Production and Total Quality Management
Production and Total Quality Management
Production and Total Quality Management
Cane sugar processing consists of the following steps: sugar cane is crushed, the juice is
heated and filtered, then sent to a series of crystallisation steps to create crystals of raw
sugar, followed by centrifugation to remove any remaining juice or syrup. Cane sugar is
defined as “sugar obtained from sugar cane.” Sugar cane (or sugarcane, which has the
genus name Saccharum) refers to several species and hybrids of tall perennial grasses in
the Andropogoneae plant family.Other plants in the same family include corn/maize,
wheat, rice, sorghum and many forage crops
Here are some more interesting facts about cane sugar:
Sugarcane is the world’s largest crop by production quantity.
-Today it is cultivated on an estimated 64 million acres in 90 countries. Brazil is where 40
percent of the world’s total cane sugar is produced.
-Table sugar is extracted from sugarcane in specialized mill factories. Not only can it be
used as a sweetener, but it’s also fermented to produce ethanol (alcohol). Other products
derived from sugarcane include molasses, rum, cachaça and bagasse.
-Sugar cane has been consumed or thousands of years in places, such a Polynesia, Island
Melanesia, Madagascar, southern China and India.
Starting in the 18th century, sugarcane plantations began to be established in the
Caribbean, South American, Indian Ocean and Pacific island nations.Simple sugars, also
called monosaccharides, include glucose, fructose, and galactose. Compound sugars, also
called disaccharides or double sugars, are molecules composed of two monosaccharides
joined by a glycosidic bond. Common examples are sucrose (table sugar) (glucose +
fructose), lactose (glucose + galactose), and maltose (two molecules of glucose). In the
body, compound sugars are hydrolysed into simple sugars.
Longer chains of monosaccharides are not regarded as sugars, and are called
oligosaccharides or polysaccharides. Some other chemical substances, such as glycerol
and sugar alcohols, may have a sweet taste, but are not classified as sugar.
Steps Involved in Manufacturing Cane-Sugar
1. Extraction of the Juice:
The canes are thoroughly cleaned and cut into small pieces. These cane pieces are
dropped over a continuous belt of steel plates called the cane-carrier, moving over roller
chains. From the cane-carrier, these are conveyed to a crusher fitted with a set of
revolving knives, and cut into very small pieces.
These small pieces in the form of a compact blanket are made to pass through two roller
crushers and four sets of mills. After major quantity of the juice has been extracted by the
crushers and the first two mills, cold or hot water is sprinkled over the bagasse whereby
residual juice gets diluted and can be easily extracted by further milling.
2. Clarification of Juice:
The raw juice is dark opaque liquid containing about 15% sucrose and small quantities of
glucose, fructose, vegetable proteins, mineral salts, organic acids, colouring matter, gums
and fine particles of bagasse suspended in it.
Allowed to remain untreated tor some time, it begins to ferment and the sucrose present
changes to mixture of glucose and fructose. In order to avoid this, the juice is not allowed
to stand untreated for a long time.
There are two main processes for clarification of juice:
(i) Sulphitation:
Adding milk of lime and treating with sulphur dioxide.
(ii) Carbonation:
Adding milk of lime and treating with carbon dioxide.
Both processes have advantages of their own. In fact combination of both is made use of
to get better results.
(a) Defecation:
The juice is strained to remove suspended matter and treated with 2-3% lime till pH value
reaches 7.2 in tanks heated with steam coils.
Heating of the juice helps the coagulation of albuminoids by lime. The vegetable proteins
are thus coagulated and the organic acids neutralized. These form a scum on the surface
of the juice when the hot juice is transferred to settling tanks called subsiders.
(b) Carbonation or Sulphitation:
A current of carbon dioxide is passed through the defecated juice, which contains
unreacted lime and calcium sucrosate (carbonation). This removes the excess of lime as
calcium carbonate and decomposes calcium sucrosate. Very often defecated juice is
treated with sulphur dioxide (sulphitation) instead of carbon dioxide which serves the
same purpose and bleaches the juice in addition, and produces a juice with much lighter
colour. It prevents formation of brown mass by oxidation, and brings about coagulation
of gums and albuminoids more effectively.
3. Concentration and Crystallization:
The clear juice is concentrated in a multiple effect evaporator. Juice in the first pan is
heated by exhaust steam from the engines of the factory. The concentrated juice from the
first pan is taken to the second pan and heated there at a lower pressure, by steam from
the first evaporator.
The concentrated solution from the second pan is taken to the third pan and heated there
at a still lower pressure by exhaust steam from the second evaporator. To this
concentrated juice sulphur dioxide is again applied. All through this process a strict
control is maintained over the acidity of the solution otherwise there will be losses due to
inversion, destruction or even discolouration may be there.
4. Separation of Crystals:
The crystals along-with the mother liquor (molasses) are whirled in centrifugal machines
wherein the molasses is removed. A little molasses adhering to the crystals is removed by
spraying cold water and whirling in the centrifuge again. The crystals are given a little
blue colour and dried by dropping through a long pipe through which hot air is passing
up and bagged.
5. Refining of Sugar:
Sugar in India is generally put in the market as obtained in the above process. In U.S.A.
and other foreign countries it is further refined by dissolving the crystals in hot water and
decolourising the solution with animal charcoal or coconut charcoal. It is followed by
filtration, concentration under reduced pressure and crystallization as usual.
6. Recovery of Sugar Molasses:
The molasses still contains sufficient amount of sugar. It is boiled over again to get a fresh
crop of crystals. To recover sugar from the final molasses, the latter is treated chemically.
It is diluted and treated with hot concentrated solution of strontium hydroxide. Sucrose
present forms a precipitate of strontium sucrosate.
This is separated, suspended in water and treated with carbon dioxide when strontium
carbonate separates as a white precipitate and sucrose present in the solution is
decolourised, concentrated and crystallized as above.
In India sugar is not extracted chemically from molasses although still about 30 to 35%
sugar is there. It is now being sent to distilleries where it is fermented and used in the
manufacture of alcohol.
Sugar production began around 500BC in India. Though there may have been earlier
production and certainly earlier cultivation (cultivation of sugarcane has been dated to
about 8000 BC), the first methods of sugar production to be recorded came from India in
the accounts of Alexander the Great.
Production on the Pre-Industrial Plantations
In the European colonies, sugar became a central enterprise with production located on
the plantations themselves. On these plantations the sugar was produced by a long,
arduous process in mills located on the very plantations that grew the sugar cane.
PLANT LOCATION
The sugarcane factories are located close to the sugarcane growing areas as the juice
starts drying up if not extracted within a day. Sugar industry is broadly distributed over
two major areas of production- Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Haryana and Punjab in the north
and Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh in the south. sugar
industry are based on sugarcane as the raw materials, which are very heavy it should be
processed without delay to prevent losing
of sugar content.therefore industries are located very close to it's producing areas.
6. Syrup clarification (remove suspended solids from the syrup, typically colloid size
of mud, waxes, fibres, etc.)
7. Crystallisation
8. Centrifugation (Separation of the sugar crystals from the mother liquor, done by
centrifugal machines)
9. Sugar drying
Raw Materials
Sugar is a broad term applied to a large number of carbohydrates present in many plants
and characterized by a more or less sweet taste. The sugarcane is a thick, tall, perennial
grass that flourishes in tropical or subtropical regions. Sugar synthesized in the leaves is
used as a source of energy for growth or is sent to the stalks for storage. It is the sweet sap
in the stalks that is the source of sugar as we know it. The reed accumulates sugar to
about 15 percent of its weight. Sugarcane yields about 2,600,000 tons of sugar per year.
PURCHASE PROCESS
1. Sugar cane stalks are harvested from fields in locations such as Florida, Louisiana and
Texas and then sent to a nearby sugar mill.
2. At the sugar mill, the sugar cane stalks are washed and cut into shreds. Huge rollers
press sugar cane juice out of the shredded stalks.
3. The juice is then clarified, concentrated and crystalized.
4. The crystals are spun in a centrifuge to remove the liquid and produce golden raw
sugar.
• Sweet fact: Raw sugar is 96–98% sucrose.
5. Raw sugar is transported to a cane sugar refinery, where it will be further purified.
6. The raw sugar is melted and filtered to remove remaining impurities (primarily
molasses).
7. The sugar is crystallized.
8. Crystals are dried.
9. Sugar is packaged and shipped to grocery stores and food manufacturers.
MANAGING MATERIAL
The material management is one of the greatest tools used in many organizations to
improve the efficiency of the production process at the same time make profitability by
minimizing the cost. In sugar industries it plays a vital role in the progress of economic
growth of industry. Material management is the process of planning, executing and
controlling the flow of material and goods and the main aim of material management is
to provide materials at right quality at the same time right quantity and available at right
price and deliver at right time in order to improve the process of production activity
WAREHOUSE
As sugarcane is produced in India so no need of exporting it.We need to build up
warehouse so that the sugarcane brought from the farmers can be stored in a place.
The raw sugar is stored in large warehouses and then
transported into the sugar refinery by means of transport belts. In the traditional refining
process, the raw sugar is first mixed with heavy syrup and centrifuged to wash away the
outer coating of the raw sugar crystals, which is less pure than the crystal interior. Many
sugar refineries today buy high pol sugar and can do without the affination process.