Doing the right things right, with surface quality software.

Editor's Note: This is the first in a continuing series of articles on how we can "build a better paper industry" through new ideas in technology, product development, and innovative management.

As paper becomes more and more of a commodity, paper manufacturers face new challenges. The first is the general decline of the global economy following the technology boom of the late 1990s. Paper manufacturers are also seeing a general increase in competition, including competition from the emerging markets. In addition, customers demand shorter lead times and simultaneously better service levels, a combination that seemed highly contradictory for a long time.

Increasing cost competition and customer demands would traditionally require significant investments in new paper machines. Such machines could enhance cost efficiency through increased levels of scale and higher quality production. However, today's general economic situation does not allow for substantial investment projects. Thus, papermakers have to keep up through innovations in product, process, and asset management technology to improve productivity of their existing production facilities.

THE PURPOSE BEHIND PRODUCTIVITY INITIATIVES

Productivity initiatives usually have two purposes: security of delivery and increased throughput. In today's highly optimized production processes, security of delivery counts for 90% of the paper's value. Hence, the major focus is on delivery quality, delivery time, and delivery reliability. A different approach to improving productivity is to focus on ways to increase throughput. If the economy does not allow paper producers to invest in new machines, they must concentrate on improving the runnability of existing paper machines. Currently, an average papermaker must increase the tonnage of the mill's existing machines by 3% to 5% per year.

A HIDDEN CHAMPION: SURFACE QUALITY DATA

Concrete productivity initiatives follow varied patterns at various paper producers. There is, however, a common--though somewhat hidden--element in the papermaker's value chain that can have a remarkable impact on productivity. That element is surface quality.

Surface quality--if monitored, analyzed, and assessed with state-of-the art technology--provides a comprehensive view of web quality. Web inspection systems provide a relevant value to the paper industry. They reliably detect holes and help prevent sheet "disasters." However, for security of delivery and increased throughput, standard web inspection systems are no longer adequate. Surface quality data must now provide precise defect analysis and the corresponding measures in real-time. This can be outlined with two examples.

Security of delivery: Surface quality analysis at a slitter gives the paper producer a quality map of each roll produced for each customer. The effect is twofold. First, this surface quality map allows the paper producer to better allocate rolls to the different customer orders. That speeds up the complex decision process leading up to delivery and reduces the time to delivery.

Second, paper producers can give these maps to their customers, especially to those who do not have a defect detection system for incoming material.

Increased throughput: Surface quality information can be processed along the entire value chain. If there are surface quality databases after the paper machine, after the winder, and before the first coater head, the paper producer can analyze how the quality evolves during the production process. This enables the papermaker to monitor if and when in the value chain the surface characteristics match customer quality targets or are most vulnerable to upset. Treated this way, surface information becomes a substantial input for production optimization in two respects. First, it allows the mill to cost-optimize the mixture of pulp ingredients (fiber and additives) that will still yield the quality required in the end-customer products. Second, by improving the raw materials' effect on quality, production process failures (such as web breaks) are reduced and mill runnability, throughput, and yield are increased.

USING CLASSIFICATION TECHNOLOGY TO MAKE PRODUCTIVITY DECISIONS

Obviously, those types of productivity gains depend on treating surface data in an appropriate manner. We call it classification. Classification bases on software algorithms that work like the papermaker, sorting defects by their appearance and judging appearance through experience.

These algorithms can, for example, help identify the subtle differences between a thin spot and a water drop. Traditional web inspection systems detect both of those as bright spots, prompting patching at the re-reeler and thus slowing throughput. With the surface quality information of classification technology, papermakers can avoid a part of this patching effort. They get more differentiated information, which allows them to distinguish between a thin spot that need action and a water drop that they can ignore. That keeps throughput high.

Classification technology allows papermakers to make such subtle, but effective, surface productivity decisions. The technology depends on a significant knowledge database for proper defect analysis. This knowledge database must consist of several hundreds of features describing the defect characteristics. Managing this multitude of information and adapting to the continued changes of defect characteristics through process optimization can only be achieved by software.

SOFTWARE IS THE ANSWER

To remain competitive and satisfy increasing customer demands, paper producers must focus their productivity investments in ways that will ensure security of delivery and increased throughput. Toward that end, surface quality data can serve as significant value creation catalyst. However, the surface quality data required to cope with today's challenges can no longer be delivered from traditional web inspection systems. Today's systems need innovative classification technology and algorithms to become an efficient productivity weapon. Thus, software approaches to surface quality productivity seem to be a powerful answer for building a better paper industry.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS:

Gunther Tolkmit (left), COO, joined Parsytec, Aachen, Germany in 2001. He has more than 25 years of international experience in all areas of technology management. He has held R & D management, technical support, and worldwide marketing positions at Siemens AG, ADV/ORGA AG, Software AG, and SAP AG.

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Martin Karlowitsch (right), head of integrated marketing communications, joined Parsytec AG in 2000. A graduate of Heinrich-Heine Universitat Dusseldorf, Karlowitsch has been responsible for investor relations, corporate communications, and business planning at Parsytec AG. Contact him by email at [e-mail] or by phone at: [phone]

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GUNTHER TOLKMIT AND MARTIN KARLOWITSCH, PARSYTEC