MUMIAS SUGAR COMPANY LIMITED

MUMIAS SUGAR COMPANY- A BRIEF INTRODUCTION
In 1967, the Government of Kenya commissioned Booker Agriculture and Technical Services to do a feasibility study on the viability of growing sugarcane in Mumias and then initiate a pilot project. At the time, the Mumias area was underdeveloped, land utilization was poor as farmers grew food crops on small areas for subsistence only, while the rest of the land was purely for grazing. The relative remoteness of the area and poor communication prevented the development of an active market economy. However, owing to the fact that land adjudication had been carried out and farmers had freehold title to their land, this favoured the proposed sugarcane project of which studies had returned a clean bill of health. It was possible to establish a viable sugar scheme at Mumias with the Factory supplied by cane from both the Nucleus Estate and the indigenous out grower farmers. The Government accepted the findings an on July 1, 1971 incorporated Mumias Sugar Company as the body to implement the Project. The Government was to hold majority shares (71%) and minority interests held by the Commonwealth Development Corporation (17%), Kenya Commercial Finance Company (5%), Booker McConnell (4%) and the East African Development Bank (3%).

AIMS OF THE COMPANY
From the company’s profile on their website, the major objectives of establishing Mumias Sugar Company were to:
a) Provide a source of cash income for farmers
b) Create job opportunities since there was no major industrial undertaking in the area at the time
c) Curb rural-urban migration
d) Reduce overdependence on importation and aim for self-sufficiency in sugar production
e) The Company was also expected to operate on a commercial basis and make profits.

PROCESSES
i. Cane growth- Cane is natured from germination to maturity by careful observation and correction of the impending shortfalls at the slightest failure signs. This is done by weed control measures and fertilizer application.
ii. Mill cane Harvesting and transport- This is a contracted service done by a group of cutters using cane knives. They cut the can and stack them in readiness for transport to the factory. Haulage is done to the factory weigh bridge for the actual weight determination of cane transported. Fundamentally, supervision at all stages of cane development is mandatory with the basic machinery being a motorbike or a 1300cc Suzuki vehicle.
iii. Cane Handling- The cane is stored in the cane yard to enable the factory crush throughout the night. The cane is offloaded by hydro unloaders and overhead gantry cranes. From feed tables cane is conveyed to main cane carrier.
iv. Cane preparation- In this step the cane is finely shredded by 240 hammers in the shredder house before juice extraction by either milling or diffusion. Cane is prepared by passing it through one or two sets of cane knives and then the shredder. The preparation index give s an indication of the amount of juice cells that have been broken by the shredder compared with the stack. There’s also a magnet that’s passed through to pick magnetic materials in the mixture.
v. Diffusion- A diffuser is a 60x6m enclosed box with perforated bed that has a chain that drags prepared cane slowly as water and juice percolates through the bed. Diffusion is the process of washing the pol out of prepared cane at pressurized high temperature (85oC). The fiber part (bagasse) is passed through dewatering mills for drying before being used as fuel at the boilers to generate steam.
vi. Juice treatment- The juice from the diffuser is weighed as a factory chemical control measure. Juice is heated as part of the clarification process
vii. Juice clarification- Clarification involves the addition of lime juice, forming mud and removal of insoluble matter. Flocculants are added to lime to juice to improve the settling of the mud.
viii. Juice evaporation- It is the increase in concentration of clear juice from 11% brix to 63% brix. One kg of steam evaporates one kg of water from juice. One kg of steam fed to the first vessel of a quadruple effect evaporator (four vessels) will evaporate four kilos of water.
ix. Sugar boiling- This is the growing of sugar crystals in highly concentrated sugar solutions in three steps (3- boiling system). The super saturation coefficient of solution is a measure that indicates the extent to which a solution is oversaturated. This over saturation is what forces sucrose to be deposited onto the crystals making thus them grow.
x. Crystallization- Crystallizers are stirred tanks in which massecuite is allowed to cool, thus effecting further growth of crystals as the sucrose in the mother liquor is exhausted. The purity of the liquid fraction (mother liquor) of the massecuite is called nutsch purity. Monitoring the nutsch purity is an important way of measuring the performance of crystallizers.
xi. Centrifugation- A centrifugal separates mother liquor from the crystals in the massecuite. Continuous centrifugals are normally not used to produce VHP (very high pol) sugars. The crystals are now clear and of near uniform size. The sugar crystals are then moved to the next process: drying.
xii. Sugar Drying- Sugar is dried to ensure its keeping and handling qualities. VHP (very high pol) sugars are dried from a moisture content of 5% to 0.1%. This is the final process in sugar manufacturing.
xiii. Packaging- Bagging is done using clean food grade materials sugar is packaged to protect it from contamination. This is done in 50kg, 2kg, 1kg, 0.5kg and 1/4kg packaging bags.
Electric Power Generation
Mumias Sugar does cogeneration and supports fully its power requirements, with exports of up to 26MW to KPLC. There are three main steps involved in cogen power production and these can be summed up as folllows:
a) Steam Generation: Bagasse is used as a fuel. Its chemical energy is converted into heat by burning. The heat energy is used in boilers to heat water to produced pressurized steam at specified pressures and temperatures. The water used here is treated and thus is clean. Bagasse is from the extraction plant as afore mentioned.
b) Steam Turbine Operation: Steam from the boilers is used to drive the turbines which convert the heat energy into mechanical energy. The mechanical energy provides the power to turn the equipment for power generation at controlled speeds- this is done in the control room.
c) Power Generation: The turbines which act as the prime movers are used to turn electrical power generators (alternators). This is where power is produced- 3.3kV at a frequency of 50Hz to the bus bars.
WORKSHOP
The company has its own workshop in which they repair their machines which break down such as motors. The company does its major maintenance once a year at which the whole company is closed down. At this time the major overhaul and small maintenance is done. The spare parts are found locally from the Kenya’s market. At the workshop motor which have broken down are repaired and the windings replaced with new ones.
Definitions
a) Bagasse- The residue obtained after crushing cane in a mill is known as bagasse. The final residue from a milling train or from the dewatering mills of a diffusion plant is called final bagasse or simply, bagasse.
b) Brix- The term used when a refractometer equipped with a scale, based on the relationship between refractive indices at 20°C and the percentage by mass of total soluble solids of a pure aqueous sucrose solution, is used instead of a hydrometer to test the solids concentration of a sucrose containing solution.
c) Fibre- The water insoluble matter of cane and bagasse from which the brix-free water has been removed by drying.
d) Juice- The mixture of juices from the extraction plant delivered into the juice scales.
e) Mud- The material removed from the bottom part of the subsides. The mud contains the settled insoluble solids.
f) Pol- The apparent sucrose content of any substance expressed as a percentage by mass and determined by the single or direct polarization method. The term is used as if it were a real substance.
g) Purity- The percentage ratio of sucrose (or pol) to the total soluble solids (or brix) in a sugar product. The following terms are in general use:

SAFETY MEASURES
Mumias Sugar Company places important value on safety as an aspect in its day to day activities. To this end the Company has established a fully fledged Safety team which is mandated with the daily safety issues affecting the organization. There is a Safety Officer in charge of the safety matters affecting the factory plant and its environs and coordinates all safety activities in the factory. The daily duties of the Safety Officer are:
a) Taking note of the previous night’s safety related occurrences. It is at this time, when he takes note of any incidences, accidents and requirements of both the Factory plant and the Cogen plant.
b) Run and chair safety-minded morning meetings where the factory departmental arising issues are discussed and noted.
c) Inspection of concern areas of safety at the factory plant and advices accordingly.
d) Provision of first aid medicament and safety tools including masks gloves. As the custodian of safety equipment he also ensures that facilities like stretchers are available
e) Placement, Inspection, maintenance of safety posters and notices and is responsible for the coordination of all safety signs.
f) He attends all meetings related to Safety some of which are daily while others are periodical this include first aid meetings, Sectional safety meetings. He is also a member of the safety committee in which all cadres of employees are represented.
g) He also represents the company in court on accident cases. He is at times required to visit hospitals on a fact finding missions in case of serious accidents.
h) He holds the mantle of a trainer. This he does for all the new company employees. The induction program prepares the recruited staff for their day to day activities. He also has the responsibility of training and coordination of all the safety teams which include the first aiders and the firefighters. These two teams comprise of employees in the various sections strategically placed, who will at the event of an emergency start dealing with it before help arrives. The teams are also trained to notice and point out unsafe conditions.

PROBLEMS FACED
a) Government Policies: The government imposes policies that hinder some of the company’s operations. Taxation is a big issue as the company incurs costs in pay taxes and this leads to the addition of the cost of production making the company’s product to be expensive.
b) Infrastructure: the roads feeding the factory from the feeder sugar cane farms are not well maintained and thus the company has to incur costs in vehicle repairs and also road maintenance. The company therefore faces a lot of problem when transporting raw materials, other supplies and also the product to its outlet especially during rainy seasons.
c) Stiff competition: the company faces tight competition from other sugar producers. Given the fact that they do not get subsidies from the government their product is expensive. The importation of sugar from other countries has also affected the company’s product so much.
d) Increasing cost of production: The Company gets no subsidy from the government like other sugar producing firms hence experiences a lot of production cost. The capital to start and run the factory is also very high. The maintenance cost is also sky high.

SOLUTIONS
a) The company has grown economically and is now listed in the NSE (Nairobi Stock Exchange) hence can be able to pay its debts owed to the government in taxes and also maintain balanced books of accounts.
b) The company has invested in heavy transportation machineries which are capable of traversing the terrains where roads are inaccessible during rainy seasons. This is a costly affair and hence the company has now outsourced the transportation of cane to the farmers’ choices. Road maintenance is also part of the company’s objectives.
c) To ward off competition, the company has raised standards by installing new machineries in their production system and also entering the NSE, this has helped increase the publicity of the company above its rivals.
d) The Company has been able to cut on costs by outsourcing some of the secondary services that prove costly in the company. Example of this is the manufacture and printing of packaging bags and also part of transportation.
 
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
Mumias sugar factory applies the modern technology in the production of sugar for example the use of diffuser to extract sucrose from the juice, use of improved modern technology in the control rooms to monitor all the processes taking place within the factory. For instance, they interface the chemical process using differential amplifier to be monitored using screens. Thermocouple thermometer is also used to record the temperature where the people concern could not reach. In case of any breakdown at most sensitive section of the factory, limit switches are used to stop the operation. The amount of sugar produced by all the companies or factories could be enough only if the government could support them by subsidizing their production cost or even reducing or removing taxes for the privately run companies.
It is recommended that the company should establish a research and extension department whose work is to sensitize and advice farmers on proper sugarcane growing and to look further on how to expand the factory. It’s advisable for the company’s management to look upon on a way of alleviating the challenges stated so as to keep the company running at a high and recommendable efficiency.


REFERENCES
a) Referential notes taken during the industrial visit to Mumias Sugar Company on the 25th of May 2011
b) Mumias Sugar Company official website: http://www.mumias-sugar.com