Maintenance Of Product Quality Research Articles

Should a powerful manufacturer collaborate with a risky supplier? Pre-recall vs. post-recall strategies in product harm crisis management

Product recalls occurring due to quality failures can ravage a firm’s reputation. Product quality maintenance is often the responsibility of a manufacturer and its suppliers. Therefore, manufacturer–supplier contracts may lead to efficient quality management. However, numerous recent product recalls showed that a likelihood of a crisis remains despite such supply chain co-operations. Efficient crisis management strategies can mitigate the negative effect of a product recall on firms and consumers. We consider a one-supplier–one-manufacturer supply chain prone to a product recall. Considering a differential game framework, we develop two quality-based cost-sharing contractual models to analyze how, under uncertainty, pre-recall and post-recall strategies of advertising, quality, and pricing vary in the supply chain. Our results indicate that for a high-likelihood/-impact recall, the supplier and manufacturer focus more on their respective post-recall quality effort than on the pre-recall period. Interestingly, by gradual, incremental pre-recall advertising, the manufacturer raises its goodwill before a recall announcement to keep consumers’ higher confidence regarding the product’s quality even after the recall. Our cooperative contractual agreements benefit all the channel members and consumers. The manufacturer is always better off by sharing a greater quality effort with the supplier in the post-recall period than in the pre-recall period.

ФОРМУВАННЯ СИСТЕМИ УПРАВЛІННЯ ЯКІСТЮ ЯК ЧИННИКА КОНКУРЕНТОСПРОМОЖНОСТІ ПРОДУКЦІЇ ПІДПРИЄМСТВ АГРАРНОЇ ГАЛУЗІ

With the constant improvement of the quality of life of people, as well as the intensification of competition in the domestic and foreign markets, the quality and safety of agricultural products faces new challenges. Only competitive enterprises can produce food products in accordance with the requirements of international standards and will be able to take advantage of international cooperation in investment, crediting, certification, insurance, scientific and technical support of agricultural production and sale of food products. The article summarizes the concepts: "quality management system", the factors that affect the level of product quality are determined, proposals are presented. The general principles and provisions of the most common quality management systems based on international standards that are recommended to be implemented in the activities of agricultural enterprises are analyzed. The necessity and advantages of implementing a quality management system (HACCP - Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points) as a tool for the production of quality agricultural products are determined. The application of the food safety management system based on the idea (HACCP - Hazard Analyses and Critical Control Points) provides the company with the opportunity provide guarantees for the production of a safe product through continuous control at all stages of production; qualitatively manage all critical factors that threaten food safety - eliminate, minimize or prevent their occurrence; provide guarantees that food products are safe at the time of consumption; guarantee proper sanitary conditions of production in accordance with international standards; ensure compliance with legislative and regulatory requirements for food safety; establish the trust of consumers, partners and Effective quality management is a comprehensive and systematic management process that is carried out on the basis of strict adherence to the principles of quality management, with minimal costs and maximum results. The latter is especially important, since the effectiveness of management is determined by its efficiency and maximum return on activity with minimal costs for organizational, economic, technical, personnel, social measures and balancing the whole range of factors affecting the formation and maintenance of product quality. The development, certification, and maintenance of the quality management system in a state of capacity is one of the strategic directions of business entities, which significantly increases their efficiency, economic efficiency and competitiveness in the domestic and world markets. To ensure the appropriate competitiveness of agricultural products in the markets, it is necessary to constantly monitor the improvement of its quality.

The multi-aspect tests in the presence of ties

The two-sample problem is one of the most important topics in various fields, such as biomedical experiments and product quality maintenance. The Lepage-type test, which is the sum of squares of standardized linear rank statistics, has often been used in the location-scale shift model. Recently, the Lepage-type test has been applied to the joint location-scale and joint location-scale-shape problems. In this study, the test statistics based on the Euclidean distance and Mahalanobis distance of standardized linear rank statistics are considered in the presence of ties. The moments of these test statistics are calculated by deriving the moment-generating function of the vector of linear rank statistics. Moreover, the gamma approximation based on these moments is compared with the chi-square approximation based on the limiting null distribution. Simulation studies and data examples demonstrate the usefulness of gamma approximation in the case of small sample sizes.

Machine Learning Methods Applied for Modeling the Process of Obtaining Bricks Using Silicon-Based Materials.

Most of the time, industrial brick manufacture facilities are designed and commissioned for a particular type of manufacture mix and a particular type of burning process. Productivity and product quality maintenance and improvement is a challenge for process engineers. Our paper aims at using machine learning methods to evaluate the impact of adding new auxiliary materials on the amount of exhaust emissions. Experimental determinations made in similar conditions enabled us to build a database containing information about 121 brick batches. Various models (artificial neural networks and regression algorithms) were designed to make predictions about exhaust emission changes when auxiliary materials are introduced into the manufacture mix. The best models were feed-forward neural networks with two hidden layers, having MSE < 0.01 and r2 > 0.82 and, as regression model, kNN with error < 0.6. Also, an optimization procedure, including the best models, was developed in order to determine the optimal values for the parameters that assure the minimum quantities for the gas emission. The Pareto front obtained in the multi-objective optimization conducted with grid search method allows the user the chose the most convenient values for the dry product mass, clay, ash and organic raw materials which minimize gas emissions with energy potential.

Drying kinetics of food materials in infrared radiation drying: A review

AbstractIn recent years, many infrared (IR) and IR‐assisted drying methods such as IR‐hot air, IR‐vacuum, IR‐microwave, and vibration aided IR‐dryer have been reported for drying of food materials due to its rapid drying behavior and less processing time due to high drying rate, consumes less energy, offers better control over temperature, superior quality products, less ecological footprint and also easily it can be combined with other modes of heating technologies. The combination of IR radiation with other drying methods is very promising as it not only improves the drying rate but also preserve the food quality. IR and IR‐assisted drying have been proved as a potential drying method for many food products. Drying kinetics of food materials during IR drying is very critical for the design of IR dryer, selection of appropriate drying parameters, product quality maintenance, and control and optimization of the drying process. Therefore, this paper aims to report the optimum process parameters for IR and IR‐assisted drying of food materials and its drying kinetics. Similarly, critically reviewed the effect of various factors on the IR drying process such as drying rate, specific energy consumption, effective moisture diffusivity, and activation energy during drying of various food materials.Practical applicationsInfrared (IR) heating allows more uniform heating resulting in better quality characteristics of dried products than other drying methods. The combination of hot air and IR improves the effectiveness of drying. Drying kinetics of food materials and the factors affecting the drying characteristics of food materials during IR and IR‐assisted heating are essential for the optimization of the drying process and the successful design of IR dryers with improved efficiency. Most of the IR and IR‐assisted drying technologies developed for the food drying and dehydration process in the thermal food processing sector are still in a laboratory or experimental stage only. This review paper helps to analyze the further possibilities for scaling up of these technologies to industrial level or design of innovative dryer would be very beneficial to the food processing industries.

PNS13 An Investment Example on Digitalization, a Unique System Designed for Medical Device Tracking: UTS

Medical Device Product Tracking System (UTS) is a national healthcare investment on digitalization implemented by Turkish Medicines and Medical Devices Agency (TITCK) in 2017. The purpose of this study is to discuss the benefits of this investment to healthcare system by taking into consideration patient and quality-oriented design of UTS. In this study, the UTS Usage Report published by TITCK in 2019 was analyzed for system adaptation and usage prevalence throughout country. To evaluate features for patient safety and product quality maintenance, the new applications versus pre-existing practices were compared by a survey analysis. The investment budget and other data were received from TITCK directly. The total investment for UTS was $18,394,292, which constituted 0.04% of the total budget allocated to healthcare expenditures in Turkey in 2017. The number of medical device companies and products registered to UTS in 2019 are 43,332 and 3,773,070, respectively. There are 22,187 healthcare providers using UTS. UTS mobile application, which was not previously available, has been downloaded by more than 15,000 users in 2019. Citizens can quickly make their complaints from application regarding quality and use of any medical device. While disposable products could be used more than once before UTS, it is currently controllable with the help of system tracking. UTS has a special module designed to have a faster and easier vigilance process. As of January 2017, 9875 adverse event notifications have been delivered from users and health institutions through the system. UTS is a strategic and nationwide healthcare investment example on digitalization in Turkey. It supports patient safety via traceability of medical devices, potential benefits for patients via discouraging multi-usage of single-use products, quality via controlling certification, improving recall processes, better insights for policy and planning via big data analysis.

Tuning monoclonal antibody galactosylation using Raman spectroscopy-controlled lactic acid feeding.

A key aspect of large-scale production of biotherapeutics is a well-designed and consistently-executed upstream cell culture process. Process analytical technology tools provide enhanced monitoring and control capabilities to support consistent process execution, and also have potential to aid in maintenance of product quality at desired levels. One such tool, Raman spectroscopy, has matured as a useful technique to achieve real-time monitoring and control of key cell culture process attributes. We developed a Raman spectroscopy-based nutrient control strategy to enable dual control of lactate and glucose levels for a fed-batch CHO cell culture process for monoclonal antibody (mAb) production. To achieve this, partial least squares-based chemometric models for real-time prediction of glucose and lactate concentrations were developed and deployed in feedback control loops. In particular, feeding of lactic acid post-metabolic shift was investigated based on previous work that has shown the impact of lactate levels on ammonium as well as mAb product quality. Three feeding strategies were assessed for impact on cell metabolism, productivity, and product quality: bolus-fed glucose, glucose control at 4 g/L, or simultaneous glucose control at 4 g/L and lactate control at 2 g/L. The third feeding strategy resulted in a significant reduction in ammonium levels (68%) while increasing mAb galactosylation levels by approximately 50%. This work demonstrated that when deployed in a cell culture process, Raman spectroscopy is an effective technique for simultaneous control of multiple nutrient feeds, and that lactic acid feeding can have a positive impact on both cell metabolism and mAb product quality.

Kinetic and physicochemical properties of drying‐ozonation process on wheat grain

This study dealt about the thermal and kinetic characteristics of wheat during the drying-ozonation process (DOP) needed for planning better drying methods that preserve desirable characteristics and minimize energy consumption. For this, ozone gas was applied with the drying air in different conditions, 15 and 45 min ozonation times and drying temperatures at 30, 40, and 50°C on wheat grains. During the drying, moisture ratio reduced, and the Midili model performed the best fit to experimental data. Activation energy to DOP was 30.40 kJ/mol (15 min O3) and 27.21 kJ/mol (45 min O3), being lesser that reference drying of 32.18 kJ/mol. DOP did not influence the ash, protein, lipid, and starch content of exposed wheat grains for 15 min to ozone. However, when the grains were exposed to 45 min of ozone, regardless of the drying temperature used, there was a significant reduction of the starch content. Thus, the results demonstrated an alternative to obtaining energy efficiency during the postharvest stages and preservation of grains quality. Practical applications Food ozonation is a process that ensures adequate sanitation without toxic waste accumulation. The use of ozone into the drying air is a modern method that can contribute to energy improvement and product quality maintenance in agro-industries. Knowledge of drying-ozonation process and its kinetic properties as functions of temperature, efficient diffusion of moisture and activation energy are essential for understanding the process, designing dryers and reduction of energy consumption.

S-REA (spatial reaction engineering approach): An effective approach to model drying, baking and water vapor sorption processes

An effective model of simultaneous heat and mass transfer processes is useful to assist in process design, optimization of existing processes and monitoring product quality. Previously, the lumped reaction engineering approach (L-REA) has been shown to model the global drying rate of several heat and mass transfer processes very well. Here, the REA (reaction engineering approach) framework is implemented to model the local evaporation/condensation rate in drying of non-food materials, baking and water vapor sorption. The REA is combined with a set of equations of conservation of heat and mass transfer to yield the S-REA (spatial reaction engineering approach) to model these processes. For modeling each process, the activation energy is generated from one accurate run and evaluated according to environmental temperature and humidity. The relative activation energy implemented in the L-REA is implemented in the S-REA by applying local variables. The results indicate that the S-REA is accurate to describe baking, drying and water vapor sorption process which shows the applicability of the REA to model the local evaporation/condensation rate of these processes. The S-REA is readily implemented to assist in process design, evaluation of existing processes and maintenance of product quality. In near future, by coupling with solid mechanics, the REA may be employed to predict material deformation and shape change during heat and mass transfer processes by coupling with solid mechanics. The development of the REA to describe migration of volatiles inside materials undergoing heat and mass transfer processes is also underway.

AN OVERVIEW OF PHARMACEUTICAL AND BIOLOGICAL PRODUCT QUALITY CONTROL

Quality control (QC) is a procedure or set of procedures intended to ensure that a manufactured product or performed service adheres to a defined set of quality criteria or meets the requirements of the client or customer. QC is similar to, but not identical with, quality assurance (QA). There are various quality control parameters and guidelines which ensure us to deliver a slandered and contamination free product in the market. These quality control procedure and guidelines ensure the product development in the global slandered. In past years the role of quality control is increased in pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry. The maintenance of product quality is maintained by these procedure and guideline. Here we give a analytical description about why quality control procedures are important in the field of pharmaceutical and biological product manufacturing and what are the similarity between these procedures in both industries. Key words- QC,Pharmaceutical products,Biological products

Sub‐population analysis of human cancer vaccine cells—ultra scale‐down characterization of response to shear

The allogeneic whole cell therapy field presents a novel challenge for cell line selection. Large numbers of candidates will he screened for desirable traits including cell growth rates and maintenance of critical product attributes. Screening cell lines for susceptibility to large scale processing conditions has become of increasing importance; innovators do not wish to face the quandary of clinically efficacious cell lines that show poor manufacturability. We have previously described an ultra scale-down method for assessing the impact of the hydrodynamic environment on human cells (McCoy et al., 2009). This body of work describes the validation of this experimental approach using a second, clinically tested, human prostate cancer cell line and describes an additional level of sub-population characterisation. The small-scale conditions set were similar to those expected in downstream process, formulation and vial filling operations with maximum shear rates ranging from 30 x 10(3) to 90 x 10(3) s(-1)(equivalent maximum power dissipation rates of 1.5 x 10(3) to 14 x 10(3) W kg(-1)). Changes to critical cell quality attributes such as membrane integrity retention, cell surface marker staining levels (CD9, CD59, CD147) and cell surface marker density is described. Evaluation of two sub-populations which are formed in response to shear showed distinct staining profiles. Identification of these phenotypically distinct populations, derived in response to the same hydrodynamic environment, poses an interesting bio-processing challenge with regards to both maintenance of product quality, but also highlights the potential benefit of process manipulation through shear-rate intervention with regards to product efficacy.

Irradiation of ready-to-eat foods at USDA’S Eastern Regional Reasearch Center-2003 update

Ionizing radiation is a safe and effective method for eliminating bacterial pathogens from food products and disinfestation of fruits and vegetables. Since 1980 research has been conducted at USDA's Eastern Regional Research Center pertaining to the elimination of food-borne pathogens from meat, poultry, fruit and vegetable products. Recent work has focused on elimination of pathogens such as Escherichia coli O157:H7, Salmonella spp., and Listeria monocytogenes from ready-to-eat (RTE) food products including hot dogs, bologna, lettuce, cilantro, sprouts and seeds, and frozen vegetables. The ionizing radiation dose required to eliminate those pathogens from RTE foods has been found to be commodity, formulation and temperature dependent. The need to eliminate bacterial pathogens from RTE food products must always be balanced with the maintenance of product quality. In addition to determining the effective ionizing radiation doses required for pathogen elimination the effects of irradiation on product chemistry, nutritional value and organoleptic quality have also been determined. A review of the studies conducted at USDA's Eastern Regional Research Center in 2002 and 2003 is presented in this article.

A plywood veneer lathe maintenance expert system — Development and implementation

The economic productivity of a plywood mill and the production of a high quality product relies, to a large extent, on the proper adjustment and maintenance of the veneer lathe. An expert system was designed to address lathe maintenance from the three component aspects of repair: (1) product-quality maintenance; (2) mechanical systems maintenance; and (3) electrical systems maintenance. The expert system, implemented in November 1988, provides a framework for addressing important issues in the development of any expert system: (1) knowledge acquisition; (2) expert system architecture; and (3) user acceptance of the completed system.

Supplier Services and Their Importance to Floral Retailers in the Midwestern United States

Survey analysis of retail florists in the midwestern United States and floral mass marketers, nationally, identified 18 major services provided by floral suppliers for their retail customers and quantified the retailers' perceived importance of the services. Product quality maintenance, order/delivery reliability, product availability, response to problems, and personnel courtesy were rated by retailers as the five most important services provided by floral suppliers. Retail florists viewed the importance of the 18 services with primary and secondary concerns, whereas mass marketers largely viewed the services as equally important. Mass marketers perceived services related to product marketing, packaging, labeling, and communication/order information services with greater importance than retail florists. The service profiles provide floral suppliers with market information to develop more effective service programs targeted for specific customer segments.

Maintenance of product quality during transients in stirred tank reactors

A system of one or more stirred tank reactors in series can be subjected to changes in working volume and throughput while maintaining a stationary residence time distribution. This in turn will ensure constant product quality — with arbitrary reaction kinetics — over a broad range of operating conditions. The results are directly applicable to demand changes and shutdown operations. They can be used to generate a controlled cycle in the discharge flow rate while maintaining constant product composition. If product quality depends on the exact form of the residence time distribution, there is no way to achieve uniform quality throughout a start-up. However, the total amount of substandard material can be held to an arbitrarily small limit.

A review of eccentricity, capacitance and diameter gauges for continuous observation and recording of cable quality during manufacture

The paper includes a brief description of a typical modern extrusion line used for the manufacture of cable components, together with the reasons why instrumentation is necessary. Foremost among these is the maintenance of product quality, which is discussed in terms of (a) meeting precise dimensional and electrical requirements, (b) the need for indicating to the operator any trends away from desired values, and (c) the saving of materials. A distinction is made between the processes of core insulation and cable sheathing and the respective instrument accuracy and stability limits required.In addition, the arrangements of a number of systems which are commonly employed to monitor the various parameters are described and their advantages and disadvantages discussed. The reasons for the choice of the types adopted in particular applications are also given.Also considered are the use of instruments described as elements of automatic control systems for extrusion lines and the difficulties encountered.