Product quality problems

Inspect the dilution air system to be sure that it has adequate capacity to cool the flue gas for protection of recuperators and other equipment. Perform this check regularly and especially after delays, when all zones will be at maximum input, with the loads hot all the way back to the charge door, thereby raising flue gas exit temperatures considerably above normal. 

All furnace and machinery operators should have a check list of items to check every time they come on duty. All operating personnel should be encouraged to be on constant lookout for wear and tear and things going wrong, and to report them promptly to the maintenance department. AND, to keep their confidence, the maintenance department must take prompt action, never ridiculing their concerns. Nothing runs down a plant worse than loss of employees pride  

Maintenance requires ongoing vigilance, just like safety. If these two aspects of plant operation are not conscientiously practiced, they may affect profits and personnel, customer, and community relations. 

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The combined result of two such determinations yielded a leak size figure of 8.8% of the feed flow (with a relative standard deviation of less than 5%). This figure could sufficiently explain the product quality problems experienced, whose alternative explanation in turn was catalyst poisoning. 

Table 1 Product Quality Problems That Led to Recall of Solid Oral Dosage Forms in 1998...

The production of material of a consistent quality is one of the major goals of development work. Quality problems in a product are identified by the constant monitoring and analysis of the output from the plant, using statistical process control techniques [D-4]. Some of these methods have already been mentioned in Section B, 3.4.2. The avoidance of product quality problems results in direct cost benefits and also brings about a reduction in the environmental impact of its manufacture. This is because material does not need to be reworked, recycled or sent for disposal. A reduction in the number of inferior quality batches of material leads to an increase in output from the plant. More material is produced for the same effort, with the added benefit that it can be consistently supplied to the sales warehouse or be used in consuming processes. 

While sampling and sample preparation may appear, at first sight, to be an unskilled and low technology operation, they are probably the most common causes of disagreement between laboratories, and are critical to the characterisation of product quality. Problems arise as a result of the failure to obtain representative samples. They also arise, particularly with quicklime, as a result of inadequate precautions when storing or handling the sample. It is, therefore, important that samples are taken, prepared and stored in accordance with specified procedures. 

Surface foam and entrained air can indeed be a serious hindrance to operations and quality in a paper miU. This can be a major economic problem recently it was estimated that the use of defoamers in the US paper industry alone in 2001 was over US 250 million and growing at over 5% annually. That is not the only cost of the problem - a much more significant impact to the papermaker would be the lost production and product quality problems that require the use of these products to control foam. 

Impurity Reactions. The large-scale production of molecules demands a knowledge of the fate of impurities which enter with the raw materials or are produced in the reaction steps. These impurities can cause considerable pollution and product quality problems. In many processes more equipment and energy is devoted to controlling the impurities than the main reagents and products. Figure 3 illustrates the types of reactions which could occur between impurities and other species in the reaction mixture. 

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