Client

AI-based Predictive maintenance for pulp and paper mills

Valmet
Valmet Corporation serves the pulp, paper and energy industries and is known as the global leader in its field. It delivers technology, automation and services to manufacturing companies. Valmet is a frontrunner in big data, analytics and industrial internet investment. It wants to offer its customers increasingly extensive advisory services, to improve the servicing of paper machines and to understand which factors influence the life cycle of the most valuable machine parts.
24 billion
Data quantity in rows of data
100%
Data model coverage of paper machine
70 000
Cost savings per unit per annum (EUR)

CHALLENGE

NEED FOR SERVICING & MAINTENANCE SERVICES

Valmet’s services are comprehensive, covering everything from maintenance outsourcing to mill and power plant upgrades and spares. Pulp mills, tissue, board and paper manufacturing lines and bioenergy power plants form the core of Valmet’s strong technology offering. In accordance with its vision, the company’s goal is to be the best in the world in serving its customers.

”More and more of our customers want to buy demanding servicing and maintenance services from the original equipment manufacturer, which would be us. There is also growing demand for long-term contracts in paper machine wear and spare parts supply. Paper machines are very complicated and have a large number of very expensive parts that wear in production use. We wanted to develop a model that would allow us to identify the factors that influence their life cycles and the optimisation of production use,” says Pekka Linnonmaa, Director, Paper Technology, EMEA, at Valmet.

SOLUTION

automated predictive analytics solution

Valmet and Houston Analytics, part of Unikie, collected data from the most valuable wear parts of the paper machine so that we could understand what influences lifespans. We analysed the need, available data and desired outcome using our agile service model. Our team helped Valmet to forecast paper machines’ servicing needs more efficiently and optimise production. In collaboration, we created an automated predictive analytics solution for business operations.

Data was collected from 6,500 sensors on the Valmet customer’s paper machine. “We use reports based on advanced analytics to develop a life cycle model. With the data from the sensors we can reduce the risk of unscheduled shutdowns,” says Linnonmaa.

RESULTS

Optimized process control, fewer non-defective products

Valmet has attained significant results in a very short time. The agile cooperation has created significant added value in improving the efficiency of an industrial process machine.

“Thanks to the headway we have made with the development of the lifecycle model of the roll covering, our customer has been able to extend the servicing interval from five to six weeks. This means substantial direct savings for each roll covering. A single paper machine has from two to ten roll coverings. Production reliability also improves."
Pekka Linnonmaa
Director, Valmet Technologies

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