No Risk, No Future

摘要

This paper aims to create awareness of the risk-avoiding strategies that put paper mills and paper machine clothing (PMC) suppliers in dire straits. Close cooperation between paper mills and suppliers can be a good thing for creating and improving efficiency. But when the papermaker and PMC supplier become chained to each other, it makes them both inapt to become the innovators they need to be for the survival of our industry. This paper presents several guidelines for executing trials on paper machine clothing. Due to the nature of such innovative projects, savings can occur in places you don't expect. In order to prove and quantify the savings and make a solid business case, it is of the utmost importance to include and measure ALL relevant variables visible, including costs for maintenance, material resources, energy, duties etc. "Innovation is about realism, stop making convenient assumptions" This paper includes a case study of a paper mill, which is rewarded for its willingness to run innovative trials with its machine clothing. The production manager realizes that even the shortest period of machine downtime is expensive, but necessary to do the experiments that will lead to money-saving conclusions on the use of felts and the resulting paper machine performance. Bear in mind that the case study in this article is not common practice, yet. "The inconvenient truth is that papermakers cannot easily switch to a different machine clothing supplier when an innovative new technology becomes available" In getting a solid return on investment, the paper industry keeps following a conservative strategy under the false assumption it is the safest strategy. Due to the large sums of money involved and the perceived risk of running trials with an uncertain outcome, the general rule is to play it safe. This paper intends to open the eyes of the paper industry as a whole, while presenting strong and hands-on arguments and tips for papermakers to start innovative trials with their paper machine clothing and withstand the pressure of bookkeepers who only look at short-term results "on paper".