Investigation of voltage sags in a continuous processing industry- simba plastics ltd

This report has analyzed the effect of voltage sags at Simba Plastics Ltd. Voltage sags have caused major economic damage, not only has created considerable loss of production (manufacturing), but also loss of market, the loss of client trust and comfort at the company. The research was done at Simba Plastics Ltd at Chang’ombe area by finding out equipments that were always affected by voltage sags in machines, effect of voltage sags in production capacity as a result of machine stoppage and causes of voltage sags in production sections. Because of voltage sags, there was unplanned stoppage of machines, which caused a lot of rejects, energy loss because of rc-hcating machines and also delay of production which made the company not to reach the required targets. There was also identifiable (direct) costs and loss of profit, which the company faced. The study has shown that many unplanned stoppage of machines had occurred because of voltage sags and this was because these machines comprised components from different manufacturers and therefore they had different sag immunity, so when one component tripped the whole machine was disturbed. The company had been advised to use voltage sags through be in the company’s equipment manufacturers so as to use them when designing machine components. These curves have been used by other processing industries like semi conductor industries, water processing industries, chemical processing, etc successfully. Alternatively, at present the company should purchase UPS to protect machine controls, PLCs and Variable Speed Drives because these were most equipment seemed to be affected by voltage sags.