Change is the only inevitable that time brings. Steam propelled the first Industrial Revolution; electricity ignited the second; advanced machinery engineered the third; and intelligent machinery and computers are shaping the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR). The 21st-century is of connectivity, advanced analytics, automation, and advanced-manufacturing technology that has been transforming global businesses for years.
Pulp and paper producers around the world face increasing pressure to improve sustainability while meeting higher production and quality demands. For decades, they have struggled to optimize individual processes and make them interact to identify results, such as how chemical recovery performance impacts fiberline production. Over the years, the industry has made immense progress on the technology front and the resource availability has changed. Having grown and adapted over the years, many mills have embraced 4IR.
It encompasses the need for automation of the processes and enabling of artificial intelligence and machine learning in communication and self-monitoring. It offers the potential to transform the entire industry, from sourcing of raw materials to the stage of delivering end products. Real-time monitoring and communication between machines help reduce the need for human intervention; and with repetitive tasks automated, human labour can be directed towards more important tasks. Moreover, data-driven decision-making and actions and the deployment of AI ensure accuracy in decisions and timely action to improve system efficiency and end-product quality. In other words, it empowers decision-makers through mill-wide optimization.
In India, we have already observed successful deployments at some of the major pulp and paper mills, and resultantly have harvested operational efficiency as well as enhanced product quality. This is no longer a picture out of some science fiction film, a functional reality or one within reach for many as well. In the backdrop of protracted raw material scarcity and the country’s ambition to be the global manufacturing hub, the wonders automation can deliver is quite promising. It is believed that in the coming years, the rate of adoption among the Indian mills will inevitably rise.
But the revolution also brings forth the shortcomings that continue to mar the industry and lays bare some of the missing gaps the industry urgently needs to address. Majority of the Indian pulp and paper as well as paper mills lag way behind in industrial automation and many continue to operate with ‘machines from another era’. These explain why most mills have less competitive edge. Others being the virtual absence of home-grown solution providers in the landscape and the challenges labour redundancy could generate.
No doubt, automation empowers decision-makers through mill-wide optimization. Unfortunately, most Indian mills can’t afford the available solutions, and there is a rational pervasive fear that they could be left out. But it also underscores the urgency for the policy-makers to ramp up investments, much faster than the pace at which automation is happening. It’s imperative that more attention is paid to them, which the mills alone can’t do. It also calls for wider consultation, deep collaborations and strategic long-term targets, with eye trained on an automated global manufacturing hub.
*Written for Paper Mart editorial
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