Summer Training Report: Mechanical And Electrical Engineering

History

Everything began when Alfons and Karl Knauf, two engineer brothers,took the mining right of gypsum mines at Schengen in 1932. A year after they opened their first factory in Perl (Moselle), Germany. In 1949, with the foundation of Federal Republic of Germany, thefactory in Perl got moved to Iphofen in northern Bavaria. Iphofen wasnot just a modern gypsum plaster factory but a new headquarters ofthe Knauf Group.

With the right business acumen they grew as a family company andas a innovative partnership in the building materials industry. For in-stance, Knauf Groups innovated fully new gypsum boards and there-fore brought in new construction methods in 1958. Just a few yearslater the company developed a “drylining system” first time ever whichhelped them broadening their range of products and production pro-cess.

In mid 1960’s, Knauf produced a world’s first machine-applied plasterthat is named MP75. This was first ever in the industry and was aninnovative progress.

In 1970, Knauf made its first investment in a building material thatwas not made from gypsum: Perlite. Knauf’s involvement in DeutschePerlite GmbH (in Dortmund) underlined the systematic ambitions ofits business in the long run. Knauf continued to expand its productportfolio in the following years as well. New products included con-struction chemicals products, lime- and cement-bonded plasters, insu-lation materials, mineral ceiling systems, and the Aquapanel cementboard. Knauf also made moulded parts from expanded polystyrene(EPS) for packaging and injection moulded components for the auto-motive and consumer electronics industry.

Departments of the Company

This factory employs 135 personnel, and is active 24 hours with 3 shiftsa day, 30 days a month (360 days a year).

Engineering and Research-Development Department

It is a department which takes innovative activities in order to develop newproducts or improve already existing products. In this company because theproducts are mostly chemical engineering related, the engineers who worksin Engineering and Research-Development Department are mostly chemicalengineers. Their main objectives are changing the recipe of the existingproducts to reach to a:

• faster drying,
• more homogenous distribution,
• better sound insulation,
• better fire protection,
• better water resistance etc.

Production Department

This department is responsible for the functional area of the factory. Pro-duction Manager’s job is to making sure that raw materials are provided andthen turned into finished products in an effective manner. This departmentis to supervise procedures of production for more efficiency.

Planning Department

This department is responsible for setting targets and standards for everysection in the production line and achieving these goals in a continuousmanner.

Maintenance Department

Directed by a mechanical engineer, maintenance department is responsiblefor well-working of every part of production line in mechanical and electricalmeans. Due to targets and standardizations set by Planning Department,the factory has at most 30 hours of pause on the production line in a year. This department’s job is to fix any electrical or mechanical related problemsvery effectively and quickly so that the production line will continue as thePlanning Department planned.

Quality Control Department

This department investigates the quality of the product and sections ofthe production line with a set of procedures to ensure that the finished goodadheres to a standard. There were specially built compact laboratories inthe factory to follow quality control at the every step of the manufacturingprocess.

Human Resources Department

This department is responsible for the, in general sense, workers. Theyrecruit, screen, interview and place workers. They also handle payroll, train-ing, and employee relations.

Purchasing Department

This department is responsible for supplying the raw material, equipmentand components at the needed time, that is needed for the factory to operate.

Sales and Marketing Department

This department’s main objective is to make continuous, profitable sales. This is done by getting feedback about the product from customers to im-prove the utility of the product and advertising about the product.

Finance Department

This department manages money to run the factory. Their main objectiveis to control factory’s finances.

IT Department

This department oversees the maintenance of the network and computerrelated issues in the factory. Its main objective is to ensure that networkruns smoothly.

Safety Rules and Standards Related to Company Activ-ity Fields

Due to the processes and methods taken in place in factory for manu-facturing the product there is the possibility to danger the workers and themachines that are used. In order to carry on without any accidents there arecertain safety rules and standards that are pre-decided for factory to main-tain producing safely. All workers are obliged to wear protective equipmentduring all times in the factory such as goggles, helmet, earplugs, propershoes and a radio to communicate with other personnel about any possibleproblem that might come up during manufacturing processes. Although it is important to carry these equipments for protection it isalso important to how to use them and learn what to do when an emergencyarise. In order to overcome these problems every personnel of the factory,before starting to work on the factory floor, takes a Safety Training. Thesetrainings, depending on what the personnel will be responsible on the factoryfloor, might about forklift driving to disposal of hazardous materials whichmight be waste material that came from the manufacturing processes. Even all the precautions that are took before going on to factory floormight not be enough. In case of a situation such as this, there are stateof emergency groups in the working personnel to intervene to the situationthat is happening.

For instance for the state of emergency group that is for in case of fire, ac-cording to the factory manifest, is responsible for both before the emergencyand during emergency. Before emergency, the responsibilities are;

• Knowing every team member and meeting up once in a month.
• Knowing in which areas in factory are prone to a fire risk and how toresponse to a possible fire in those areas. During emergency the team responsibilities are;
• Doing research on the factory floor to determine the area and theseverity of the situation.
• If and when the fire is determined, evacuating the area without anypanic and start to extinguish the fire.
• A member should go to the nearest intersection of the road that isclose to the factory so that the fire department authorities can easilybe directed to the emergency area.
• After the fire department is present the team is responsible for helpingthe fire department officials in any way possible.
• Restraining unnecessary people to enter the fire area.
• After the emergency averted, a count should be made to determineeveryone in the team is safe and sound. As in every factory there is also an infirmary that is present in this factory. During any possible injury of a personnel the responsibility of the infirmaryis to:
• Check-in for any injuries and determining whether the treatment neededcan be done in the infirmary or the injured personnel need to go to ahospital.
• Calling 112 and performing first aid to the injured personnel. Lastly, it is always important to read the signs that are scattered aroundthe factory for the personnel to see and obey what is written. It is reallydangerous to walk around on the factory floor without accomplishing towear the safety equipment and not to know what to do during emergenciesand safety regulations of the factory that is for precaution to any possibleaccident.

Quality Policy and Standards Related to Company Prod-ucts

Knauf Group Ahiboz Factory is awarded with ISO 9001-2015 quality cer-tificate by TSE. Quality policy is to take specimens from the beginning ofthe process (raw material) to the end of the manufacturing process duringcertain points and analyzing these specimens.

For instance, during the packaging section taking specimens from theproduct and deciding whether to continue on packaging or to segregation ofthe product from the production line is a part of the quality control policythat the factory has. For dust plaster that is produced in the factory there are factors such aswater/plaster ratio, sieve analyses, hardening time and thermal conductivitythat are vital to quality standards that has been set. In order to correct mistakes and follow up with the customer complaintsand suggestions, every package has production date, hour and place on theircover so that in any need the necessary experiments can be done on pre-stored specimens of the related product.

Manufacturing Processes

Raw Material

This factory’s main raw material is gypsum which is calcium sulfate di-hydrate (CaSO4. 2H2O) and it exist in nature. It has two water moleculesin its structure and with grinding and heating processes plaster which iscalcium sulfate hemihydrate (CaSO4. 12H2O) is produced.

Resizing of Gypsum

Gypsum comes to the factory with the material dimensions on averagebeing 0-10cm. After discharging gypsum to the raw material feed bunkerand then gypsum gets carried to the material sizing unit, the size of gypsumdrops down to 0-2. 5cm. Size decreasing process is done with hammer millrather than in a crusher. The main working principle of the hammer mill isthat the turning hammers smashes gypsum to the foundation of the innerreservoir in order to decrease the size of the gypsum lumps. The lumps that11are bigger than 2. 5 cm are taken back to resizing process. The smaller lumpsthat taken from the sieve are taken to the silo and after that baking furnace.

Gypsum in Furnace

The furnace consist of two turning platforms. During in the furnace gyp-sum will be kept at around 160◦C for 45-50 min. During baking, gypsumwill lose its water by 75% and turn into base plaster (calcium sulfate hemi-hydrate). For every mole of gypsum, 32 mole water is released to the envi-ronment.

The base plaster that is going to be calcinated to make plasterboardswill be taken to the mixer at needed amount. Simultaneously, admixturesaccording to the recipe of the plasterboards that is being made are addedto the system. The loose compost that is mixed with water in mixer is thensprayed on the cardboard that moves on the transferring band (The side ofthe cardboard that the compost is sprayed on is light colored and operable). With the cardboard that is positioned from the top, the material on thetransferring band enters to formation press where it is shaped with chamferor without chamfer. While continuing its path on the transferring band theplaster will begin to harden. After writing important tracking informationon the material such as its type, and date of manufacture, it will be resizedunder desired measures in the cutting unit. To avoid the operable side to14get damaged, the material will be turned 180◦and on the transferring bandsit will be taken to the furnace. After the calcination reaction happens on the transferring band the leftwater with the material causes cardboard to hold onto the compost of plasterand admixtures tighter. Water then leaves the material in the furnace asvapor. The plasterboards that are taken out of the furnace will then bereshaped for their last size and piled according to their type in the productdepot. In the plasterboard making facility, low quality or mismanufactured boards,being dry or wet, are taken to segregation unit. These boards will be takento main shredder to segregated into 5-15 cm cardboard and granul plasters. Cardboards are taken to a Paper Recycling Facto

Device and Equipments Used in Production

Material Sizing Unit

In this unit, there is a system of parts where the downsizing of raw materi-als is done. Resized materials are stored in silos for later use in production. The working principle of hammer mill in the material sizing unit is thathammers, with carrying a constant angular momentum, crashes the rawmaterial to the inner foundation of the reservoir to downsize.

Mixing Unit

There are two mixing units in the factory, one in powdered plaster pro-duction line and the other is on plasterboard production line. Both of theseunits is automated by computers in the sense of controlled dosages of mate-rials that are included in the mixing unit according to the prescription andcontrolled volume of the mixing reservoir.

Material Transferring Unit

• Transferring Tubes
• Pneumatic Tubes: As whole of the factory, calcite transporting system from silos to mix-ing units also is designed with responding to pneumatic effect.
• Transferring Band: Mostly used for transferring plasterboards through the production line,carries 47000 m2 of plasterboard a day.

Furnace

• Gypsum, Plaster and Plasterboard Furnace: While the material is fed to the furnace, it is baked with the hot air thatis supplied by the burner. The baking temperature is automatically19set to be 150◦C by the burner. The air that is sucked out from insideof the furnace is filtered and material that gets catched by the filter isthen sent to the start of production for repurposing. The filtered airis then used in the burner as combustion air, which saves energy atthe rate of 40%.
• Perlite Expansion Furnace
• Calcite Drying Furnace

Packaging and Palletizing Unit

Packaging It is done with computer aid. Ready packages that are broughtto the factory with different sizes are fed to the unit, while newly producedproduct is filled inside them. Palletizing Also done with 100% automacy with computer aided system. Packages that are stacked on top of other are brought on a pallet and thenwrapped to ready for further sales.

Dust Collection Unit

In all the closed system there is an attached dust collection unit. Collecteddust of the material is then fed to the start of the production line to savemoney. There is no emission of dust within the premises of the factory.

Quality Control Equipment

Because the manufactured products are chemically made, most of thequality control equipment is laboratory tools. During random specimenchecks, chemical engineers look for the water-plaster ratio, time passes forplaster or plasterboard to harden, sieve analyses and thermal conductivity ofthe material. Products such as Knauf Vermiplaster, go through specializedquality control tests such as fire resistance test. If the tests fail, low qualityor mismanufactured product is then send to segregation for later re-use inthe manufacturing process.

Results and Conclusion

In conclusion to this paper and the internship that is done, I had thechance to examine engineering phenomenons in close within each other andin harmony with each other. Where Mechanical Engineering ends, ElectricalEngineering starts. That is why one should be aware of his or her environ-ment fully with knowledge of every engineering discipline simultaneously forreaching the needed understanding of the subject. In the internship, I neededto use my knowledge of thermodynamics and heat transfer to understand themanufacturing process. Also what I learned about System Engineering onME102 was helpful to understand how planning for the optimization of theprocess is done by the Engineering and Research-Development Department. There are also two more facts that I learned during this internship that isnot written on books.

The first one is the importance of teamwork. Duringmy time in the factory I saw that does not matter the severity of the situationthat needs to be dealt with there are at least more than two people on it sothat the process towards solving the problem will be easy and without anyaccident. This showed me that learning to work as a team is important inmeans of my future career. The second fact that I learned was that safety rules and regulations arevital on the factory floor. I myself have suffered from the consequences ofnot following up on safety rules and regulations and injured myself. To avoidany possible injuries or accident it is important to follow the rules of safetyand always warn other people who are in denial with the rules.