Two Years Beyond the Clipboard: Predictive Maintenance in Action, TAPPICon26

Since its initial introduction at TAPPICon 2024 in Cleveland, OH, the predictive monitoring and proactive mainte-nance methodology for Quality Control Systems (QCS) explored in “Beyond the Clipboard: Elevating QCS Ser-vice” has become a critical tool for delivering maintenance services at multiple paper mills. Leveraging OT/IT inte-gration, real-time data historization, cloud-based analytics, and predictive notifications, mills have reduced measurement-related unplanned downtime and boosted overall equipment effectiveness (OEE).

This paper presents a comprehensive review of field implementations, highlighting key outcomes such as preemp-tion of emergency maintenance events and smart identification and scheduling of repairs. Case study examples com-bined from five different sites demonstrate how sensor anomaly detection and predictive alerting enabled early inter-vention on critical frame and sensor components, preventing costly measurement failures and production losses from unplanned downtime. Additionally, the paper explores enhancements made to the original system, including refined predictive analytics logic, optimized alert thresholds based on historical performance and environmental conditions, as well as a leap forward in reduction and prevention of false-positives and nuisance alarms. These improvements have further opti-mized repair scheduling and allocation of maintenance resources.

The results of the last two years of applying these QCS monitoring methodologies affirm that predictive mainte-nance, powered by integrated OT/IT systems, is not only viable but transformative for QCS reliability and pa-permaking productivity. Lessons learned and future directions for scaling and refining the methodology are also dis-cussed.

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