» Articles » On-line Quality Control
On-line Quality Control increases efficiency, economics, and reduces waste
Traditional Off-line Lab Testing
- Subject to human error
- Long response time
- Labour intensive
- Sporadic results
Traditional response time 30-60 minutes
Process Integrated On-line Analysis
- Highly efficient
- Ultra-short response time
- Minimal waste
- Automatic and continuous monitorong
Robotised response time 3-10 minutes
In the last decade, on-line process analysers have become increasingly ubiquitous in industry. One of the reasons for this is economics. On-line analysers save money. The obvious direct savings include:
- Significantly less chemicals used in the production process due to the accurate monitoring of their levels.
- Higher yields, and thus profit margins, by controlling the production process.
- Labour savings, as grab sampling is more expensive and time-consuming than automated testing.
The indirect savings are less obvious but can be just as significant to the profitability of the organisation:
- Reduced occurrences of human error in the testing process.
- Overall efficiency gains due to automatic responses to out-of-spec results, allowing for rapid corrections.
- Results updated to the network instananeously.
- Automatic release of end product.
- Continuous results providing a truer insight into the production process.
Other benefits of on-line testing include:
- Safety—Analysers can be set up in a hazardous environment and/or replace dangerous laboratory testing.
- Environmental Protection— Analysers can ensure that toxic wastes are not discharged.
- Certainty—On-line analysers ensure that processes are continuously operating within specification.
Process analysers are becoming an increasingly essential tool for organisations in their endeavour to maximise their production efficiencies, and subsequently profitability. With the list of compounds that can be analysed on-line continuously growing, it has become easier to automatically test for specific chemical species in now and more complicated production processes.
