Through its ''Servolution" concept, Voith, Germany, offers comprehensive, tailor-made service expertise that covers all paper machine segments and supports customers from the planning phase over the entire service life of the machine and beyond. Under this kind of partnership, Spanish paper producer Papel Aralar entrusted its entire service operations to Voith and is now benefiting from higher machine availability and improved paper quality.

"Voith's experts always have an overview of the entire process. They are familiar with the latest state-of-the-art and capable of determining when new technologies should be integrated," said Senen Amunarriz, managing director of Papel Aralar. 

This is why the paper producer located to the east of Bilbao has outsourced all service and maintenance works to Voith. In doing so, it is reaping the benefits of the expertise that Voith has accumulated in its 150 years of existence. And the outcomes prove that this was the right decision for Papel Aralar, because since partnering with Voith, the company has experienced far fewer production downtimes. And Papel Aralar can go back to focusing on its core area of expertise – the production of paper.

Voith has brought together its comprehensive, tailored service packages in the Servolution concept. A major feature of the concept is the close contact with customers. This means that Voith supports and advises its partners from the initial planning phase through the entire service life of the machine and beyond. In doing so, Voith helps its customers increase machine availability, process reliability, paper quality, and production speed. The maintenance and optimization services include proposing solutions for significantly reducing consumption of energy, water, and raw materials. Apart from maintaining all machine components, Voith also provides Papel Aralar with IT support.

A high level of data transparency and its availability at all times are key elements of the Servolution concept. Because not only do the data provide the basis for efficient operations on site, this digital support also supplies important information for predictive maintenance.

At Papel Aralar, therefore, the partnership includes regular audits conducted jointly by Voith and the company's production team. In this context, Voith's service team proposes various options for improvements. Already, the consumption of energy, raw materials and chemicals could be reduced as a result. And at the same time, the cost efficiency and quality of the paper was increased.

''As the Voith team is permanently on site and knows the facilities inside out, any optimization proposals can be readily implemented in the short term,'' says Mitxel Etxezarreta, Managing Director of Voith Paper Spain.

Papel Aralar is completely convinced of the success of its collaboration with Voith: Amunarriz has already signaled that the papermaker wishes to extend the service contract, which is due to expire in 2019, by another five years.