PoWER

The company has not been able to produce more than 18000 tonnes even though having a capacity of 40000 tonnes per month and the major reason for that is the electrical or mechanical or operational fault of the machines which leads to shutdown of plant. For example pulverized coal fired gas furnace had a problem of mudding (formation of big lumps of silica) in the furnace which interrupted the reheating process and thus stalling the manufacturing for about 10 to 20 hours at a time. And the frequency of the mudding problem is 2 to 3 times per month. Then again the furnace has to be restarted to carry out the manufacturing. The lumps of silica are to be removed manually. This problem arises because of the quality of coal used for heating purpose. The coal used is non coking coal grade G which has high ash and moisture content and also the coal lumps are not pulverized to the desired shape. Use of this coal leads to blocking of the bottom of the heating zone of the coal gas plant due to formation of mud. Below is the figure for manual dumping of the mud. The solution for this problem can be use of grade E non coking coal which is priced at Rs 970 per tonne and has low ash and moisture content than grade G. Hence atleast 20 hours of operation can be added or production can be increased, because of the decrease in the formation of silica and hence mudding problem.
The solution for this problem can be use of grade E non coking coal which is priced at Rs 970 per tonne and has low ash and moisture content than grade G. Hence atleast 20 hours of operation can be added or production can be increased, because of the decrease in the formation of silica and hence mudding problem. Maintaining Drawing Machine: One solution to this problem is to carry out frequent maintenance and checks to prohibit variation in the speed of drawing so as to avoid bending and hence brittleness problem. Assuming the regular maintenance cost to be Rs 20000 per month and reduction in brittleness of the wire rod and hence increase in quality. This increase in quality leads to increase in demand (due to increase in customers) by 50 tonnes. Thus the demand becomes 18050 tonnes and as the profit is Rs 5220 on one tonne we get a profit of Rs 261000. Then subtracting Rs 50000 of maintenance we get a net profit of Rs 241000. Also operating hours is also increased after replacing coal and thus it supports this increased production. High Carbon Content in Billet: Another problem could have been with the billet used for manufacturing wired rod steel that it is having a higher percentage of carbon in it than required thus making it less ductile and hence the wire drawn is brittle. This problem can be sorted out by material composition analysis which helps to understand whether there is mistake in mixing carbon (carbon percentage) in the molten iron while manufacturing billet which is the raw material for wired rod steel and then after analyzing the contents of the steel, the manufacturing of the steel is controlled to have right mix of carbon in it to avoid brittleness. Various methods for material composition analysis are Optical Emission Spectrometry (OES), Inductively Coupled Plasma Atomic Emission Spectrometry (ICP-AES), Atomic Absorption Spectrometry (AAS), X-ray Fluorescence Spectrometry (XRF), Carbon Sulfur Analyzer, Nitrogen Oxygen Analyzer, Hydrogen Analyzer, Spectrophotometer.