Upgrade to continuous feed sheeting improves mill profitability, Solutions!, Online Exclusives, November 2003

UPGRADE TO CONTINUOUS FEED SHEETING IMPROVES MILL PROFITABILITY

By Werner Reiter, bielomatik-jagenberg

Market pressures were forcing Spanish company Torras Papel to find a way to intelligently maximize the productivity and efficiency in its converting facilities. The mill settled on an upgrade to the piling system on two Jagenberg Synchro Sheeters-one each at two different mills.

Like other paper producers worldwide, Spain’s Torras Papel is feeling the squeeze of increased competition, declining margins and tighter budgets. As a result, Torras Papel had to find a way to intelligently maximize the productivity and efficiency in their converting facilities.

Figure 1: The new part overlapping towards the cross-cut section.

The most obvious way to do all that was to reduce wasted time, wasted capacity and wasted product. So in mid-2002,after running trials and calculating projections, Torras Papel, Spain’s largest papermaker decided to upgrade the piling system on two Jagenberg Synchro Sheeters—one each at two different mills.

Both of the 65"-wide sheeters were installed by Jagenberg nearly 20 years ago, and their non-automated piling systems caused profit-eating downtime and waste during every pile changeover. Before the rebuilds each machine was producing between 70 and 90 mtpd.

Figure 2: View from the new lay-boy towards the cross-cut section. (The motor operates the lay-boy platform.)

Streamlining and accelerating the piling process was critical to the mills’ business strategy of reacquiring the unused sheeter capacity and improving the profitability of each machine. But so was reducing product loss during pile changes. The technology they chose for the upgrade was the bielomatik-jagenberg Contimat-E pile change system.

Using a single lay-boy, the Contimat-E system performs fully automated pile changes—without the loss of a single sheet at full machine speed—to allow continuous sheeter operation.

The Contimat-E is a unique pile change system. While other fully automated systems are available, they require either two lay-boys, which greatly increases initial cost, maintenance, and space requirements, or a significant reduction in speed.

From shutdown to startup, the bielomatik-jagenberg team from Windsor, Connecticut, USA, had only twelve days to retrofit the Contimat-E systems onto the sheeters. "Some thought it wouldn’t be possible," bielomatik- jagenberg’s Werner Reitter recalls. "But we made the deadline, and the piling systems performed as projected within the add value to the same paper a second time." The machines are now producing between 110 and 120 mtpd.

Figure 3: View of the new lay-boy.

Reitter estimates a Contimat-E rebuild can cost as little as 25% of the price of a new sheeter, and noted that this is just one of a variety of sheeter rebuilds and upgrades that bielomatik-jagenberg offers. "They are excellent investments for anyone who wants to access all of the sheeter capacity they have already paid for, reduce manufacturing costs at the end of the in-mill value chain, and increase output—all with a payback that is acceptable even with today’s tight budgets," he says.

About the author: Werner Reitter is vice president, sales and marketing at bielomatik-jagenberg. He joined Jagenberg in 1969 and has specialized in sheet design, convering and engineering throughout his career. Reach him at werner.reitter@biel-jag.com or visit http://www.biel-jag.com.