Panagiotis Tsarouhas

• Mech. Eng., M.Sc., Ph.D
• Professor (Full) at Technological Educational Institute of Central Macedonia

Purpose In a packaging olives manufacturing system, the drained weight of the product plays a decisive role in customer’s satisfaction as well as in financial saving for the organization. The purpose of this study is to minimize the variation of the drained weight of olives in the production system to avoid the negative consequences. Design/method...

The study of the environmental impact of agricultural products has significantly grown in recent years, as consumers now demand more information about the product’s footprint in the environment. The aim of this study is to assess the environmental impact of the life cycle phases of tsipouro production, which is one of the traditional products of Gr...

Purpose The purpose of this research is to calculate and enhance the cheese cheddar manufacturing plant efficiency under actual workplace conditions by measuring reliability, availability and maintainability (RAM) indices. The authors highlight how RAM analysis is important in determining periodic maintenance and in scheduling and managing the appr...

This study investigates the impact of ouzo production on the environment. Its novelty lies in the fact that it is the first study which focuses on the consequences that anise beverages production has on the environment. To carry out the study, the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) was used and fifteen subsystems of the total production were investigated....

The aim of this special issue was to bring about advances in the area of food manufacturing, including packaging, addressing issues of food safety, quality, fraud and how these processes (new and old) could affect the organoleptic characteristics of foods, with the aim of promoting consumer satisfaction [...]

Purpose The study aims to provide a quick-and-robust multifactorial screening technique for early detection of statistically significant effects that could influence a product's life-time performance. Design/methodology/approach The proposed method takes advantage of saturated fractional factorial designs for organizing the lifetime dataset collec...

In this chapter, we adopt Six Sigma (SS) approach and reliability, availability, and maintainability (RAM) analysis in a plastic industry. We present a step-by-step application of the SS methodology for identifying and reducing the downtimes in the industry and examine the current operations management. Thus, failure and repair data are analyzed on...

Greece is ranked third among olive oil-producing countries, after Spain and Italy, with the region of Peloponnese representing one of the most important olive oil producing regions. However, very little information is available regarding the profile of the two major olive cultivars (cv. Koroneiki and cv. Mastoides) cultivated in the southern part o...

The contribution of nanomaterials to the development of food packaging systems has been enormous in last years. Nanomaterial is defined as material having one or more dimensions in the range of 1–100 nm. Nano-sized materials change their optical, magnetic, electrical, and other properties, and for this reason are widely used in food packaging. Nano...

The objective of this study was to evaluate and discriminate monovarietal extra virgin olive oils of the two dominant olive cultivars, Lianolia Kerkyras and Koroneiki, produced in the coastline part of northwestern Greece, based on their chemical characteristics, followed by statistical analysis in order to profile for the first time the typical ch...

Extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) quality and authenticity are important and challenging factors nowadays for the assurance of consumers’ protection, prevention of unfair competition, and disruption of the national economy by a false declaration of origin. Hence, the recognition of EVOO authenticity is of great interest in terms of commercial and quali...

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) principles coupled with Circular Economy are well described in this review addressing LCA examples worldwide. Applications of LCA in the food industry are well outlined with examples from the dairy sector and dairy effluents, meat sector (pork), poultry and eggs, coffee, fish canning, animal feed and used cooking oil. LC...

Featured Application Reliability, availability, and maintainability (RAM) analysis which could benefit all manufacturing plantssuch as food, automotive, oil, and gasetc., with immediate results to the quality of the products and to improve the design and operation of the production lines. Abstract The purpose of this paper is to provide findings f...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to implement the six sigma (SS) strategy in a bag sector under actual operating circumstances based on defining-measure-analyze-improve and control (DMAIC). During the project, several statistical tools and methods have been used efficiently to create inferences. Thus, to measure and enhance system efficiency, t...

The qualitative characteristics and chemical parameters were determined for 112 virgin olive oil samples of the two dominant olive cultivars in the southern region of Peloponnese, cv. Koroneiki and cv. Mastoides. As no relevant data exist for this geographical area, yet one of the most important olive-growing regions in Greece, this study aimed to...

A framework for aircraft downtime optimisation in a military squadron was proposed. Military squadron was considered as a production system, producing operational aircraft. Each working day that an aircraft is out of service is a defective product. A group of 30 aircraft was studied in order to determine the proportion of defectives. Laney P′ chart...

While there has been considerable research related to Koroneiki cultivar in different areas in Greece, no systematic work has been carried out on olive oil analysis from one of the most important olive-growing regions in Greece, located southwest of Peloponnese, Messinia. This work is the first systematic attempt to study the profile of Messinian o...

Purpose As overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) is a metric to estimate equipment effectiveness of production systems, the purpose of this paper is to identify strategic management tools and techniques based on OEE assessment of the ice cream production line. Design/methodology/approach This paper presents the collection and the analysis of data...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to compute reliability, availability and maintainability (RAM) indices to measure and improve the performance of an automated croissant production line under real working conditions. Based on this study, the authors demonstrate how RAM analysis is very useful for deciding maintenance intervals and for planning a...

The application of statistical approaches of failure data for analysing the reliability, availability and maintainability of a milk production line were carried out. Descriptive statistics of the failure and repair data was computed and the best fitness indexes were determined. The parameters of some idealised probability distributions, such as Wei...

Purpose Overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) is a metric for estimating equipment effectiveness of the industrial systems. The purpose of this paper is to identify maintenance improvement potentials using an OEE assessment within the croissant production line. Design/methodology/approach The present work is carried out by analyzing the failure an...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to provide results for a complete reliability, availability, and maintainability (RAM) analysis utilizing data sets from a production system in a wine packaging line. Through the illustrated case study, the author demonstrates how RAM analysis is very useful for deciding maintenance intervals, and for planning...

This chapter introduces the basic statistical concepts of reliability, availability, and maintainability (RAM) analysis that used in industrial engineering. RAM are three system attributes that are of tremendous interest to systems engineers, and have significant impacts on the sustainment or total life cycle costs of a developed system. To analyze...

We perform reliability analysis on a fourth generation fighter aircraft by taking into consideration its real flight conditions. The collection of the actual failure data was extended over a period of three years. Furthermore, the reliability function, the probability density function, the hazard function were estimated. The time between failures f...

In this study reliability, availability and maintainability analysis was conducted for cake production line by applying statistical techniques on failure data. Data collection from the line and their analysis were valid over a long time of seventeen months. The reliability, availability and maintainability analysis of the failure data were determin...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to provide results for a complete maintainability analysis utilizing data sets from a production system in a shaving blades division of a large high-tech razor manufacturer. Through the illustrated case study, the authors demonstrate how to spot improvement points for enhancing availability by carrying out an eq...

The study is focused on the application of maintainability analysis in a jet fighter aircraft in order to point out weaknesses of maintenance operations. Descriptive statistics of the repair data were carried out and both maintainability and repair rate modes for the entire aircraft were calculated. Maintainability for different time periods for ai...

Reliability analysis of a mobile robot system over a period of 34 months was carried out. Most of the failure modes were identified and the descriptive statistics at component level were calculated. Several theoretical distributions were applied and the best fit of failure data was identified. Furthermore, the reliability, probability density funct...

The reliability and maintainability analysis of an automated robotic system was carried out. Descriptive statistics of failure and repair data, and the best fit of them were carried out. Furthermore, the reliability, maintainability, failure rate, and repair rate models of the robotic system were calculated. The models could prove to be a useful to...

Agricultural production is a sector with high socio-economic significance and key implications on employment and nutritional security. However, the impacts of agrifood production and consumption patterns on the environment are considerable, mainly due to the demand of large inputs of resources. This paper presents a case study of olive oil producti...

Due to the competition that has dramatically increased, manufacturers focus on product quality, product delivery time and cost of product. Thus, a company should introduce a quality system to continuously improve and increase both quality and efficiency. Total productive maintenance (TPM) is a methodology that focuses on increasing the availability...

?he polypropylene (PP) industry is an important branch of industry with rapid growth and prospects. The production process is complex and requires the continuous operation of the line without failure of equipment to avoid quality problems and maintain the performance of the system. In this study, reliability and maintainability analysis was conduct...

Maintainability is used to improve the performance of the system based on the adequate maintenance activities. In this paper, the maintainability characteristics and the critical machines of the yogurt production line with respect to repair frequency and duration were identified. Descriptive statistics of the repair data were carried out and the be...

A reliability analysis of an automated yogurt production line was carried out for all machines and the entire line level. Trend and serial correlation tests validated the assumption of independence and identical distribution of the failure data was conducted. The determination of the theoretical distribution parameters that had the best fit to the...

In this study, the analytical probability models for an automated serial production system, bufferless that consists of n-machines in series with common transfer mechanism and control system was developed. Both time to failure and time to repair a failure are assumed to follow exponential distribution. Applying those models, the effect of system p...

Dialysis system is an artificial medical operating system that works as a kidney in the human body, and is used when the kidney has failed or has been spoiled. In this study, reliability and maintainability analysis, which are of the fundamental issues for the operation management of a dialysis system, was developed. Descriptive statistics of all t...

The reliability and maintainability (R&M) analysis of automated mechanical equipment of a mozzarella cheese production line for a period of twenty-four months was carried out at machine and entire line level. The most important characteristics of failure data and the most important failures were identified; also carried out was the determination of...

Overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) is a metric that evaluates the effectiveness of a manufacturing operation. This study investigates the relationship between the factory management and the operation of a traditional Italian cheese production line. The analysis of failure and repair data of the line over a period of 26 months was carried out. De...

The scope of this study is to review reliability, availability and maintainability (RAM) analysis in the food industry and aims to identify the critical points of the production systems that should be improved by the operational performance and the maintenance effectiveness. RAM is an engineering tool that addresses operations and safety issues of...

The reliability, maintainability, failure rate and repair rate models of a limoncello automated production line for a period of 8 months at machine and entire line level were carried out. It was pointed out that (i) the real operating time of the limoncello production line (LPL) is 89.35%, whereas for the rest 10.65%, the LPL is under repair, (ii)...

The quantitative analysis, including reliability and maintainability which are of the fundamental issues for the operation management of an automated peach production line, was developed. Descriptive statistics of all the failures at machine and line level were shown, and the most critical machines under failures according to several criteria were...

Purpose Food production lines consist of several machines in series, and for that reason if a failure occurs in a machine some or all of the in‐process material upstream of the failure will have to be scrapped due to quality deterioration during the stoppage, therefore the necessity of better maintenance strategy is required. This paper aims to add...

Reliability analysis for packaging of beer production over a period of 9-month was carried out. The most important failure modes were identified and the descriptive statistics at failure and machine level were calculated. Several theoretical distributions were applied and best fit of failure data was identified. The reliability and hazard rate mode...

The statistical analysis of the bread production line of the failure and repair data at machine and line levels was displayed. The experiment covers a period of twenty-five months. The best fit of the failure data between the common theoretical distributions was found and its parameters were computed. The reliability and hazard rate modes for all m...

Failure mode and effect analysis-FMEA of a ceramic tiles manufacturing plant has been applied. The risk priority number (RPN) for the prioritization of failure modes of ceramic tiles was calculated. Pareto diagrams for the depiction of the frequency and importance of causes that may cause a problem were applied. Also, Ishikawa diagrams for the real...

The reliability and maintainability analysis of an automated mechanical equipment of juice bottling industry for a period of forty-five months at machine, workstation and entire line level was made. The descriptive statistics of failure and repair data, the identification of the most important failure modes, and the determination of the theoretical...

Reliability, availability and maintainability (RAM) analysis of the cheese production line over a period of 17 months was investigated. The best fit of the failure and repair data between the common theoretical distributions was found and the respective parameters were computed. The reliability and hazard rate modes at the entire production line we...

We develop a model of a failure-prone, bufferless, paced, automatic transfer line in which material flows through a number of workstations in series, receiving continuous processing along each workstation. When a workstation fails, it stops operating, and so do all the other workstations upstream of it. The quality of the material trapped in the st...

The continuous development of industry with the automation of production and the increasing of commercial competition the last decades, impose the direct upgrade role of maintenance that is as important as the production. In this manuscript we present a simple expression of reliability in industrial systems that affect the maintenance activity in o...

We present a statistical analysis of failure data of an automated pizza production line, covering a period of four years. The analysis includes the computation of descriptive statistics of the failure data, the identification of the most important failures, the computation of the parameters of the theoretical distributions that best fit the failure...

The study presents the detailed analysis of reliability data of an automated croissant processing line. The line consists of several workstations, each having one or more machines with several failure modes. Failure and repair times are collected at all levels of the hierarchical structure of the line (failure mode, machine, workstation and entire...

We perform a statistical analysis of failure data o f equipment obtained from a real automated pizza production line. Based on this data, we devel op and solve a simple model of a quality inspector who visits several such lines to detect p ossible quality problems in the production process. His objective is to allocate the number of his visits to t...

Chipita International, Inc., one of Greece's largest manufacturers of bakery products and snacks, makes croissants on seven specialized processing lines in Lamia, Greece. A rise in the demand for croissants over the past years called for an increase in output. We undertook a project to determine cost-effective ways of speeding up the croissant-proc...

We develop a model of a failure-prone, bufferless, paced, automatic transfer line, with continuous processing of material throughout the length of its workstations. When a workstation fails, it stops operating and so do all the workstations upstream of it. The quality of the material trapped in the stopped workstations deteriorates with time. If it...