Reduction of Post-kiln Rejections for Improving Sustainability in Ceramic Industry: A Case Study

Abstract

The ceramic industry has witnessed fast growth in emerging and developing countries primarily due to growth in power, construction and housing sectors. The production of ceramic products can be divided in to two distinct phases: pre-kiln operations and post-kiln operations. The rejections in pre-kiln operations can be pushed back into the process without much loss to the environment. However, the post-kiln rejections cannot be recycled. Also, most of the energy is spent in the kiln process leading to high damage to environment. This paper presents a case study of ceramic industry to reduce the post-kiln rejections in the manufacturing of insulators for power sector. Ishikawa diagrams have been used to find the root causes of various rejections in post-kiln operations. The implementation of simple kaizens has led to more than 40% reduction in post-kiln rejections thus saving energy and loss to environment.