Building a Graphical User Interface for Concrete Production Processes: A Combined Application of Statistical Process Control and Design of Experiment

Abstract

Quality improvement and control in the manufacturing industry is a necessity for responding timely to increase customer needs and sustainability expectations. In order to decrease the variance in design and production functions, graphical user interface was built in this study implementing a combined methodology based on multi-response design of experiment and statistical process control. Graphical user interface based on MATLAB (R) toolbox allows analyzing the sufficiency of measurement system, calculating the capability of concrete production process, optimizing the manufacturing process via TOPSIS-based Taguchi design methodology and comparing the improvement rate of the process capability indices based on current and optimum conditions. After the Gauge R&R analysis, the current system process capability was considered for the C30/37 class (C30) normal weight concrete through process capability indices. In optimal system, process capability ratios, which are the degrees of compliance with the specifications of C30, were determined on the basis of TOPSIS-based Taguchi optimization. Eventually, the actual capability improvement provided through the proposed methodology was considered quite significant.