THE APPLICATION OF STATISTICAL QUALITY CONTROL TECHNIQUES IN INDUSTRY

1.0 Introduction

1.1 Historical Background of the Study

The Nigerian bottling company plc (NBC) was incorporated in November 1951, as a subsidiary of the A.G.leventis group with the franchise to bottle and sell coca-cola products in Nigeria. From a humble beginning as a family business, the company has grown to become a predominant bottler of non-alcoholic beverage in Nigeria, responsible for the manufacture and sale of over 33 different coca-cola brands. Other popular brands of beverage produced by the company are Eva water, Five-Alive fruit juice and the newly introduced Burn energy drink.

The company presently has 13 bottling facilities and over 80 distribution warehouse located across the country. Since production started, NBC PLC has remained the largest bottler of nonalcoholic beverages in the country in terms of sales volume, with about 1.8 billion bottles sold per year, making it the second largest market in African today, the company is part of coca-cola company's largest anchor bottlers worldwide. CCHBC operates in 28 countries, serving 540 million consumers and selling over 1.3 billions unit cases of beverage annually.

The company recently embarked on a restricting exercise to expand further its market share and growth profit. It invested in a new state of the art can filling and packing linear the Apapa plant. The plant has since begun to produce the first soft drink can that is wholly packaged in Nigeria. This is in addition to new bottling plant in Abuja. Investment in the upgrade of other manufacturing infrastructure, distribution and delivery facilities. The company is governed by a stable nine member board of director comprising of very prominent individual who have excelled in different fields of endeavor within and outside Nigeria.

The board is headed by Ambassador olusegun Apata while the management team is led by Mr. Ronald Ebeit, an expatriate professional. The authorizes share capital of the company is N750 million made up of 1.5billion ordinary shares of 50k per share out of which 1.308 ordinary shares of 50k each or N654,367 million is issued and fully paid. The share capital of the company grew from N487 million in 2003 to the present amount in the FYE 2006 through several scrip issues. majority of the shares is held by foreign investors comprising of Molino soft Drinks S.A(55.81%)and CCHBC service ltd.62%).thus only 33.59% is available to the public. shareholders fund has increase from N19.31 BILLION IN 2003 to N22.81 billion in 2007.

Administration

• The General Manager
• Departmental head
• Production manager

Department

• Account department
• Inventory
• Marketing department
• Sales Manager
• Sales officers
• Sales supervisors
• Sales men and sales assistance.

Quality Control Department

• Water treatment sector
• Carbon dioxide
• Syrup room
• Boiler room
• Laboratory
• Line (production hall)

The seven up bottling company have quality control programmes focused on four view areas of plant operation.

Production Line Testing: to ensure that the Individual limits such as the bottle washer, Mix processor, carbonator, fullers, cooling system are working efficiently and that the syrups, carbon dioxide and water are being proportional erectly.

Water Testing: To ensure that the water treatment equipment is operating correctly.

Testing of Ingredient: Modification of chemical and packaging materials are received to conform Quality.

The Uses of Statistics In Industry

Decision Making: The science of statistics deals with making decision based on observed data in the face of uncertainties, the scientific study and industrial work.

In Management: Scientific management is basically management on the basis of precise numerical Information without using statistical aid, such Interpretative fail to use one of the major tool for efficient management the complementariness of modern Industrial production and management makes it compulsory that management will be furnished with statistical data as raw material labour sales e.t.c.

1.2 Statement of Problem

High or low carbon dioxide, gas pressure, Inaccurate Instrument for measuring the quality of drinks, lack of carbon dioxide gas, Improper Adjustment of control leakage and line freezing caused by Improper heating.

High Water Temperature: This Include refrigerator equipment not working properly or other coolant failure to draw cooler water storage tank, carbonator and filler bowl after machine has been in operation for a long period of time.

Dirty Bolting: the effect of Mixing value and water not properly treated air in syrup in or in carbonated water.

1.3 Aims and Objectives of Study

The aim of the study is to examine the Application of Statistical Quality Control Techniques in Industry Using 7up Bottling Company Plc, Aba as a case study. In achieving this aim, the following specific objectives were laid out as follows:

1. To determine and identify if there has been significant difference in taste of manufactured product,
2. To protect producer from having their product containing low number of detective.

1.4 Research Questions

The study came up with research questions so as to be able to ascertain the above stated objectives. The specific research questions for the study are stated below as follows:

• What are the reasons of studying a particular case known as quality control of 7up company Aba?
• What are the major problems in quality control as to 7up bottling company as a case study?
• Who is to blame for any problem found in quality control processor?

1.5 Statement of the Hypothesis

In order to pursue the objective of this study, the following generalized statements have been designed to guide and aids in obtaining the result for the experiment to be conducted. For this work, the null hypothesis will be represented with H0 while the alternative hypothesis will be represented with hypothesis H1.

Hypothesis One

• H0: There is no significant difference in taste and mixing irrespective of different locations.
• H1: There is significant difference in taste and mixing irrespective of different locations.

1.6 Significance of Study

The researcher report will go a long in giving the production department of 7up bottling company necessary (line production hall) guide line maintaining standard will also reach out to review the cause of Inequality process in the Industries:

1. It will help the quality control manager to adopt a suitable solution in a production process.
2. It will protect consumers from accepting a product containing high number of detective.
3. It will encourage the producer to keep the process in control and full Information about the quality of the goods being produced.

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.

1.7 Scope of Study

The study focuses on the Application of Statistical Quality Control Techniques in Industry Using 7up Bottling Company Plc, Aba as a case study. The study covers the ollowing arrears to; ensure that finished product suit or meet required standard, check if the processing system and production line, present the consumer with a product that is consistently within standards, cover a coordinated programme combining the efforts of the various group quality development such as improvement, quality maintenance e.t.c, and cover an area of quality control programme focus on area of plant operations.

1.8 Limitations of the Study

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

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. Research material: availability of research material is a major setback to the scope of the study.
4. Frequent power failure: This made the researcher append more money on fuel to ensure sustainable power.
5. 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, questionnaire and interview).

1.9 Definition of Terms

Statistical Quality Control: Is defined as an organized system for integrating (coordinating) quality development, quality maintenance and quality improvement effort of the various groups in an organization to enable production of goods and services at the most economical level which allow full customers satisfaction.

Process Control: Is any employment of material machines and man for the purpose of production. It is an organized procedure for ensuring the desired quality of man, machine and machine operators, spare parts materials and assemblies of various stages of industrial ride.