Decision-making based on future and past pulp mill operations through mill-wide optimization, TAPPICon24

This paper presents how mill-wide optimization gives pulp and paper mills the opportunity to plan future operations and connect current production decisions to past events on a mill level. Through advances in digitalization, the pulp and paper industries are aiming at an increased autonomy of their operations, contributing to informed production decisions, predictive maintenance, and consistent process control. In this development, the role of operators will shift towards the orchestration of production line and mill operations. Mill-wide optimization (MWO) is introduced in this context as a solution for the prediction, optimization, and visualization of production targets across all mill departments. The technology is based on mathematical flowsheet optimization, where a mill flowsheet model is periodically optimized online, utilizing a dedicated software platform.

The role of mill-wide optimization was illustrated through a mill-wide production planning project for a kraft pulp mill, the results of which are summarized here. Providing mill personnel with the ability to forecast future operations and visualize the mill state for all departments simultaneously resulted in a consistent push towards higher digester production, and the impact on daily mill operations was exemplified through observed use case studies, grouped into the “debottlenecking”, “balancing”, and “planning” categories. In this paper, the planning of future maintenance actions is illustrated in practice using a comparable production planning application for an integrated pulp mill, with a focus on the role of operators, engineers, and management in the planning work.

TAPPI conference proceedings and presentations, technical papers, and publication articles provide technical and management data and solutions on topics covering the Pulp, Paper, Tissue, Corrugated Packaging, Flexible Packaging, Nanotechnology and Converting Industries.

Simply select the quantity, add to your cart and your conference paper, presentation or article will be available for immediate download.