N. Fitzgerald et al., INTEGRATION OF ONLINE QUALITY-CONTROL INTO THE PROCESS-CONTROL ENVIRONMENT FOR CHEESE MANUFACTURING, Food control, 9(6), 1998, pp. 369-377
This paper outlines the development of an interactive on-line quality
control system for a cheese manufacturing process. The system consists
of an Access(R) database with a graphical user interface developed in
Visual Basic. The database resides on a Digital MicroVAX server, link
ed to PC's running Pathworks for Windows 95 across a Local Area Networ
k. The system facilitates the rapid and accurate revision and updating
of the ISO manual, which saves time money and resources. With the inc
rease in data available, areas in the process procedure such as sensor
monitoring which would traditionally have an independent role can now
be fully integrated into the manufacturing process. The current proje
ct takes advantage of this fact and integrates the Quality Control Pro
cedures into the on-line process control, thus enhancing adherence to
ISO standards. The system increases operator empowerment by providing
the operator with the necessary information and decision support mecha
nism to react to a situation in a consistent and appropriate manner. T
his approach to quality control monitoring and implementation is a sig
nificant improvement over the standard and rather static quality contr
ol manuals utilised at present. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rig
hts reserved.