appropriate for the particular task intended should be implemented. QUESTION FIVE Real- time system is a system that processes data and information and produces feedback within a specified period of time. The period is short and significant thus the name real time. The system has a real time interaction with the user. The input to the system triggers an event and thus the input must be within the stipulated time. Examples of these systems include; ticket reservation system, oven temperature controller, and aircraft control system among others. In the production of plastic, real time systems could be implemented at the different stages of development to ensure controlled production. Unit Life Cycle Management: unit data tracking will provide value throughout the product life cycle. The data kept about the level of polymer material that should be fed to the extruder to produce a particular amount of plastic. Enhances the effectiveness of the functioning of the extruder since right quantities of polymer for the desired quantity and quality of plastic is used. Temperature monitoring and regulation at the extruder, cooling drum the rollers and the stenter oven can be managed by using a real-time temperature control system, the system will efficiently manage and control the levels of temperature to provide quality plastic. The other strategy is the processing of customer orders and delivery of the products. Real time systems can be used to synchronise production and customer orders. Plastics can be manufactured on demand when a customer has made an order for a particular product specification. The central order processing office will send a message with the order details to the respective manufacturing plant to commence the manufacturing of the particular plastic. However the system will need immediate feedback from the controller to effectively monitor the temperature. Any delay and interruption will render the information and the whole process obsolete. The information from the responsible personnel that is needed for the production process must be provided at the right time when and where needed. Scenario 2: QUESTION ONE Plastics are heated in the extruder during the production process, the heating of the plastic powder releases fumes that are poisonous to the lungs eyes and the nasal mucosa. The fumes may cause severe damage to these organs which may be irreversible. The high temperatures used in heating are also harmful to human health, they cause skin irritation and when combined with the fumes from the extruder may cause more damages. These risks can be reduced by fume control; this is done by regular maintenance of the processing plants and consistently using the recommended temperatures. Fire prevention should be a priority since most plastic material produce flammable gases during the production process and storage. Most factory fires have been started by accidental ignition of these flammable gases, therefore smoking, should be prohibited in production process, the workers should wear protective gear and most importantly the plant should be well equipped with efficient fire extinguishers. QUESTION TWO The transducer converts the thermal energy in the system to digital signals . it uses detectors and sensors to determine the measurement of the temperature. The measured temperature will determine the operations i.e. whether the temperature is to be increased, reduced or maintained to produce the quality plastic. The important process parameter for the system is the temperature. Temperature should be maintained at the required levels to produce the desired quality of plastic. The best instrument to be used for the measurement of the temperature and translating the results to digital signal to be interpreted by the computer system. QUESTION THREE Networking of the system uses the Ethernet, controlNet, datahighway +, operating system, wireless and remote dial-up support. The communication between the several plants across the UK will use the wireless communication. These communication and networking platforms are applied to control the input and output and for machine to machine communication. The network arrangement is carried out individually at each plant. There is a mainframe that controls the operations in all the sites, the mainframe will be situated in the main control centre. At each site machines are to be placed to control each activity at the site, from the extruder to the rolling and the delivery and distribution of the finished product. The layout below illustrates the network topology for the company: QUESTION FOUR Redundancy is a consideration since data and information in the network must be repeated in the several points of the distributed system. The distributed control system must have data repeated at the different stations and the implementation depends on this redundancy. The redundancy can be implemented through different strategies depending on whether a single or dual media is installed. The major advantage of redundancy is that the distributed network can handle several network faults at once. The operation of the network is also not hampered or interfered with due to the replication of data and information on the other stations. In the event of data loss in a station the other stations act as a backup. However the redundancy will mean an increase of storage space, and additional hardware and programs. The company is to operate several plants across the UK. Redundancy should thus be done on all the plants. To ease the manipulation of customer orders and supplies in the control station, the redundancy helps in processing of local orders and purchases in the respective stations. QUESTION FIVE The control system for the control and management of the operations in the company will require periodic information. This information is supplied by the operators; each user is stationed at different stages of the plastic manufacturing processes. The operator interface will be used for input and output of data and information between the operator and the control system and between the operator and the central control of the entire system. The design of the operator interface majorly borrowed several design principles: recognition of diversity : the designer should take into account the users of the systems and their diversified needs. The design should enable the users to get what they need as fast as they can. The designer should also strive for consistency of actions should be required in similar situations. Consistency in the design layout in terms of colour, font should be used through out. The other principle is to prevent errors whenever possible. The design follow steps to ensure errors are less likely to occur. These methods include organizing screens and menus functionally. http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/zos/basics/topic/com.ibm.zos.zmainframe/zconc_mfhwlpar.htm Read More