DS Smith, U.K., reports that it has has reduced maintenance costs and improved quality and machine productivity of containerboard  at its mill in Lucca, Italy, due to the recent installation of an OnQ Profilmatic control system and OnQ ModuleJet headbox actuators from Voith (Germany).

The Lucca mill was experiencing inconsistent paper profiles and wrinkles due to the former actuator control of the existing control system of its PM 2. Voith recommended the OnQ Profilmatic cross profile control software, which is part of its modular and flexible Voith ComCore platform to optimize the shape of the profiles.

 

"Our existing system was obsolete. The actuator delivery time was a problem and we were spending too much on maintenance," said Stefano Andreotti, technical and technology manager at DS Smith.

"Our production engineers are now very happy with Voith's OnQ Profilmatic. The system automates a process that before was entirely manual. Wrinkles have been reduced, and we are pleased with the deviation of the profiles," said Andreotti. The OnQ Profilmatic has the ability to determine the portion of random noise in the measurements. Continuous, dynamic profile mapping allows exact local mapping of the actuator control zones to the measurements and leads to better paper quality.

A major part of the Voith ComCore platform is the OnView information system, which makes all the details of the papermaking process available for analysis. This is the key to continued performance improvements for the machine.