Developing an on-line monitoring and quality assurance system for Expanded Polypropylene process**********

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**Polycon is a major automotive plant located in Guelph, Ontario. It is part of Magna Exterior division and specializes in manufacturing polymer based body parts like fascia. It has around 1400 employees. Its core competencies include plastic, EPP [expanded polypropylene], carbon fibre moulding, painting, and assembly. The EPP department manufactures energy absorbers and seating products by fusing raw beads into geometric shapes using steam and horizontal molding machines. The finished product is ejected from the machine and falls randomly onto a conveyor which brings the parts to an operator. The operator function includes sorting, inspecting, and transporting parts to and from rails, and packing. The inspection aspect ensures that parts produced are within proper weight and dimensional requirements as specified by the customer. The EPP department produces several million parts per year. ****The current state of quality control is reactive. The manufacturing process parameters are tracked and recorded at each stage of the moulding process (filling, steaming, cooling), and are manually adjusted as necessary after defects have been found during the inspection process. The large number of variables being tracked makes it impossible for a human to identify negative trends and anomalies that can lead to the production of a poor quality part. The objective of this project is to develop an automated real-time system for process monitoring that can predict the quality of the end product eliminating the need for manual inspection. At a later stage, the system will monitor the process in real-time and provide, if possible, corrective measures to avoid producing a defective part. This proactive approach to quality control would have a significant positive impact on Polycon's quality assurance and overall production efficiency. **