Total Quality Management – by Novactor

In the coming weeks and months, we will gradually tell you more about Novactor, our approach to the Activated Carbon business and the unique benefits we can offer to our partners and customers. This time I will tell you a bit about our approach to quality management.

Managing quality is a challenge in most industrial manufacturing processes and quality usually makes the difference between the winners and the less fortunate in the long term. And managing processes involving organic raw materials is a challenge in its own league. We at Novactor are in the fortunate position to have the whole chain of manufacturing in our own hands: starting from the raw material sources to packing and logistics of delivering the readymade goods to customers.

Selection of the raw material 

Our Total Quality Management (TQM) starts from the selection of the raw material production areas and organising the raw material harvesting according to our needs and sustainability standards. We know the chemical composition of each area and produced raw material lot. This is a good starting point for a good quality and product differentiation according to the customer’s needs.

We call for raw material to our production process based on the planned production and customer requirements. Raw material pre-processing allows us to fine tune the characteristics of the feed to our process and set the foundations for high quality Activated Carbon. Naturally, we also control the quality and the chemical composition of the pre-processed raw material.

Knowing the chemical composition of each area and produced raw material lot is a starting point for a good quality and product differentiation according to the customer’s needs.

State-of-the-art furnace for carbonisation and activation

High quality pre-processed raw material feeds our state-of-the-art furnace for carbonisation and activation. We can control the process parameters in the furnace with our advanced automation system to ensure the stability of the intermediate product. End-product testing can be done according to the customer’s requirements, both in number and type of analyses required as well as sampling frequency.

In the case of any deviation in the targeted end-product quality or customer-specific characteristics, we can, thanks to our advanced ERP system, trace any deviations through the whole production chain down to the area where the raw material has been produced, and to any intermediate step from there to any customer delivery. If corrective actions are needed, we know which part of the process we need to address. Every operator in our Activated Carbon factory and raw material operations know their role in the process to make winning quality.  This is the Total Quality Management by Novactor.

Jaakko Myllymäki

Jaakko Myllymäki works as a Business Area Director and is responsible for the activated carbon business in Neova Group. Jaakko has a long and diverse experience in the sales, marketing and commercialisation of new innovative products on the Finnish, European and global levels. Jaakko is passionate about delivering high-quality end products in accordance with the requirements of different customer groups.