The Material Loss and Failure Process in Sugar Production in Indonesia: A Case

Abstract

The sugar produced in Indonesia is mainly from sugarcane. In its production, one of the problem is due to losses during the process. As found in this study, a material loss of sugar occured mainly in the milling plant. Based on data taken from a sugar plant in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, on May–June 2012, the left residue (bagasse) was 32 % of total input. The main cause was identified stem from the old machines and facilities that are used to experience a failure, and the lack of concern to the maintenance activity. As a solution, the company addressed a plan for maintenance that was divided into major and minor maintenance. Here, in this study, it propose a measurement on material loss, and see it correlation to the mean time between failure (MTBF) measurement. Since the milling plant is a continuous process, it is necessary to define a utilization capacity. This measure employees the availability schedule of the milling plant for every period (month) reduced by maintenance time that should be done in the middle of the process due to the encountered failure as estimated by MTBF. A correlation test was done to see whether there is a correlation between material loss and a verified utilization time. The result shows that there is a significant correlation, and discuss a need to put such problem in a platform of reliability management.