Quality Improvement Practices Based On FMEA Methodology In Chemical Manufacturing Plant

The purpose of FMEA (Failure Mode and Effects Analysis) is to analyze the products through their sub-system, spare parts or all of the detail process during the stage of product design and process development, then to find the potential failure risk and the possible defects so that we can improve the products quality and reliability with necessary corrective actions. Our research will focus on company Z, who is a world leading manufacturer of Coating Resins and Crosslink located in Belgium. Company Z established Radiation Curing (Radcure) technology in1990’s. Radcure Coatings is initiated by UV or Radiant point to efficiently cure the mixture of Monomer and Oligomer. However, it’s a big challenge to safely and stably produce Radcure resins according to its easy gelation.Due to the sophisticated mechanism of unexpected gelation during the production process which is closely related with quality management, at the beginning of2013, the company launched a special project using FMEA methodology to investigate the root causes and try to eliminate the defects of gelation with all kinds of experienced technical resources including engineers from R&D, Process, manufacturing and Quality.We are going to describe the general concept of FMEA, including the definition, category, failure mode and detail implementation plan. Using FMEA methodology, we could successfully solve the unexpected gelation during the Radcure resin production through optimizing the process and quality management system. The application of this process prevents the occurrence of the common and typical problems effectively. The success application of the process has certain value of reference toward the other manufacturing company.