Title: Analysis of factors affecting the variation in impregnation amount of flame retardant chemicals for improving the quality of flame retardant wood production
Assistant Professor, Department of Industrial Engineering, Faculty of Science and Technology, Tokyo University of Science Seiichi Yasui Professor, Department of Industrial Engineering, Faculty of Science and Technology, Tokyo University of Science Yoshifumi Omiya
In recent years, the use of wood in various buildings has been expected from the perspective of local economies and environmental protection. However, since wood is a flammable material, it is necessary to ensure sufficient fire resistance. Therefore, pressure injection processing is being carried out, in which fire-retardant chemicals are impregnated into wood under high pressure. Wood processed in this way is called flame-retardant wood.
Under ideal conditions, the target amount of impregnation is achieved, but it has been reported that in actual production, the amount of impregnation varies widely. Increasing the target value in pressure impregnation processing reduces the rate of non-conforming products, but the rate of excess also increases, resulting in a decrease in performance in (quality) characteristics other than fire resistance. Therefore, reducing the variation in the amount of impregnation of flame retardant chemicals by pressure impregnation is a challenge in the production of flame retardant wood.
In this study, we used JMP to conduct an exploratory data analysis on the performance data of a certain producer over the past two years regarding pressurized impregnation processing (batch processing), and analyzed the factors behind the variation in impregnation amount. We were able to identify the location effects and dispersion effects in the batch, and constructed a statistical model to determine processing conditions. We also verified the effectiveness of measures taken by the producer in the past using the data.
In this report, we will demonstrate the connection between the database operations and analysis tools in JMP and present a data analysis example for quality improvement in the production of flame-retardant wood.
