By Justin Toland, Contributing Editor
BRUSSELS,
Jan. 1, 2009
(Viewpoint) -
Port Talbot in South Wales, UK, was a town built on heavy industry. Docks for the coal industry, a huge steelworks and one of the largest petrochemicals plants in Europe were once a familiar site to motorists travelling along the nearby M4 motorway. As with many other industrial towns across Europe, the 1980s and ‘90s were a period of job losses and decline. In 2004, BP’s Baglan Bay chemical plant, which had employed 2,500 people in 1974, closed for good. Following the closure, the local authority took steps to convert the site into an industrial park. The Baglan Bay Energy Park has since attracted a number of new business ventures, including, most notably, Italy’s Sofidel Group, whose UK operation, Intertissue, began production at the site in 2006.
Dipping a toe
Although the startup of the Baglan mill was a crucial moment in the Intertissue story, that story actually starts four years earlier. Sofidel established the firm in 2002, initially selling products imported from the 100,000-tonne/yr Delipapier mill in France. “The idea was to dip our toes in the market, so the people in Italy could understand the UK better,” explains commercial vice managing director, Intertissue, Chris Perry. “It’s very difficult to start from scratch in a market with a site this size,” he adds, referring to Baglan.
Immersing itself further in the UK market, Intertissue began converting parent rolls at the former Arjo Wiggins mill on Sanitorium Road in Cardiff in June 2003. The two-rewinder operation, producing bathroom tissue and kitchen towels, was set up for three reasons, recalls Perry:
1. To train people
2. To get on the radar of UK supermarket chains
3. To establish processes and procedures.
The latter is particularly important for Sofidel. “The company is very procedurally-driven,” notes Perry. “Things are done the same across the group and as a result we get very good synergies. That probably enables us to take a layer of management out.”
The vice MD outlines another of the benefits of duplicating processes: “If a major disaster happened here, we could make the products in France – all the machines are the same, the set-ups are the same.”
There is also plenty of interaction between the various Sofidel facilities. For instance, a crew of 12 from Intertissue spent six months training in Italy.
With the Cardiff converting plant up-to-speed, the decision was taken to invest in a full-blown manufacturing facility. “We considered a number of options in terms of logistics, and [Baglan] was the best,” explains Perry. “It’s three hours from London, three from the West Midlands, four from the Northwest of England.”
Another important consideration was the neighboring H-Type 500 MW General Electric power station, which supplies the tissue mill with economic and plentiful energy.
Operations vice managing director, Intertissue, Giuseppe Munari was also project manger for the construction and startup of the mill. He explains that prior to commencing building, the 33 ha site had to be raised 0.5 m to avoid the danger of flooding from the nearby Bristol Channel, which has a 15 m tidal range. Some 250,000 tonnes of sand dredged from the Channel was used for this purpose.
Foundation work saw 532 piles driven to a depth of 17.5 m. The local authorities had previously remediated the land down to a depth of 5 m, ensuring that there would be no nasty surprises during construction. At Sofidel’s Delipapier mill, also built on a brownfield, workers found a buried railway engine during construction!
Contractors Hochtief Griffiths and Polimex Mostostal started work on the machine house and other buildings on May 16, 2005. “The first priority was the converting building,” explains Munari.
Tissue converting began at Baglan in April 2006, closing down in Cardiff the same month (the site was cleared in October 2006 and has since been levelled). On August 29 of that year - six days ahead of schedule - PM 1 was born, producing saleable paper within 20 minutes.
Intertissue produces 54,000 tonnes/yr of paper in a basis weight range of 14-28 g/m². “The forecast is for 55,000-plus tonnes in 2008,” notes Perry proudly.
The mill’s Metso Advantage DCT 200 paper machine has a design speed of 1,900 m/min. At startup, the unit was installed with an Advantage ViscoNip press, the first of its kind. In order to make a performance comparison, Sofidel replaced it with a traditional suction roll press in July 2008. A decision on which kind of press to continue with will be based on the respective performance levels of the two press sections.
Intertissue produces bathroom, kitchen and facial tissue on seven converting lines. Five of the lines are for rolled products, three of which permanently manufacture toilet tissue and one kitchen towel, with one swing line for either. Fabio Perini supplied the units. There are two Winkler + Dunnebier facial tissue lines (one regular, one mansize).
“We have high visibility process control for everything,” notes Perry. “Each of the lines has four unwind stands so we can automatically splice.”
TMC supplied the wrapping stations. “We use the same kind throughout the group,” says Perry. “Every line has two wrappers, two baggers, each of which can handle 90% of the capacity of the rewinder, so we hardly lose any time during changeovers.”
Bagged and bundled products are transported by Electric 80 AGVs to the 34,000 m² finished goods warehouse. This spotlessly clean space is divided into three areas with firebreaks in between.
“Everything goes out as full loads,” says Perry. “We manufacture to forecast; we make campaigns, basically.” Third party hauliers are used for maximum flexibility in despatch. The mill has 16 loading bays for trucks, with goods being sent out from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday-Friday, plus half-day Saturdays. “We have despatched 91 loads in one day, shipping Monday to Saturday,” adds Perry.
There is also a railhead at the site, and Intertissue is planning to use this firstly for deliveries of pulp and later to despatch finished goods. “We hope to start to use it next year (2009),” says Perry.
Pulp for the mill arrives at nearby Swansea port. The softwood fiber mainly comes from the Nordic countries, hardwood from South America.
Products and markets
Intertissue has two brands in its portfolio: Regina, a premium brand backed by TV advertising; and Nicky, a tertiary brand with a strong presence in regional supermarkets.
“Our number one focus is on establishing the Regina brand in the UK,” says Perry. “Initially we had a team of account managers for the major supermarkets, now we also have sales reps, for want of a better word, in the regions.” That’s an unusual approach in this day, but, adds Perry, “It’s paying dividends: it’s about great products with great service.”
Intertissue also manufactures premium private label products made from 100% virgin fiber. “We produce high quality products in a high quality environment,” says Perry.
One sign of this is the appearance of the Intertissue site, one of the cleanest and tidiest I have ever visited. “We regularly receive compliments from environmental agencies,” points out Munari. “Our priorities are the safety of workers, quality of production and housekeeping. Good housekeeping promotes health and safety,” he adds.
“All Sofidel mills have a very high level of housekeeping,” says Munari. “That is driven by the owners,” explains Perry. The company has won prizes as well as praise for its approach. In April 2008, Intertissue was voted the best industrial building in South Wales by the Association of the Local Authority Building Control (LABC) awards. The awards aim to raise standards in the construction industry and highlight and congratulate quality workmanship and professionalism.
“Sofidel has done a lot of greenfields, so with each new mill we learn and improve,” says Perry. “We are very efficient in terms of energy use and water use – everyone’s already talking about carbon footprints and the water footprint is next.”
Although environmental performance is important to Intertissue, the company manages the ‘green’ demand from the customer. “We are FSC accredited, but we don’t make that claim on all our products,” says Perry. The reason is that it would create a bigger demand for FSC products than the certification bodies are able to match. He adds that when it comes to issues such as carbon neutral paper, “We will follow the industry standards.”
Environmental performance is of paramount importance to Sofidel, and this is testified by the group’s most recent achievement in this field: on December 7, 2007, Sofidel joined WWS’s “Climate Savers”. This program encourages leading corporations to make a voluntary commitment to reduce their carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by adopting more efficient energy processes and smarter technologies.
The program already contains major international organizations such as: Coca-Cola, IBM, Sony, Nokia, Nike, Johnson & Johnson, Catalyst, Hewlett Packard, Xanterra.
The Sofidel Group has therefore set a reduction target of 11% of CO2 emissions by 2012, compared with 2007 emissions of 531,135 tonnes.
All in place for the future
The UK is not always considered a good location for manufacturing industry, but Perry says Intertissue’s experience to date has been positive. “The local council – Neath Port Talbot – has given us a lot of support: help with procurement and so on. If there are issues, people are quite accessible.”
With future needs in mind, Sofidel has already secured planning permission to double the size of its Welsh operation. “Theoretically we have the capacity for three paper machines,” notes Perry. “The whole site is geared up - all the services are in place.” Of course, such an expansion is not on the horizon just yet. Rather, Intertissue is concentrating on making the most of its many strengths.
“Mr Stefani and Mr Lazzareschi had the foresight to see the possibility of building an efficient, high-quality operation,” concludes Perry. “A lot of people mistake that efficiency means low prices – at Intertissue we can produce a high quality product at the best possible price.”
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| Founded in Lucca in 1966 as Stefani & Lazzareschi, the Sofidel Group has expanded beyond its Italian roots and today produces some 700,000 tonnes/yr of tissue paper at 12 manufacturing sites in six countries (Italy, Germany, France, UK, Spain and Poland. There is also a converting facility in Turkey). Sofidel is the fourth largest tissuemaker in Europe, manufacturing products for the branded, private label and away-from-home markets. The Group employs more than 3,100 people and had a consolidated turnover of Euro 915 million in 2007. |
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