The L&W Autoline has been a critical part of quality and production since the end of the 1980’s for the mill, and they require it to work 24/7. Therefore, the mill also turns to ABB for their service needs—to ensure the L&W Autoline is always up and running.
“The quick and professional service from ABB is one of the reasons why L&W laboratory equipment, including the L&W Autoline, is our first choice,” says Vernersson.
The impact the L&W Autoline has on testing enables the mill to sell the specialty products that few others produce. Even with a full set of stand-alone instruments, the mill wouldn’t be able to produce the necessary testing volumes at the speed needed for the high-quality Ahlstrom-Munksjö products.
“It would be impossible to keep the same number of test positions without the L&W Autoline, but at the same time, the high number of testing positions is needed to monitor production and end quality,” says Vernersson. “Reduced testing volumes results in less reliable quality information, which can lead to wrong process adjustments, and, in the end, increased quality claims.”
Since the mill changed from manual testing to L&W Autoline many years ago, it’s difficult to calculate how much testing capacity have increased. An estimation is that testing capacity would go down by more than 70 percent without the L&W Autoline.
“The consequences of reduced testing volumes means we’d have less reliable data, which, in a worst case scenario, won’t be accurate enough for efficient process optimization,” says Vernersson. “The increased waiting time also means longer periods between tuning, which could result in more costly production outside specifications and non-sellable products.”
The mill has come to rely on the many benefits of automated paper testing and was eager to be one of the first with the newest generation of L&W Autoline.