Kimberly-Clark’s Millicent mill in Mount Gambier, South Australia, recently received significant upgrades that will allow it to operate more efficiently with a higher level of productivity. The Millicent mill produces 85,000 metric tons of tissue paper each year for the New Zealand and Australia markets.

 

Recent state-of-the art additions include a co-generation plant, improvement of wastewater quality, and introduction of Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs), all of which have provided the necessary efficiency and productivity advances to compete successfully on the manufacturing world stage.

 

 

 

"It is tough being a manufacturer in Australia at the moment,’’ Millicent mill manager Scott Whicker said. "We have to be smarter and better than our local and global competitors given the cost of labor, energy, and transport to get raw materials to the mill and finished product to market. Some of the things we have been doing here in Millicent are being copied by Kimberley-Clark factories around the world, providing best practice outcomes.’’

 

The $33 million co-generation plant uses clean gas to power a turbine engine to generate electricity for the entire factory. The plant replaced an ageing gas-fired boiler and now all of the mill’s steam requirements are provided by the exhaust heat of the turbine engine.

 

The co-generation plant has effectively taken the mill off the local electricity grid as it generates more than 90% of the mill’s electrical load. It has provided significant savings in energy costs as well as reduced the carbon footprint of the factory, eliminating 80,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually.

 

The factory’s wastewater improvements were also recently lauded by the South Australian Environment Protection Authority, which said that the quality of water included a 95% reduction in phosphorous load and an 89% reduction in nitrogen levels. 

A $2.5 million investment in AGV’s replaced manned forklifts in the distribution center. They cope with the task of shuffling more than 2,000 pallets per day in and out of the 26,000-pallet, high-rise Automated Storage and Retrieval System (ASRS) warehouse using rotating laser Global Positioning Systems. On average, the mill dispatches around 26 B-double trucks of product each day.

"While we have to look at our operations from a financial perspective, we also have a set of sustainability goals that we strive to meet,’’ Whicker said. "The new techniques we have employed at the Millicent mill are setting new benchmarks and are being adopted or adapted for use in other Kimberly-Clark factories around the world. The efficiencies are something we aim to continuously improve on so we can stay ahead of the game and keep manufacturing here in South Australia."