Mill Production Efficiency

PRODUCTION EFFICIENCY
Article supplied by Andritz
Mill Production
OPE. It’s not just maintenance. It’s continuous
improvement. The importance of maintenance
to a mill’s profitability and efficiency cannot
be overstated. Maintenance effectiveness and
equipment availability is critical to continuous
and stable production.
And, while maintenance is a critical focus,
it may not be the business focus of the mill.
Product development, production, customer
management, logistics, etc. are all core
activities. There are outside experts who take
maintenance and process optimisation as core
activities – and these experts can complement
the in-house capabilities within a mill.
One of those outside expert companies is ANDRITZ, who has
over the last 20 years enhanced a service that it calls OPE –
Overall Production Efficiency.
ABOVE: Process OPE, white liquor
plant for a mill in South America
Equipment availability
is important, of course,
since any mill suffers in
terms of efficiency, quality,
environmental load and
cost whenever there is
an unplanned stop. But
the attitude should be, “If
we are going to touch a
machine, we should make it
better than it was before.”
14
VOLUME 2 2015 | TAPPSA JOURNAL
OPE: STRIKING THE CORRECT BALANCE
In addition to availability, the equipment – in fact the entire
process line – must be tuned to achieve the best balance of
throughput and efficiency, at the lowest total cost. That is
how quality is obtained and money is made.
There are maintenance outsourcing companies who can
do very solid maintenance work, but do not have the
process knowledge to tune a process line. Nor do they have
the detailed knowledge of the specific machines. These
companies are ideal for routine maintenance activities
(vibration analysis, valve and transmitter calibration,
lubrication, etc.) and even for basic repair of mechanical
equipment.
ANDRITZ’s OPE service addresses the need for higher
level activities such as remote monitoring of the process,
trend analysis for preventive maintenance planning, how
to upgrade machines, etc. The best of both worlds is a
combination of the two capabilities – the skills, data,
and process knowledge of OPE experts along with skilled
manpower to do the actual maintenance.
PRODUCTION EFFICIENCY
Efficiency
ANDRITZ offers this as well, through its Preventive
Maintenance Services organization. The result is a
“maintenance plus development” partner who not only
keeps the mill running, but also improves it on a regular
basis.
BETTER THAN IT WAS BEFORE
“OPE is not just equipment, just process, just maintenance,
or just training,” says Jari Kapanen, Global Product Manager
for OPE. “It is the experience and knowledge we have to put
all these things together into one solution.”
Putting all these skills together is especially valuable when
it comes to de-bottlenecking a mill. Whenever a bottleneck
is eliminated at one position, it creates both a benefit and
a challenge. The benefit is increased throughput. The
challenge might be the impact that the de-bottlenecking will
have on downstream systems, which can become the next
bottleneck. A company such as ANDRITZ, with its broad and
deep knowledge of a mill can make recommendations that
have millwide benefits – not “optimising” a specific process
area at the expense of the rest of the mill.
There is a mantra, “What
gets measured, gets done,”
and this applies very well
to OPE. The target is to
create a well-operating
mill whose performance is
improving all the time.
Equipment availability is important, of course, since any mill
suffers in terms of efficiency, quality, environmental load and
cost whenever there is an unplanned stop. But the attitude
should be, “If we are going to touch a machine, we should
make it better than it was before.” This focus on improving
the mill all the time should lead to competitive advantages.
SHORT-TERM ACTIONS – LONGER TERM
DEVELOPMENT
Part of the OPE approach is to create a longer term
development plan with a mill. “Availability, stable production,
and lower costs never go out of style,” Kapanen says. “But
each year, a mill’s priorities or focus will change. That is why
we create together an annual plan for short-term targets and
a longer term development plan.”
Continued on the following page
BELOW LEFT: Camilla Wikström, Mill Manager, with Kalevi Kurki,
Customer Service Manager for ANDRITZ
BELOW RIGHT: Process OPE at a mill in South America
TAPPSA JOURNAL | VOLUME 2 2015
15
PRODUCTION EFFICIENCY
CO-OPERATION,
PARTNERSHIP
Unlike
some
types
of
maintenance
outsourcing
where work is sometimes
performed without much
interaction
with
mill
operations personnel, critical
to the success of the OPE
service
is
collaboration
and cooperation with mill
people. “We have process
and equipment expertise, but
we cannot possibly know the
details and nuances of the
mill like the people who work
there,” Kapanen says. That
local and specific expertise
is very important. Each of us
brings something to the table.”
This type of relationship is
highly visible when noting
the success of a Process OPE
service. For example, in a
project currently underway
for a pulp producer in South
America, the Process OPE
service is being employed
in the white liquor plant of three different mills within the
company.
The target of the service is to improve the performance of
the white liquor plants, which are a bottleneck at each mill,
without investing capital money. A significant contribution
to the performance improvement is training/re-training all
the operators. This training requires the commitment and
cooperation of everyone involved – ANDRITZ OPE experts
and mill personnel – to share a common goal and implement
new ideas together.
CONTINUOUS MEASUREMENT
The main difference for a mill to understand when utilizing
the OPE service is that it is not purchasing manhours, it is
purchasing results. The measurement yardsticks – Key
Performance Indicators (KPI) – are agreed to ahead of time.
These KPI are measured continuously in order to track
development. There is a mantra, “What gets measured, gets
done,” and this applies very well to OPE. The target is to
create a well-operating mill whose performance is improving
all the time.
16
ABOVE: Fibreline at Äänekoski Mill
“We chose the fibreline and white liquor plant to focus OPE
on because they have traditionally been our bottlenecks,”
says Camilla Wikström, Mill Manager. “ANDRITZ’s OPE
work in the white liquor plant helped us reduce kiln energy
consumption and cut the amount of purchased lime. We
have since performed small upgrades to our white liquor
filters to improve throughput and white liquor quality. So
there has been a pattern of continuous improvement.”
In the cooking area, there were problems with digester
performance in the winter time. ANDRITZ’s OPE team
recommended solutions in two areas: small technical
fixes for the digester and a different way of running it to
improve its performance. Quite small things, but they made
a big difference. Then in 2011, ANDRITZ upgraded the
digester with new screens and some other changes which
improved the throughput and the in-digester washing. “We
now get about 200 to 250 more tonnes per day through
our fibreline,” Wikström says. “For the most part, this has
been accomplished with small changes, not large capital
investments.”
THE ÄÄNEKOSKI EXPERIENCE
What the team at Äänekoski looks to ANDRITZ to provide
is its expertise in specific processes and equipment. “We
expect them to come to us with new ideas and better ways
of doing things,” Wikström says.
The first ANDRITZ OPE contract at Metsä Fibre’s Äänekoski
mill began in 2004 in the white liquor plant. Cooking
followed in 2005. In 2007, the work was extended to the
other fibreline processes of washing, screening, and oxygen
delignification.
Kalevi Kurki, ANDRITZ’s Customer Service Manager, says,
“It is important to be regularly present at the mill. We can
run simulation models and tune control loops remotely, but
without dialogue with the operators and managers, this has
little value. Personal interaction is required.” ■
VOLUME 2 2015 | TAPPSA JOURNAL