Pulp & Paper Industry
Equipment digitalization in the pulp and paper industry
Pulp & Paper Industry 4.0: Better and more environmental friendly Digitalization
The pulp and paper industry is developing globally, bringing challenges and opportunities to technology suppliers and industry manufacturers. As the market shifts to digital media and internet communications, the market for packaging materials and hygiene-related paper products is growing, while the global market for newsprint is shrinking.
With the intensification of global market competition and policy pressures, markets and consumer demand are adjusting. Therefore, in order to remain competitive, the industry must innovate. The Pulp & Paper industry has great potential for digitalization which will boost productivity and efficiency.
Challenges in the Pulp and Paper Industry
- 01
Market shifting and cost pressure
Profit margins in the pulp and paper industry are very low, and production costs are a key factor in profitability. One way to gain a greater share in the industry is to provide value-added services that competitors cannot provide. Brand owners, who are the ultimate decision-makers on the packaging, want better, faster, more customized products but they do not want to spend more.
- 02
Manufacturing environment control
In the pulp and paper industry, there are many harsh process conditions, such as corrosive pulp that requires extremely high-pressure conditions, with corrosive chemicals, and very smooth and fast rolling operations. Therefore, process control is the key to optimizing plant operation and performance, to carry accurate control and measurement under harsh process conditions.
- 03
Sustainability and environmental challenges
Productivity and profitability under strict environmental guidelines are a unique challenge faced by the pulp and paper industry. The pulp and paper industry are increasingly demanding the reduction of environmental and carbon emissions, and the acquisition of wood is gradually moving to local sustainable sources and recycling. Therefore, it is necessary to develop new technologies to provide the effective utilization of wood and recycling resources, thereby reducing the impact on the environment.
- 04
Equipment stability and performance
The business of the pulp and paper industry is mainly to use various resources (including wood chips, clay, lime, dyes, chemical resins, and recycled paper) to make wood pulp, paper, or cardboard. The demand for mechanical maintenance is increasing and paper manufacturing, and paper recycling plants also pay more attention to process efficiency and machine reliability than ever before.
iFactory @ Pulp and Papers
The pulp and paper industry has complex production processes, which can be optimized and digitized through the iFactory Solution suite @ Pulp and Paper Industry. The paper industry, like oil, gas, mining industries, has important asset facilities need to be constantly monitored. Sudden interruption of the production line due to failure will affect the quality and production efficiency.
Advantages
- 01
Safer, connected production
- 02
Efficient energy consumption
- 03
Minimal waste and error reduction
- 04
Increased production efficiency
- 05
Maximized logistical efficiencies
- 06
Assets performance optimization
I.App of the Solution Suite
Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE)
Visualized monitoring of OEE indicators and KPIs of the whole plant through data acquisition, aggregation, and machine utilization analysis. Smart factory production efficiency management can be easily realized to increase productivity, review and analysis of major losses, improve equipment utilization, and effectively increase production capacity.
Facility Management & Sustainability (FMS)
Real-time monitoring environmental sensors and track energy consumption of the whole plant by category. Identifies anomalous power consumption with real-time data read by smart meters. FMS allows users to monitor energy consumption information and environment safety, and accurately estimate energy costs. It also optimizes utility efficiency, thereby contributing to business FMS management strategies.
System Architectures of Pulp & Papers Industry
Co-Creation with DFSI
Industrial IoT (IIoT) involves integrating big data, cloud, and AI applications. To embrace this trend, Advantech is collaborating with domain-focused system integrators (DFSIs) to develop industrial apps (I.Apps).