Keeping competitive means making quick decisions

By A PPI Special report

BEDFORD, MA, Aug. 15, 2011 (RISI) - Finch Paper is a pulp and paper mill in Glen Falls, NY, producing approximately 700 tons/day of high-quality uncoated text and cover, opaque, and digital papers for commercial printing. Finch papers are well known for their formation, smoothness, brightness and opacity, all of which contribute to superior results of printed materials. The fully integrated mill is located on the historic Hudson River, at the foothills of the Adirondack Mountains. Finch manages regional forestland, converts logs into pulp, and pulp into paper. The company's integrated model lowers costs, lessens its impact on the environment, and brings a level of quality control beyond that of relying on outside suppliers and resources.

With a variety of obsolete systems at its mill and to maintain its high quality, Finch turned to Honeywell to perform a migration from a legacy Moore control system to the Honeywell Experion Process Knowledge System (PKS). The company wanted to migrate to the more advanced Experion PKS platform to access key plant data and increase efficiency and performance - while also ensuring the safety of its people and assets.

Finch Paper faced key challenges to ensure that the mill could operate incident-free and migrate in a very short timeframe of just five days that would coincide with its normal spring outage. To meet this aggressive timeline, the company worked closely with Honeywell to develop a safe and effective migration solution.

Finch Paper improved data access, and increased efficiency and productivity with a process knowledge system.

Benefits achieved at the facility included:

• Incident-free startup as a result of providing the capability to perform a loop and control checkout, plant design checkout and verification simultaneously.
• Improved plant efficiency by one percent, which equated to more than $100,000 in cost savings/year.
• Improved plant productivity with operators able to make faster, more informed decisions.
• Enabled operators to input plant data and access as needed with Honeywell Uniformance^TM historian providing management with a way to track and manage their business.
• Deployed similar methodologies around system graphics, layout and design so operators quickly transitioned to the new system.
• Operator confidence with UniSim training directly correlated to increased effectiveness.
• Increased connectivity and information sharing capability throughout the mill directly enhanced business performance.

Challenge

Finch faced several critical challenges at its pulp and paper mill, including the ability to increase safety, efficiency and productivity. At the same time, a concerted effort to glean the most pertinent mill data available had to be undertaken. The company recognized that it needed to replace its legacy control systems, which were simply outdated and couldn't provide a growth path for the future. However, Finch also had budget parameters and an aggressive timetable to adhere to at the mill.

"Any ‘trip' in our process could cause delays and product quality issues, so it was critical to run the mill without incidents - something that our older systems couldn't guarantee," says Steve Padasak, engineering and process control supervisor, Finch Paper. "We also wanted to ensure we had the safest systems in operation while providing the utmost confidence in our decision making."

Solution

Finch Paper spent about one-and-half years on an assessment of possible solutions from various companies, factoring in overall capabilities, equipment, stability, depth of experience and trade-industry knowledge. After the review, it selected Honeywell and the Experion PKS solution. Finch was already engaged in a service contract with Honeywell and had first-hand experience with its people and their capabilities.

After making its selection, Finch did a confined test on one of its smaller systems to see how the migration would work before moving on to its larger control systems, and things progressed quickly.

Operators were also trained with Honeywell's UniSim operator training simulator to quickly learn the navigation of the new system and become familiar with the environment. A virtualized system was utilized to give operators experience and familiarity with the new system.

"We were able to incorporate our own graphics into the new system before it went live and our operators gained the confidence and comfort level they needed," notes Padasak. The new Experion PKS solution provided Finch with access to plant data that was not available prior to the installation. The system transforms process control beyond traditional distributed control system (DCS) functionality by unifying people with process variables, business requirements and asset management. In addition, Honeywell's Uniformance software was used as the historian to log plant data.

Finch also maintains a Solution Enhancement Support Program (SESP) services contract with Honeywell to make sure the control system is ready for the long haul and helps protect valuable technology investment.

Since migrating to Experion PKS, Finch has been able to justify the project with an improved safety record, performance and overall productivity at the plant. "We have tallied a one percent efficiency improvement just based on the sodium chlorate, which equals more than $100,000/year - all by just replacing the DCS without any logic or configuration changes," adds Padasak.

The Experion PKS migration came at a time when Finch needed to modernize its facility and look for potential impacts across the board in terms of safety, reliability and compliance. "With more information at our fingertips and the backing of a proven system, Honeywell is definitely the right company to lead us into the future and maintain our competitive advantage in our industry," concludes Padasak.