Title: Predicting uncertain behaviour of pulping system in a paper industry

Authors: S.P. Sharma, Dinesh Kumar, Ajay Kumar

Addresses: Department of Mathematics, IIT Roorkee, Roorkee-247667, India. ' Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, IIT Roorkee, Roorkee-247667, India. ' Atal Bihari Vajpayee Indian Institute of Information Technology and Management, Gwalior, Morena Link Road, Gwalior-474010, MP, India

Abstract: To achieve the goal of high production and hence more profit in an organisation, each system/subsystem must remain operative for long duration. The industrial systems are complex in nature, configuration and capital oriented and so it is very difficult to analyse their failure pattern. The available information about these equipments is imprecise, incomplete, vague and conflicting. Therefore, management decisions are based on experience. The objective of this paper is to quantify the uncertainties which make the decision more realistic and generic for the considered industrial system. The study is conducted in a medium sized paper industry, comprised of subsystems namely – chipping, feeding, pulping, washing, screening, bleaching, paper production system, etc., arranged in a series configuration. Pulping system, the main functionary part of the paper industry, is the subject of present discussion. An interaction among the operative equipments has been developed using Petri net model and the steady state behaviour of the equipment has been analysed. The results will be helpful for reallocating the resources and for achieving the targeted goal of higher profit.

Keywords: information availability; Markov process; Petri nets; PNs; industrial systems; uncertainty; pulping systems; paper industry; modelling; steady state.

DOI: 10.1504/IJESMS.2010.035114

International Journal of Engineering Systems Modelling and Simulation, 2010 Vol.2 No.3, pp.183 - 189

Published online: 04 Sep 2010 *

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