Abstract
Normal 0 false false false EN-ZW X-NONE X-NONE Many of the production costs for producing tea are attributable to the process of drying the tea. E-manufacturing can assist companies to reduce these production costs by making crucial information available to decision-makers so that they can make informed decisions. This paper presents an application of e-manufacturing to the design of an automatic tea drying control system. This control system will ensure that the multiple drying parameters such as temperature, dryer-exit tea moisture content, and fuel consumption are maintained at optimal states during the course of the drying of tea. The additional aim of this system is to balance the cost of production and the quality of the final product. Using the Guggenheim-Anderson-De Boer (GAB) model, the optimum drying temperature was found to be 100-110°C, while maintaining a dryer-exit tea moisture content of 3 to 3.12 per cent, at a drying rate of 3 per cent per minute. A Barix control application to control the system’s activities, using the web user interface (WUI), was also developed. /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0mm 5.4pt 0mm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0mm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}
Highlights
There is no alternative to drying tea, which is the most energy-intensive and most expensive process in the manufacture of tea, as stated by Saeed[1]
This paper presents the design of an online automatic tea drying control system for a tea company based in Zimbabwe
The web page is set up to refresh after every two seconds, which gives more up-to-date information on the conditions in the dryer, compared with waiting for 30 minutes to get results from the tea testers. This enables total quality management (TQM) in the system, as quality is built into the process, compared with the quality inspection that is done currently
Summary
There is no alternative to drying tea, which is the most energy-intensive and most expensive process in the manufacture of tea, as stated by Saeed[1]. For Zimbabwean tea companies that experience high energy costs, there is a need for innovation in this area that balances the cost of production and the quality of the final product. In order to reach this balance, the factory needs to be constantly monitored by decision-makers in order to obtain the correct and appropriate information on the factory’s processes. This paper presents the design of an online automatic tea drying control system for a tea company based in Zimbabwe. The design aims to eliminate errors associated with the dependency on people who currently regulate the dryer environment in tea production.
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