The unexpected events of the last few years, notably the pandemic, have had a profound impact on business practices, accelerating the transition to remote and home working. While industry has adjusted to this new normal, it has highlighted systemic vulnerabilities in global supply chains and underlined the need for industry leaders to reassess how they engage with the digital transition.

Add to that global political instability, and the impact of the war in Ukraine, and you have a perfect storm of challenges facing manufacturers across multiple sectors. This is compounded by the perennial need to optimize production, maintain quality, reduce costly downtime, while at the same time limiting waste, energy usage and environmental emissions.

Adversity does, however, bring with it opportunities to disrupt the existing order by eschewing entrenched, inefficient working processes and taking a simpler, smarter approach to digitalization; an example being the trend for remote project commissioning and servicing during the pandemic.

Adversity also demands that the foundations of any operation are as robust and resilient as possible.

This is particularly true for the pulp and paper industry. The pandemic was a challenging time for operators who had to keep mills running in difficult conditions and were focused on surviving rather than thriving. It’s not surprising that, during a time when people were running on empty and under intense pressure, certain disciplines became a lesser priority.

Now is the time to re-instill discipline and bring back some of the good habits that may have been lost during these difficult years. We need to collectively remind ourselves of the importance of the basic, daily hygiene that is so critical to mills: regular service, maintenance, continual optimization, troubleshooting, long-term planning and more.

Let’s take the discipline of regular, physical inspection and maintenance as an example; pulp and paper operators cannot afford, nor no longer have an excuse, to let service levels drop.  

As someone who works for a technology leader such as ABB, I am, naturally, an advocate for leveraging data and its unique ability to provide greater visualization of an entire manufacturing production chain.

Much has been written about how the industrial internet of things, AI and Big Data are automating industrial processes, resulting in production and cost efficiencies, as well as freeing up workers from performing repetitive tasks in risky or inhospitable environments.

What we have seen during the past few years, however, is that Big Data has its limitations when it comes to driving real business value for large industrial manufacturers. Big Data is about collecting vast amounts of granular information on every facet of plant operations and centralizing it in a single repository where it can be collated, analyzed and then applied to optimize production and identify potential failures before they occur.

That’s fine, but pulp and paper operators are realizing that they don’t necessarily need large quantities of historical data, or even have large quantities of sufficient detail, as much as they need solutions that keep pace with the rapidly changing operating environment in their mill. This is why, at ABB, we focus on understanding how those processes work and tailor our data-driven solutions to mill-specific parameters to effectively apply those principles to areas that deliver real value: cost to produce, throughput, availability and quality.

Most importantly, there is a greater appreciation of how those insights can drive business value to the end product. That is perhaps the single biggest change that we at ABB have witnessed over the past five years. Digital can adapt to such requirements quickly and seamlessly and as such, we have responded by focusing our digital offering on each customer’s parameters to better understand their specific processes.

You can have all the technology in the world, but it is only as effective as the talent that goes hand in hand. The workforce remains a critical step on the journey to autonomous operations. In my view not enough has been written about how the digital transition must be supported by the transformation of processes and people.

Pulp and paper is a great example. The sector is traditionally viewed as being risk-averse when it comes to adopting new technologies, but, encouragingly, during the pandemic we saw an increased interest from many mills to embrace new tools and processes such as remote commissioning and maintenance. Now, as we return to more traditional post-Covid ways of working, it’s crucial that operators continue to invest their time and expertise so as not to allow service levels to slip.

Let’s take the example of a Tesla car to illustrate the point. Tesla gathers a multitude of data about the car itself and how it is driven, but it is still a mechanical thing. You still have to put air in the tires and wash the windshield or the car will eventually, without upkeep, become undriveable.

During the pandemic you couldn't leave the house, so you weren't putting as many miles on your car, meaning that maybe you weren’t servicing it as often as before. This may not cost you anything in the short term, but that doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do in terms of servicing and keeping expensive equipment at optimal performance.

Transfer that to a mill, which typically contains multiple heavy, complex machines at every stage of the production chain, from woodyard to shipment. During the lockdowns, companies understandably struggled to get as many staff as possible onto the shop floor to perform preventative maintenance rounds. Having the right people, with the right expertise, in place to perform these physical inspections must once again become a priority. Without this, operators will struggle to maximize uptime and identify and mitigate the effects of harsh mill conditions - such as dirt, dust, pulp and moisture build up - which can impact even the most reliable of equipment.