Recently we have been contacted by one of our customers seeking help to automate their Raw Materials Quality check. They wanted to move from a time consuming manual process to a fully automated approach using a spectrometric Raman system to validate the quality of the raw materials prior to using them into production batches.

A Raman spectrometer put in place can determine the presence of many specific and particular atoms or molecules that are found in different common materials. The software used to determine the composition on a small scale is also valuable when determining if chemicals and elements are present in larger quantities, which leads to having an understanding of the raw material’s quality and value.

The Raman spectrometer is able to do the analysis through a transparent container and provide the result right away. No need to be a chemist or have special skills to use it.

After each analysis, the spectrometer will upload a kind of CSV file containing all the analysis information. The next step would be to insert all information in the SAP system to release the raw materials.

The manual SAP procedure would consist of using the transaction QE51N to record the results, and QA32 to set the usage decision.

The Raman spectrometer is coming with his own backend software (NID) for the synchronisation of the portable Raman and a database. Once the sync is performed, it will automatically generate the result csv files, and drop it on a share drive. The generated file looks like below (some data have been anonymised):

Scan Index, xxx

NID Version,NID EX Vxxxx

Device SN,DAANSB

Run Name,N/A

Product Name, xxxxx

Test Time, xxxxxxx

User Name, xxxxx

Laser Power,90%

Scan Mode,Identification-Single

Significance Level, 0.05

Result,Pass

P-Value,1,0000

Raman Shift Range,176 [cm-1] - 2500 [cm-1]

NOS Version, xxxxxx

SKU, xxxxxx

Batch, xxxxxx

Notes,

Last Perf. Validation Date and Time, xxxxxx

Perf. Validation User Name, xxxxxx

Perf. Validation Result,Pass

Perf. Validation HQI,"99,84"

Intensity Shift,"0,00"

Raman Shift Variation(cm-1),"0,07"

Calibration file, xxxxx

Sample Data, xxxxx

RamanShift,Intensity(Processed)

176,"33074,9285502501"

180,"28997,0683498582"

184,"26983,0372964471"

.......

Part of the file can be customised to fit your needs and requirements. But as you can see the structure is fairly basic and self explanatory (except the measure point).

When our bot receives the file, it will extract the required data, and then simulate the end user action in the transaction QE51N and QA32. Which means selecting the required characteristics, updating the data, and then setting the usage decision based on the Raman result.

In terms of improvement / savings for this process, on average our customers are reporting a 65% decrease of time between the entry of the raw material and their availability in production. There are also improvements in their organisation as the Raman can be used by anyone, and improvement in Data quality entry.

This bot has been added to our library and is available for any of our customers. If you have any question and/or would like to use it, feel free to contact us.