Application of Statistical Process

Control in the Corrugated Carton

Industry – a case study

SUPERVISOR Dr. Raed Athammneh

PRESENTED BY Hashem Yahia AlDaboubi - 2044635

Khaled Nidal AlJalamdeh - 2035398
Abdallah Jamal Farah - 1836785

May
2023
 Abstract
• The achievement of production key performance indicators is a crucial issue
for any production firm. Industrial companies often set their production
targets but it is always difficult to achieve such targets due to many reasons
e.g. long downtime, waste of resources, high defects, decreased production
yield, etc.

• Statistical Process Control (SPC) method is the method used in the research.

• From the study held, it was concluded that the amount of Corrugated Carton
production during June 2021 was 1405262 Kg with a total of 107927 Kg or
7.68% defects, with the most dominant type of defect being the Unsticky
sheet of 45.7%, Washboard of 25.5%, and Warp of 16%, which is a very large,
as the company Goal to reduce waste to 5%.

• From the results of the analysis, we provide suggestions for improvement by

focusing on the most dominant types of defects in the past so that repair
activities can run effectively. and The implementation of the SQC tool in
proportion to the efforts of the work team and the brainstorming that they
did, led to an initial improvement in this factory.
 Index
Abstract
Chapter 1: Introduction………….………………………………..………………..……
1.1 Overview
1.2 Profile Company
1.3 Project Objectives
1.4 Problem Statement
1.5 Critical To Quality
Chapter 2: Methodology ………………….................................….………….
Chapter 3: Corrugated board production process…………....................
3.1 Types of corrugated boards (Number of Walls)
3.2 Flute Profile
Chapter 4: Data Collection ………………………………………….....................
Chapter 5: Data Analysis ……….........…………………………………………..……
5.1 Introduction
5.2 Control Chart
5.2.1 Check For Normality
5.2.2 Phase I
5.2.3 Application P chart for major defective (Attributes data)
5.2.4 Phase II (monitoring)
5.3 Process Capability
5.4 Quality Tools
5.4.1 Pareto Chart
5.4.2 Cause and Effect diagram
5.4.3 Log Book
Chapter 6: Results And Conclusion ……….........….……..……………………..
Chapter 7: Recommendations ……….........………………..…………….…………
REFERENCES
APPENDICES
Chapter 1: Introduction:
1.1 Overview
Nowadays, business development is getting tougher even though it is in an
economic condition that tends to be unstable. This has an impact on business competition
that is getting higher and sharper, both in the domestic market and in the international
market.

One way to win the competition or at least survive in the competition is to give full
attention to the quality of the products produced by the company so that they can
outperform the products produced by competitors. Quality problems have led to the
company's overall tactics and strategies in order to have competitiveness and survive
against global competition with other company's products.

Quality is a very important variable in supporting the success of the business that is
involved in. With good quality, companies can compete and have competitive advantages
in both local and international markets. The long -term goal is of course to dominate the
existing market.

This is what the Research will deepen about how to apply Quality Control in a
corrugated carton manufacturing company, namely Qpack Co. , This project focus on the
corrugated carton manufacturing process, due to Because of the importance of this
product, and also because it uses from all people in all sectors and not specialized for one
sector.
1.2 Profile Company

Quality Carton Packaging (Qpack) is a company specialized in producing, developing,

manufacturing, and exporting high-quality Corrugated carton . Qpack was launched into a
market that lacked a trusted local corrugated Carton packaging producer, Qpack works
with customers around the world and in a diverse range of markets. The Middle East, Asia,
Europe, North America … food production, retail, merchandising, shipping . It's a
subsidiary of Zalatimo group. It was established in 2005 in Jordan.

1.3 Project Objectives

1. To analyze how the implementation of quality control at factory in an effort to reduce
the level of product waste .
2. Analyzing the types of defects that occur in products
3. Identify what factors cause defects in the product
4. To analyze how the application of statistical process control and reduce the occurrence
of product defects.
5. Calculate the process capability which are measurable property of the process .
1.4 Problem Statement

Quality is key in manufacturing any type of product, and it has become more important
than ever for companies to produce quality products to survive.

The company looking to improve the quality of the products and monitor production
processes accurately and to reduce waste (including defects), in order to be one of the
worldwide competitor.

1.5 Critical To Quality

Price

Good
Size Durability
Carton

cleanliness
Chapter 2: Methodology:
1. Choosing a carton manufacturing as a case study to investigate the implementation of
quality control chart due to its large production size.
2. Performing a scientific study to have an excellent theoretical background about quality
control and carton manufacturing process.
3. Gathering complete information about the factory, its working status, production lines
4. Using Minitab software to analysis the data
5. Identify the defects that constitute 80% of the problems through the Pareto chart, and
focus on them.
6. Enlisting of the probable root causes for the problems. Preparation of Fish Bone diagram
for the listed causes.
7. After implementing the recommendations, the next step is to take new samples and
monitor the production process by the control chart .

• Number of Sample
We took 25 samples in phase I and 25 samples in phase II
• Sample Size
We set the size of each sample as 5 pieces
• Sample Frequency
We took 5 samples daily for 5 days
Chapter 3: Corrugated board production process
In this chapter, an explanation of the corrugated board production process is given,
including its inputs, its steps, its types of flute and the number of wall . This will allow for a
better understanding of how all of the elements tie together to form the productive
process.

3.1 Types of corrugated boards (Number of Walls)

The corrugated carton can be single, double or even triple wall allowing for different
combinations of flute profiles and different combinations of papers.
3.2 Flute Profile
The corrugating comes in different shapes and types according to recognized
standards. The types of Flute are (A, B, C, E, F) .

* Thickness of corrugated layers in millimeters:

A = 4.8 – 4.4
B = 3.1–2.9
C = 3.9 – 3.2
E = 1.8 – 1.1
F = 0.8–0.7

We have specialized in this Study in: Flute F

Chapter 4: Data Collection
Check sheet

Table 1 :Total production and type of defects- June 2021

Table 2: Sampling Data for Single Wall flute thickness Size “F“ : (Phase I)
Table 3 : Sampling Data for Single Wall flute thickness Size “F“: (Phase II)
Chapter 5: Data Analysis
5.1 Introduction

After we dealt with the theoretical chapters to discuss the problem of the study and
to address the most important aspects related to it, we try through our field study to
translate these facts into concrete data. This chapter discusses the results of the
preliminary data analysis and the data set obtained from the factory. The objective of the
preliminary data analysis is to study the performance of the current process, and to
determine the root causes of the defects in the products.

5.2 Control Chart

Control Chart are one of the important statistical tools used in Adjusting and
controlling the production process and measuring the quality of products during
production in order to detect defects and undesirable deviations in performance.

Control chart are similar in form, because The chart consists of three parallel
horizontal lines:
1- The upper line is known as the upper control limit (UCL).
2- The middle line is known as the centerline (CL) and represents the expected value of the
variable (quality characteristic) in the long run or the optimum level of production quality.
3- The lower line is known as the Lower Control Limit (LCL).
5.2.1 Check For Normality

We will check the normality of the data (Table 2) in Figure , and find that it is
normal.
5.2.2 Phase I

• Initially, the work team began to form a periodic inspection schedule for the carton
production line ,and they took 25 samples from flute F, the size of sample equal 5
pieces .we took 5 sample per day For 5 days , ie 125 samples .

• Since we are pulling a fixed sample size and we have a small sample size of 5, and
variable data, we can use the X Bar- R chart shown in Figure below:
• In the previous figure , We find that a lot of points exit below the LCL in the X bar chart
specially point 1, and it is likely that because the sample was taken at the beginning of
the day where the machine is at the beginning of its work, and we can say that the first
sample of each day can be removed to consider it a Warm Up Period, so we pet the
chart shown in the following Figure :
• We stayed in phase I, and after removing the points which are the beginnings of the
days, we got points out of control below the LCL And above UCL . It is likely that the
reason is the moisture of sheet is too high and the temperature of preheating roll is not
up to the requirement, the steam pressure of boiler should be increased so that the
steam supplied by it can reach saturated vapor. , but at the same time some workers
complained about the quality of Glue, so we will try a new type of Glue and check
another week on it with the same number of samples, but before that we will remove
all of points out of control from the chart after find out the root cause of the defect as in
the following Figure:

Now, there is no indication that the process is out of control, so those limits could be
adopted for phase Il monitoring of the process.
5.2.3 Application P chart for major defective (Attributes data) :
we will use the P chart because the sample size is variable and defectives data
(Table 1)

• Analysts of the data from samples 9 , 14, 15 and 16 indicate problem in :

1- machine like (Corrugator , flexo printing , Die cutter)
2-material like (paper , Glue is low quality)
• According to the western electric Rules, we find that points 9, 14 - 16 respectively , it is
Out of control (out of 3 sigma limits).
• According to the sensitizing Rules, we find that points 6 and 7 respectively , it is Out of
control (out of 1 sigma limits).

• This results in regular production Consequently, samples 9,14,15 and 16 are eliminated.
• When working on a Quality control project, accurate methods to measure process
performance metrics are critical for understanding the current state of a process and
the value of changes made. Four of the most common measurements are Defects Per
Unit (DPU). Defects per Million Opportunities (DPMO), below is the calculation of the
process capability for the major defectives (Attributes data), as in Figure .
5.2.4 Phase II (monitoring)
• We conduct an additional 25 samples (the first hour of work was not taken into
account) shown in table 3 . Then we monitored the new data and found the chart
shown in the following figure:

• We note that the Glues are much better than the old ones, the quality of the seams of
the sheet has been increased and the temperature of preheating roll is suitable for the
moisture of the sheet.

• We Found the upper and lower control limits converge to the center line after the
improvement process, which indicates an improvement in the regularity of the
production process, and this means that the production process improved at the two
levels, quality production process and the regularity the quality of the process.
5.3 Process Capability
• Process capability is defined as a statistical measure of the inherent process variability
of a given characteristic. You can use a process-capability study to assess the ability of a
process to meet specifications.
• The histogram can be helpful in estimating process capability. And we calculated the
process capability for the flute type size F as in the following Figure:

Flute F
After 1.09 0.99 1.10 0.99
Before 0.55 0.62 0.48 0.48
• We find an increase in process capability thanks to the new type of Glue. Therefore, it is
recommended to continue using this type instead of the old type, and monitoring the
Glue Roll due to use or the level of humidity in the factory.
5.4 Quality Tools
5.4.1 Pareto Chart
• Pareto analysis is a factual strategy in basic leadership utilized for the determination of a
set number of errands that create noteworthy general impact. It utilizes the Pareto Rule
(otherwise called the 80/20 lead) the possibility that by completing 20% of the work you
can produce 80% of the advantage of doing the whole employment.

• The collected data was generated in the form of a Pareto chart. The Pareto chart
indicated that the highest rate of defects in corrugated machine, especially glue roll was
caused by low quality glue, causing the layers to not stick and Washboard. In particular,
this two type of defect contributed to over 71.3 percent of the overall number of
defects. Therefore, the improvement team and organization decided to focus on the
reduction of this defects.
5.4.2 Cause and Effect diagram
• The fishbone chart recognizes numerous conceivable foundations for an impact or issue.
• In the fishbone diagram the causes of defects in the production process are grouped
into 5, namely: raw materials, humans, machines, environment, method.

• There are five main causes of Unsticky & Washboard defects , which are caused by
human factors , raw materials, machines, methods, and the environment. The following
is an explanation of each of the factors that contribute to the defect.
5.4.3 LOG BOOK

Date Time Types Of Defect Number Of

Unsticky Washboard Warp Defect
(KG) (KG) (KG) (KG)

1/5/2023 9 AM 3 3 0 6
2/5/2023 12 PM 1 1 4 6
3/5/2023 2 PM 0 5 1 6
4/5/2023 10 PM 5 0 2 7
5/5/2023 5 PM 3 0 0 3
6/5/2023 1 PM 2 3 3 8
7/5/2023 9 AM 4 4 2 10
8/5/2023 3 PM 4 1 0 5
9/5/2023 5PM 1 5 1 7
10/5/2023 8 AM 3
1 2 0
11/5/2023 11PM 12
7 1 4
12/5/2023 4 PM 9
3 5 1
Chapter 6: Results And Conclusion
• A good quality control system is a necessary component in the production of good
carton box , Quality means money. Therefore, a factory must be able to produce an
acceptable quality level as agreed between the manufacturer and the customer.

• After applying a statistical Process control (SPC) in the factory, and Take immediate
corrective action to remove the root causes of defects , we note are increased the
process capability Cp for Flute type F from 0.55 to 1.09 and Cpk from 0.48 to 0.99 . It
also led to an increase in the durability and adhesion of carton layers, which leads in
the future to raise the name of the factory and the product and increase the demand
for it, which raises the company's ability to establish a statistical quality control unit in
its factory to monitor production there.

• The implementation of the QC tool in proportion to the efforts of the work team and
the brainstorming that they did, led to an initial improvement in this factory. according
to factory data and after implementing the required improvements , the percentage of
waste decreased from 13.2% to 10%. and we hope in the near future to implement the
lean Six Sigma methodology in the company.
Chapter 7: Recommendations
1- The daily maintenance of the machines is very necessary and it's a way with less
investment cost but higher effect. On the one side, it will prolong the lifetime of the
machine and maintain the normal and stable operation. On the other side , it additionally
reduces the probability of mechanical failure and the appearance of non-defective
products, and additionally saves workforce and material resources.
2- Use high quality Glue.
3- Renewal the cutting knifes continuously.
4- Checking the moisture level in the raw paper , where is generally 6% to 10% and Refuse
any paper reel that does not meet the specifications , when entering the factory.
5- it must be ensured that the viscosity of the glue is suitable for the temperature of the
workplace, as the high temperature reduces the viscosity of the glue.
6- the storage temperature of corrugated paper should be controlled at room temperature,
and the relative moisture should not be more than 55%.
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APPENDICES