EXPERT SYSTEM APPLICATION IN QUALITY CONTROL AND MONITORING

ABSTRACT

An expert system is a software system that attempts to reproduce the performance of one or more human experts, most commonly in a specific problem domain, and is a traditional application and subfield of artificial intelligence. The aim of the study is to develop and implement an Expert System Application in Quality Control and Monitoring using PZ Company, Aba as a case study. In achieving this aim, the following specific objectives were laid out as follows to design and develop an application software that will create easy communication channels for all the managers as the quality control reports are made to reach them on time and provide quality control personnel with vital tools for fast decision making.

The motivation that led to the implementation of the proposed system is as a result of the delay in report dispatch to different production sections and inconsistent decision making as a result of human deficiency. Also, there is difficulty in accessing results and reports from log books and files. The methodology adopted in this study is the structured system analysis and design methodology (SSADM) which is a technical approach for analyzing and designing an application or system by applying object throughout the software development process. The programming language used is HTML, CSS, JAVASCRIPT, PHP, SQL and JQUERY. The reason why web programming languages was used is because, it is platform independent and it is a web based application.

The significance of the proposed system indicated that the application of expert system in quality control and monitoring will immensely boost production. Also, the real-time explanation and interrogation of the system may not be required. The expected result is an Expert System Application in Quality Control and Monitoring that will trace error in overall production stages and enhanced the mode and methods of quality control and monitoring in soap production firm.

CHAPTER ONE

1.1 Introduction

An expert system is a software system that attempts to reproduce the performance of one or more human experts, most commonly in a specific problem domain, and is a traditional application and/or subfield of artificial intelligence. Expert system play an indomitable role in various disciplines and the assistance it renders to man cannot be overemphasized. The development of experts system that capture skills and expertise of a human expert has not been easy and date back to the Second World War, where experts of computer tried relentlessly to develop technique or systems that would allow act more intelligently than human. A computer is digital electronic machine capable of accepting input data, processing and producing an output. The computer is an important tool that plays a good role in the analysis of any subject that is to be programmed. A quality control and monitoring system in production management is a qualitative technique with strong financial implications having direct relationships with production, marketing and purchasing.

As a prelude to other parts of this study, this chapter will discuss the background upon which this study was initiated, the statement of problems that led to this study, the Aim and Objectives of the study. Others are Significance of the study, Scope of work, Limitation of the study and Definition of technical terms.

1.2 Background of Study

Since the advent of computer, effort has been to fashion the tool that could able to solve most of the intriguing problems that comfort man. In the early days, researchers in the field of Artificial intelligence (AI) were using mere illustrations that shown ideas. As time passed by different experimental systems were developed many of which hypothesized answers to truly handle problems that defy superficial speculations.

Presently, systems exist which can handle most of the problems considered impossible by early researchers. Such intriguing task as playing chess with computer can now be programmed with relative ease. Other expert systems have also been developed in areas such as medicine, finance and education. However, one problem area yet to be properly addressed and for which this project is concerned is in manufacturing as regards to quality control and monitoring. Thus, the application of expert system in quality control and monitoring in a manufacturing industry is the focus of this research work.

Technology has had a tremendous impact on the society from the changes instituted during the industrial revolution to today's information age, new technology has been adopted to solve a problem or speed a process. In business, technology includes the skills, procedures, equipment and systems used to perform the work. As manufacturing companies strive to improve, they seek the most appropriate technology to accomplish the work.

Thus the increasing persuasive domination of computer system which is gradually phasing off the manual process will unequivocally bring the world and its problems to the grass-root solution. Recently there have been advance technology like the expert system and it is interesting to know that the expert system can be used to solve problems in every field and discipline, and can assist in all stages of the problem-solving process.

Hence, the expert system in quality control and monitoring has made it possible to effectively combine the software and hardware in quality control department to measure the quality of products. The quality control and monitoring knowledge base and the software requires quality controllers to input the results from various tests carried out .the data is analyzed to identify opportunities for improvements. This advancement in technology has helped quality controllers and manufactures to locate problems in manufacturing stages, increase the quality of the products and dominate problems in the productions process. The pay off of this system can be a reduction in cost a boost in production and sales.

1.3 Statement of Problem

Investigation revealed the loopholes in quality control and monitoring of raw materials, unfinished products are quite obvious. Hence, the problems often encountered in this system include:

Delay in report dispatch to different production sections
The hampering of production efficiency in the absence of quality control manger and supervisor.
Inconsistent and delayed decision making as a result of human deficiency.
Difficulty in accessing results and reports from log books and files.
High cost and unreliability in paper work.

More so, if there is a very high demand for quality products, is it imperative for an efficient and effective system of quality control and monitoring to be incorporated? This impact in production can be consolidated through this expert system.

1.4 Aim and Objectives of the Study

The aim of the study is to develop and implement an Expert System Application in Quality Control and Monitoring using PZ Company, Aba as a case study. In achieving this aim, the following specific objectives were laid out as follows to design and develop an application software that will:

Create easy communication channels for all the managers as the quality control reports are made to reach them on time;
Provide quality control personnel with vital tools for fast decision making;
Reduce stock redundancy or inherent in the manual system of quality control and monitoring system in production;
Trace error in overall production stages and reduce paper work; and
Duplicate the knowledge of a domain (quality control manger) in order to ascertain efficiency and effectiveness of the system production.

1.5 Significance of Study

The significance of this research will assure a hitch free and successful completion of this research, very important significance has been made:

The application of expert system in quality control and monitoring will immensely boost production.
Real-time explanation and interrogation of the system may not be required.
The system development process is in chronological sequence.
The feasibility study has been completed and final assignment being issued meaning that the system has been certified worthy and cost effective.

This study will be of immense benefit to other researchers who intend to know more on this study and can also be used by non-researchers to build more on their research work. This study contributes to knowledge and could serve as a guide for other study.

1.6 Scope of Study

The scope of this research is focused on the Design and Implementation of an Expert System Application in Quality Control and Monitoring using PZ Company, Aba as a case study.

This research is concerned with a soap manufacturing firm, it would be applied to other manufacturing companies but the scope is on detergent as it covers the following:

Quality specification
Problems in production process
Decision — making and possible solutions.

1.7 Limitations of the Study

During the course of this study, many things militated against its completion, some of which are:

Time Constraint: The time frame given to accomplish this project was very short due to school academic calendar and it was carried out under pressure which made the researcher not to implement some necessary features.
Establishment Policies: Establishment policies posed a serious limitation as most staffs are not ready to release information needed for this project work. There were lots of information needed from the staffs of this institution to enhance the study which took them time to release or they did not release at all for security purposes, hence the scope was reduced.
Research material: availability of research material is a major setback to the scope of the study.
Frequent power failure: This made the researcher append more money on fuel to ensure sustainable power.
Financial Constraint: Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials, literature or information and in the process of data collection (internet).

1.8 Definition of Terms

It is ideal to identify and define some terms, which may look awkward and confusing to the reader for easy understand of the work.

Expert System: This consists of hardware and software that stores knowledge and make inferences, similar to a human expert.

Domain Expert: The individual or group who has the expertise or knowledge one is trying to capture in the expert system.

Knowledge Base: The component of an expert system that store all relevant information, data, rules cases and relationship used by the expert system.

Inference Engine: This is a component of expert system that seeks information and relationships from the knowledge base on and provides answers and suggestions.

User Interfaces: The user interface is the surface portion of a program with which a user interacts. It displays system through which a program “talks” to its and also receives the users' response.

…

CHAPTER TWO

2.0 Literature Review

2.1 Introduction

The review of relevant literature is the main topic of this chapter. A literature review covers theoretical and methodological contributions to a certain issue in addition to the state of knowledge at the time of writing. It provides information about the state of the art in relation to the subject you are writing about. It examines the body of work on the chosen subject. The literature evaluation in this study comprises the …

Procedure for Downloading the PDF (Docx) Material

Expert System Application in Quality Control and Monitoring (A Case Study of PZ Company, Aba) can be downloaded by requesting the full set of materials at the project or seminar cost. The document will be sent via Microsoft Word (MS-Word) format via WhatsApp (e-mail) following payment confirmation.

Seminar Material Cost
₦3,000

Project Material Cost
₦5,000

Request Complete Material

Click here to request the Complete Material via WhatsApp including;

Preliminary Pages,
Chapter 1-5,
References and Appendix.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
PRELIMINARY PAGES

Title page
Approval page
Dedication
Acknowledgement
Table of Contents
Abstract
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Introduction
1.2 Background of Study
1.3 Statement of Problem
1.4 Aim and Objectives of the Study
1.5 Significance of Study
1.6 Scope of Study
1.7 Limitations of the Study
1.8 Definition of Terms
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Conceptual Review
2.3 Database Management Information Systems
2.3.1 History of Database Management Systems
2.4 The Need for a Database Management System
2.5 Quality Control System Database Management Administration
2.5.1 Roles of a Database Administrator
2.6 Web based Database Management System
2.7 Database Query System for Quality Control
2.8 Quality Control System Web Portal
2.8.1 Types of Quality Control System Web Portals
2.9 Database for Quality Control System Web Portals
2.9.1 Merits of Integrating Databases in Web Applications
2.10 Quality Control Tools
2.11 Impact of Implementation of Statistical Quality Control Practices
2.12 Review of Related Literature
CHAPTER THREE
SYSTEM ANALYSIS AND DESIGN
3.1 Methodology Adopted
3.1.1 Problem Identification Using SSADM
3.2 Analysis of the Existing System
3.2.1 Dataflow of the Existing System
3.3.2 Disadvantages of the Existing System
3.2.3 Weakness of the existing System
3.3 Analysis of the Proposed System
3.3.1 Data Flow Diagram of the Proposed System
3.3.2 Advantages of the Proposed System
3.3.3 Justification of the Proposed System
3.4 Functional Requirements
3.4.1 Use Case Diagram of the Admin / User Privileges
3.5 Data Requirements
3.6 High Level Model of the Proposed System
CHAPTER FOUR
SYSTEM DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION
4.1 Objectives of the Design
4.2 Cohesion and Decomposition High level Model
4.3 Control Center / Overall Dataflow Diagram
4.3.1 Proposed System Operation Flowchart
4.4 System Specification and Design
4.4.1 Input and Output Specification
4.4.2 Database Specification and Design
4.4.3 Data Dictionary
4.5 Choice and Justification of Programming Language
4.6 Program Documentation
4.7 Implementation Techniques
4.8 Programming Module Specification
4.8.1 Installation
4.8.2 Security Design Specification
4.8.3 System Architecture
4.9 Computer Hardware Minimum Requirement
4.10 Software Requirement
4.11 Personnel / User Training
4.12 File Maintenance Module
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
5.1 Introduction
5.2 Summary
5.3 Conclusion
5.4 Recommendation
REFERENCES
APPENDIX A - “SOURCE CODE”
APPENDIX B - “OBJECT PROGRAM”

Disclaimer for Complete Material Utilization
The displayed research work titled "Expert System Application in Quality Control and Monitoring" is stated as a research guideline towards accomplishing your assigned project / seminar research work. All the research materials on this website are ONLY for research purposes and should be used as a guideline in developing your research work. For no reason should you copy word for word as projectlist.com.ng will not be liable for any who copied the material. By ordering the complete research guideline, it signifies that you've accepted our terms of service.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Can the material for “The Effect of Social Service Administration on Rural Women in Nigeria” be used as a guide for Public Administration (PA) Project?

Yes it can be used — Government of nowadays has a lot of responsibilities including to provision of social services. The services which the government ought to provide to Udi rural women include: Water, free health facilities, employment, empowerment, justice, free education, to mention but a few. The provision of these is not adequate and this compelled the researcher to carryout the study. Both primary and secondary sources of data were used to gather data. The questionnaire was used to collect data. The Harvard style of reference was used, the validity and reliability of the instruments were tested. In distributing the questionnaire face-to-face method of distribution was used. The population size was 74,277 staff. The sample size was 204. This was got using Yamani formular. Tabular …

Can the material for “Perception of Student on Sexual Harassment in Higher Institution” be used as a guide for Home Economics Project?

Yes it can be used — Sexual harassment of students in school, mostly the females had negatively affected a woman's psychological and physical well-being. The purpose of this study is to determine the perception of students about sexual harassment in higher institution in Enugu State College of Education (Technical) Enugu. The purpose of this study also investigate on the problem of pornographic movies and how to eradicate them, organizing seminars and workshops, orienting and educating the students more on sexual education. One hundred research questionnaire were distributed to the respondents or students in the school hostels. Three research questions each one focusing on the three main problems of the study showed that indecent dressing of mostly female students, greediness, illiteracy, intimidation, environment and peer groups constitute the …

Is the topic “Effect of Customer Relationship Management on Consumer Goods” recommended for Human Resource Management (HRM) Project?

Yes it is highly recommended — Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is an approach to managing a company's engagement with current and potential customers through creating a trustworthy partnership. The study was carried out to investigate the Effect of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) on Consumer Goods. In achieving this aim, the following specific objectives were laid out to determine the effect of customer support services on customer satisfaction and investigate the effect of customer involvement and participation on customer satisfaction. The research design used in this report is descriptive design, utilizing questionnaire method to obtain information from the respondents for this project. A total of 200 (two hundred) respondents were selected for this study to represent the entire population of the study. For null hypotheses were formulated …

Can the material for “Intelligent Tutoring System” be used as a guide for Computer Science (CS) Project?

Yes it can be used — Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS) is the interdisciplinary field that investigates how to devise educational systems that provide instruction tailored to the needs of individual learners, as many good teachers do. Research in this field has successfully delivered techniques and systems that provide adaptive support for student problem solving in a variety of domains. There are, however, other educational activities that can benefit from individualized computer-based support, such as studying examples, exploring interactive simulations and playing educational games. Providing individualized support for these activities poses unique challenges, because it requires an ITS that can model and adapt to student behaviours, skills and mental states often not as structured and well defined as those involved in traditional problem solving. This project work …

Is the topic “The Effect of Niger Delta Crisis on Socio-Political Development of Nigeria” recommended for Political Science Project?

Yes it is highly recommended — The purpose of this study is to know the factors that influence the Niger Delta crisis and its implication on Socio-political development of Nigeria. The study continued to evaluate the extent of damages the Niger Delta Crisis lure on political development of the nation. The crisis are a threat to both local and foreign investors. The researcher after various investigation and the researcher’s findings about the Niger Delta crisis, the researcher concluded that the crisis is as a result of high degree of neglect of the oil exploration areas. The researcher still makes some recommendation of how the problems of Niger Delta crisis can be solved. …

Can the material for “A Review of Motivation as a Management Tool for Increasing the Productivity of Employees” be used as a guide for Business Administration and Management (BAM) Project?

Yes it can be used — This research examines “the review of motivation as a management tool for increasing the productivity of employees, a case study of Emenite Limited, Emene, Enugu State. The researcher adopted descriptive survey design. The population of the study is 224 while the sample size is 144. The researcher used both primary and secondary sources of data. In view of this, four research questions were formulated to generate expected answers. Literal works were reviewed for proper understanding and guidance. Questionnaires, personal interview and observation were used for collection of primary data. Secondary sources of data were collected from textbooks, periodicals, articles and journals. Tables and simple percentage were used for data presentation and analysis. Based on the findings, the researcher found out …

Is the topic “The Role of Agricultural Insurance in Enhancing Agricultural Productivity” recommended for Insurance Project?

Yes it is highly recommended — Insurance is needed in order to alleviate the financial losses suffered by policy holders or the general public where the liability under policy is a contingent’s one. Therefore agricultural insurance takes care of the losses suffered by the farmers. To do this very successfully by an underwriter the compensation has to be made from contribution (premium) of all parties participating in the insurance. It is the aim of this research work therefore to find out if agricultural insurance has contributes in any meaningful way to enhancing agricultural productivity. Weather agricultural insurance has actually gained acceptance by the rural farmers. If compensation and adequately paid when losses are encountered by the farmers. And the possible areas the farmer can over with agricultural …

Is the topic “Man Power Training as an Aid to Management Effectiveness in Business Enterprises” recommended for Business Management Project?

Yes it is highly recommended — This project work is directed towards caring out a research on how manpower training in an organization improves business enterprise with special reference to Niger optical Service Company limited (NOSCO) Enugu. This research work has five chapters. The first chapter gives a detailed introduction of the work and the case study. While the second chapter emphasizes on the literature review. The third chapter deals with the design of the study, the methods used in collecting relevant data. It also deals with way the questionnaires were distributed and the treatment of data. The data got from the research survey were analyses and interpreted also similar questions on both questionnaires were compared in chapter four. Finally the last chapter (chapter five) states the discussion, recommendation and conclusion …

Can the material for “Budget Deficit and It’s Impact on the Nigerian Economic Growth and Development” be used as a guide for Economics Project?

Yes it can be used — The policy of deficit budgeting had grown tremendously in Nigeria between 1985 and 2008.The essence was to help accelerate the growth of capital in Nigeria using the policy of deficit budgeting as formulated by Keynes. The statement of the problem is: To what extent is the policy of deficit spending applicable to Nigeria as a tool for economic growth and development bearing in mind that Nigeria is a newly emerging industrialized country and that the policy of deficit spending has prominence in the Keynesian macroeconomic model, which was developed for conditions appropriate for developed countries. Categorically in Nigeria, the reverse seems to be the case. This is given to the fact that the major policy focus or thrust of SAP was …

Can the material for “Problems and Solutions of Fuel Distribution in Nigeria” be used as a guide for Business Administration and Management (BAM) Project?

Yes it can be used — The research seek to study fuel distribution in Nigeria: Problems and solutions. A case study of NNTE Enugu Depot. The major objective of the study is to determine solutions to fuel distribution problems. The study is generally descriptive. The major findings of the study are as follows: i) Inadequate maintenance of pipelines equipment and pumps lends to fuel shortages. ii) Delivery of right quantity and quality of petroleum products to filling stations promoted effective supply of fuel. The conclusion drawn from this study is that, maintenance of pi0pelines equipment and pumps enhances fuel distribution. Equally, delivery of right quantity and quality of petroleum products to filling stations promotes effective supply of fuel. Based on the findings, it was recommended that government should make …