Facing challenges and opportunities in the Pulp
and Paper Industry.
Pulp and Paper Industry Challenges...
Industry is facing an increasingly global market. In such capital intensive industry producing mostly commodity products, companies need to be the most cost-effective producer in order to be competitive. This implies incremental production increase, incremental operating cost reduction (in particular energy costs) and producing less off-spec products.
...And Opportunities.
At the same time, most of the mills are equipped with data historian systems. Millions of data points are typically collected and stored on a single site every day, however very few mills are harvesting the information buried in these data to enhance their operating performance.
PEPITe offers its customers innovative manufacturing intelligence solutions that quickly turns this abundant and underused stored data into knowledge for process improvements and better decision-making.
PEPITe solutions typically lead to:
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Increase efficiency by objectively identifying the best rules of operation,
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Reduce operating costs and operational risks by identifying process weaknesses and root causes of failure,
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React faster to process changes by optimizing your Key Performance Indicators (KPI) and by implementing smart alarms
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Monitor and sustain improvements using these intelligent alarms.
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Seed-up the troubleshooting process by identifying shorter list of suspects
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Support critical decisions regarding investment
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Energy Performance Audit
Quickly assess the availability, the quality and the variations of your energy data & KPIs, and target actions to improve energy monitoring and efficiency.
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Provide for each key energy variable: quality (measurement errors, sensor drift, data storage…), temporal evolution over the last years, basic statistics, local variability and noteworthy observations (special regimes, correlations…).
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Identify opportunities for energy data mining projects.
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Expected benefits: optimal and more reliable energy information system and prioritized list of opportunities.
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Smart Energy Monitoring
Track the relevant changes of your energy KPIs and make optimal decisions regarding energy management.
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Model the mill total steam/electricity consumption to take into account normal conditions such as seasonal variations, production rate…
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Monitor the difference between the predicted and the actual consumptions to detect process drift on time and to identify periods when efficiency is really higher.
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Expected benefits: objective view of your energy situation and quicker response to process change or drift to avoid extra energy cost.
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TMP Reboiler Optimizer
Reduce energy costs and CO2 emissions related to fossil fuel consumption by maximizing the clean steam produced at the TMP plant.
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Optimise the amount of dirty steam generated per MW of refining energy.
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Identify rootcauses of reboiler inefficiency.
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Track and sustain process improvements with smart alarms.
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Expected benefits: energy costs reduced by 2 to 5 $/ton of paper.
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Paper Machine Energy Optimizer
Reduce energy costs and CO2 emissions related to steam usage at the paper machine.
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Model the paper machine steam consumption to take into account normal conditions such as seasonal variations, grade, production rate, furnish…
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Identify rootcauses of the abnormal steam consumption variations and long term drift.
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Track and sustain process improvements with smart alarms
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Expected benefits: energy costs reduced by 4 to 6 $/ton of paper
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Boiler Efficiency Optimizer
Optimize your boilers and utility system to produce more steam and power per unit of fuel used and take wiser decisions regarding fuel switching and economic trade-off between power and steam.
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Identify rootcauses of boilers inefficiency.
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Identify the best conditions of operation of the whole utility system regarding steam and power production.
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Expected benefits: efficiency increased by 5 to 10%.
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Smart Emission Monitoring
Monitor and control your boiler emissions (greenhouse gases, NOx…) that are critical for current and future environmental constraints (global warming, pollution abatement) but also as future opportunities (CO2 market) and reduce operational risk.
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Identify rootcauses of non compliance.
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Monitor and sustain low emission operation with smart alarms.
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Expected benefits: avoid high cost penalties and operation shutdowns.
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Paper Break Analysis
Increase your paper machine overall equipment efficiency (OEE) by both reducing the downtime due to breaks and safely increasing the speed.
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Describe the break problem (frequency, location, evolution in time…)
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Identify and rank root-causes of breaks.
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Define windows of operation where break probability is lower and where the runability is optimal.
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Expected benefits: increase paper machine OEE by 1 to 5%
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Break Flagger
Determine if a given break is caused by process variability and when it is the case, identify which variables are likely in cause among hundreds of possible suspects.
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Troubleshoot a break after its occurrence using an online Excel-based application that detects variables which changed significantly right before the break
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Identify recurrent process causes of break on a weekly / monthly basis.
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Expected benefits: increase paper machine OEE by 1 to 5%
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Condition Based Maintenance
Reduce maintenance and operation costs by switching from expensive corrective type of maintenance to more efficient preventive maintenance actions.
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Identify variables that represent the best the equipments condition and performance
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Monitor equipment condition using optimal window of operation for which its performance is optimal and set intelligent alarms to trigger preventive maintenance actionsMonitor equipment condition using optimal window of operation for which its performance is optimal and set intelligent alarms to trigger preventive maintenance actions
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Expected benefits: reduce process downtime due to unschedule maintenance shutdownExpected benefits: reduce process downtime due to unschedule maintenance shutdown
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