Non-standard application of SPC in sugar quality monitoring

SPC (statistical process control) is a set of statistical tools that has been used successfully in the discrete parts industry with high production volume. The drive to improve the control performance of the continuous process industry has led to the interest in extending the application of SPC to this industry which traditionally adopts the APC (automatic process control) approach. The paper illustrates a case study of the application of non-standard SPC to sugar quality monitoring. The practical issues and approaches proposed to address these issues are highlighted and discussed in the context of known SPC limitations. The ultimate goal of this work was to propose a practical and straightforward SPC scheme to sugar quality monitoring.