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Proceedings of the 9 Symposium on Applied Science, Business & Industrial Research – 2017
ISSN 2279-1558, ISBN 978-955-7442-09-9

A Case Study on the Quality of Aluminium Cables and Forecasting the
Demand of Aluminium Cables

Madushani KPG, Wickramasinghe WMPM, Aponsu GMLM
Department of Mathematical Sciences, Wayamba University of Sri Lanka
madushanikpg557@gmail.com
ABSTRACT

Aluminium cable industry is one of the emerging industries in Sri Lanka. The selected
company in this study produces various types of Aluminium cables to satisfy domestic
electricity demand and they export their products for various countries as well. The
company has introduced several quality standards to certify the quality of the cables. One
of the main objective of this study is to check whether the finished goods follow the given
quality standards. Three types of cables: phase wires, neutral wires and light wires were
considered and t-test is used to test whether these wires meet the standards. Resistivity,
breaking strength, insulation thickness, outer diameter of cable, diameter of bare
conductor, Aluminium weight of a conductor and XLPE (Crosslink Polyethylene) weight of
a cable were used as variables to check the quality of the cables. The results showed that
outer diameter of phase wires and outer diameter and breaking strength of neutral wires
and XLPE weight, breaking strength and resistivity of light wires conform to the quality
standards. Time series analysis is used to forecast the demand of Aluminium cables. Since
there was a seasonal variation, SARIMA (0, 0, 0) (0, 1, 1)12 was the best fitted model to
forecast the demand of Aluminium cables.

KEYWORDS: Aluminium, Conductor, Light, Neutral, Phase, XLPE weight .

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1 INTRODUCTION neutral and 16mm light wires are
considered to check whether they are
A leading aluminium cable producer in satisfying the quality standards. Demand
Sri Lanka was selected for this study. forecasting is also very important for any
Various types of cables are produced manufacturing company to plan their
according to the requirements of their production processes more effectively and
customers. Every wire or cable has their efficiently. In the selected company, there is
own standards which should be satisfied to no demand forecasting procedure and once
certify the quality. For a particular quantity an order is placed, they produce that
of production, raw materials are planned and quantity only.
ordered according to the standards.
Hence there is not a proper way for raw
But practically, these standards are not material planning and sometimes there is a
followed 100% causing the problems of low possibility of out of stocks and thus they
quality level and material overconsumption. will be unable to deliver their finished goods
Production of high quality cables is very on due date. If the company has a proper
important for the satisfaction of the demand forecasting mechanism, then they
customers and the reputation of the can properly maintain and control their raw
company.
material quantities and safety stocks and the
However in the selected company, storage space as well.
there is not a proper mechanism to assess Therefore as the second part of this
the quality of the finished goods. Therefore study, a demand forecasting methodology
assessing the quality of finished goods is will be introduced to the company based on
very much important. In this study, three their previous demand data using time series
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types of wires; 70mm phase, 54.6mm
analysis.

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