Proposta de melhoria no processo industrial do carbonato de cálcio apoiada em modelo de referência do desenvolvimento de produto e processo

Abstract

The companies have pursued improvements in order to become more competitive, adding value to the products and reducing costs. Often, the improvements are not applied to the product, but to the production process, since in some cases, products are already consolidated and not suffer any type of changes. The industrialization of Calcium Carbonate (CaCO3) is the typical case of consolidated product and normally the improvements usually happen in the production process. This research seeks the improve process in two industrialization units of CaCO3 in the same company, one of them, processing Natural Calcium Carbonate and other one, the process of Precipitated Calcium Carbonate. Both units have strongly successful products in their respectively market. Their products are made to the paper industry. In this research have been raised some improvement possibilities in each process in order to reduce losses of raw material and reduce consumption of inputs. As there are many tools and methodologies that seek the solution of problems and improvements, in this research was chosen a method by comparison of some methodologies. Some are traditional, such as QC-Story and Cleaner Production. The model of reference Fractal Clover is commonly used in product development and process. The Fractal Clover was used in an attempt to improve the quality and breadth of solutions for improving production processes with high level of organization and automation. The reference model of Fractal Clover is a methodology that can easily be used for improvements in products or industrial processes regardless the business activity. Thus, there was a qualitative exploratory research for a closer survey to obtain information of production processes in both plants. Subsequently it was applied the methodologies QC-Story, Cleaner Production and the reference model Fractal Clover. All applied methodologies presented solutions for improvement, however, the solutions suggested by the model Fractal Clover were broader than other methodologies. The model in reference shown it is capable as methodology of improvement process.