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Sir,
Your recent Back Pager on process control (PPI August, pg 58) prompted me to ask the question, has process control killed off the papermaking "gods"? By "gods", I mean the machine men of the pulp and paper industry. When I first started in the industry in 1975, machine men were held and looked upon with great reverence. These idols achieved the giddy heights of machine men only after years of experience and a wealth of knowledge. This experience and knowledge was borne out of a respect and understanding of papermaking and machinery.
A machine man could look at a wire table and immediately tell if any alterations were to be made. He could look at the wet line and determine if it was to be altered by refining or vacuum box control to achieve the desired sheet stability, or draw control.
The machine "god" would also know instinctively what to tweak to correct any nonconforming attribute which gives the sheet its exactness. When the sheet broke out, the assistant would gather the tail, tear out the fault, probably look at it and then hand it over to the "god" for analysis. If the assistant had the audacity to suggest what he thought was wrong, a clip around the ear or worse would follow.
Oh how we wished that we too could become "gods", even if it it would take years. The yearning for the position and the recognition that would come with it never waned, as time was on our side.
Computers were recognized as so futuristic, so big a concept, and so expensive that we didn't really expect to see them for a very long time. But they came along with a velocity which was very frightening indeed. All of a sudden on a screen before our eyes we could see all of our profiles. This was going to be easy, we could all become "gods" overnight. All of those pages, all that information there at the push of a button - oh how naive!
So the computers were installed, commissioned, training was given and an understanding was gained. All we had to do was go out there and press the buttons. Pumps would automatically come to life, motors would kick in and valves would move to every command…. until the system crashed.
The shift manager came out and said, "Don't worry - start up manually and fly blind." The horror that was felt was incomprehensible. Here we were, the first of a new breed where "time-served" did not earn you the considered right to a position. We got there eventually, but only with the assistance of the "old gods" who knew how to fly blind.
The moral of this story is that computers are not the ultimate tool for papermaking. There should always be a "god" in a glass case which states "Break glass in case of emergencies".
Brian Dewar, works manager
lnveresk Graphic Papers
Kilbagie Mills, Scotland, UK.
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