Paper Manufacturing

Indu-Sol and the future of pulp production:

How predictive maintenance reduces downtime costs

Customer

Paper Manufacturer

350 Mio. € turnover,
500 employees

Sector

Paper industry

Period and completion

March 2023

Project Description

Indu-Sol, an experienced partner in the field of OT network technology, supports a leading European pulp manufacturer which has been operating a state-of-the-art mill since the mid-2000s. With the Profibus application in the OT network and regular half-yearly status audits to check the network technology, a long-term cooperation has been established. In view of system failures that caused costs of around 80,000 euros per hour, the focus was on the transformation from time-based to proactive, predictive maintenance. The aim was to reduce the considerable financial burden of unplanned downtime and to increase the efficiency of the production process.

Particularly challenging were the extensive and costly measures in the event of a plant shutdown, including the necessary cleaning procedures and the time it took to get the plant up and running again. Indu-Sol‘s customized solutions help to reduce unplanned downtime and make effective use of production time, which means the company has taken a significant step towards optimized operational reliability and cost efficiency.

Goal

Minimize unplanned downtime (90,000 euros/hour)

Challenge and solution from Indu-Sol

Indu-Sol found that a condition monitoring system with PROFIBUS INspektor and PROmanage can significantly reduce downtimes. This system enables continuous monitoring of the network in order to detect anomalies and wear at an early stage and convert unplanned downtimes into plannable maintenance measures. Through targeted training, Indu-Sol convinced both the technical teams and the management of the benefits of the system. The ROI calculation in particular, which showed that the investment would pay for itself after the first avoided breakdown, was a convincing argument.

InduSol America's scope of services

Analysis of the current situation and network consulting
Passive network diagnostics: installation/configuration of PROFIBUS-INspektors®
PROmanage® NT (network maintenance and management software)
PROmesh diagnostic switches for the high-performance network backbone
Training and instruction of users on site
Alarm management: Threshold value adjustment to the conditions of the system alarm management

Benefits for the client

The significant reduction in unplanned system downtime led to an increase in efficiency in the production process. ROI is already achieved by preventing one hour of unplanned downtime.