Important Inspection of OPC cement which comes in bag

Dnyan Deshmukh

Staff member
Important Inspection of OPC cement which comes in bag
I recently got a lot of OPC 53 grade cement bags at my Project. some of bags had manufacturing details like week, year printed in red color.
Its immediately strike on my mind, as per BIS notification for ISI marking on cement bags following color coding is used;

For PPC cement - Details should be printed in Red color.
For PSC cement - Details should be printed in Orange color.
For railway slipper cement - Details should be printed in Green Color.
Rest all cement types - Details should be printed in Black color.

when i noticed a print in red color on OPC cement bags, i immediately contacted to factory person for reason and also sent the photographs of it.
opc cement with print in red color.jpg

I got a reply from them saying, it was by mistake of labours who poured red ink in printer instead of black.
as the bags which i received with red prints are in very small quantity, i used them in non structural works.

Reason given by them might be correct or may not be correct.

As far as i know, after manufacturing of cement, it is stored in the silos, as per order it is then dispense in bags and automatically after getting correct weight, bag gets sealed and shifted over conveyor.

during the transport through conveyor, a printer prints a manufacturing details as the bag moves from its front.

Rest all details are pre-printed on bags.

What a manufacturer can do when the supply is short and demand is more for a particular product.

either he shut off saying no stock or will consume other product packing in different brand packing which is in demand.

In those cases we might not able to identify the cement type, but as the silos for different brands are different and conveyors with printers installed are different.

The possibility of packing PPC cement in OPC bags cant be denied.

In that case, the details printed on bags goes in Red Color.

My theory might be wrong, but what if any cement manufacturer does like this?

I am sharing this incident with you all to make awareness about it (This is not for blaming any manufacturer of Cement, Mistake happens in work where manual interaction with automatic system happens).

Do not accept cement bags if the color code of print does not match with BIS guidelines for certification of ISI marking.