Mill Operation: Barton fills a void
“The design is proven, the
technology tested, and the
ramp-up has been impressive,”
says Jim Haeffele, Project Director and the
company’s VP of Tissue Technology. Mark
Phiscator, VP of Engineering and
Maintenance, adds that the mill is “way ahead
of the start-up curve. The production line is
beating plan by about 20% per month. We’re
almost double where we planned to be in
terms of efficiencies.”
“The driving force was that we had a
70,000 ton/yr shortfall in lightweight tissue
production at this facility,” says Marty
Ferguson, SCA Tissue’s Operations Director
for the Southeast USA. “We were purchasing
a high percentage of parent rolls and wanted
to become more balanced between
papermaking and converting.”
The new PM14, a 5.5 m wide Andritz
PrimeLine CrescentFormer machine, is part
of SCA’s closer-to-the-customer strategy,
according to Ferguson. Barton is home to
PM12, the first PrimeLine tissue machine in
North America. PM12 produces heavier
toweling and dispenser-type napkins from 17-
53 g/m2.
“PM 14 fills a void in our lightweight
Tork® brand tissue and two-ply dinner
napkins in the 14-25 g/m2 range,” Ferguson
says. “We can now produce about 95% of our
products in-house, close to our customers.
We are basically running to order now. This
helps us optimize our scheduling, keeping
inventories low while increasing our service
level.”
Barton has 34 automated converting lines
capable of producing more than 14 million
cases annually.
“In some ways, it wasn’t as exciting as
the greenfield debut of this mill in 2004, but
it sure feels good to have a successful startup,”
says Haeffele. When Barton first opened,
it was SCA’s first full-scale greenfield paper
mill start-up in the world. “The start-up was
uneventful,” Phiscator says. “I say that as a
high compliment to all involved.”
Actually, the new production line was
planned for from day one, says Phiscator.
“From the outset, this mill was designed for
expansion,” he says. “Extra piping tees, tieins,
lines, etc. were installed so that new
equipment and systems could be added.”
The overall design for PM14 follows that
of the existing line in that the deink plant and
tissue machine are considered as one unit.
“PM12 has its own deink plant and tissue
machine, and one team runs the entire
operation,” Phiscator says. “We did exactly
the same thing for PM14.”
The main justification was to improve
Barton’s ability to support customers in the
Southeast in the away-from-home (AFH)
market. SCA’s Board approved the project in
February 2007, construction began in August
2007, and the machine started up in October
2008. The $145 million expansion boosts
production capacity at Barton by 70,000 tons
to 180,000 tons/yr.
For the greenfield project starting in 2003,
Barton had absolutely no infrastructure in
place and a very small team at the beginning.
“We hired people as we went along,” Phiscator
says. “This time, we had an operating mill
and the key people were involved from the
very beginning. We concentrated on frontend
engineering, did extensive mass-energy
balances, layouts, and construction planning.”
Andy Chorney of SCA Tissue took the
mechanical lead on the project team. “We
spent time up-front to get this right,” Chorney
says. “The project took 18 months from
engineering to start-up. In the project business,
time costs money. The sooner we get the
machine producing revenue for us, the better
we are.”
Chorney was pleased with the transition
from engineering drawings to reality.
“Everything looks good on paper,” he says.
“It’s not until you get into the field that you
see how good your design really is. In this
case, we did a lot of things right. We had to
make some modifications in real-time, but
really these were minimal. We had very good
cooperation and coordination from everyone
involved.”
SCA Tissue chose one supplier, to deliver
both the deink plant and the tissue machine.
Haeffele explains: “By limiting the number
of suppliers we get better performance
guarantees and better performance. It is easier
to manage the project with fewer interfaces
and the suppliers become actual partners in
your success.”
“Andritz was very flexible in working
with us to tweak the process and the machine
the way we wanted,” says Sarah Freeman,
Assistant Superintendent responsible for PM
14. “For example, we asked for some
enhancements to the showering system and
the reel section. We had a very good
experience with PM 12. This machine is like
the first one, very high quality and sturdy
construction.”
Phiscator agrees. “We were very pleased
with the start-up and performance of PM 12,”
he says. “We didn’t have to travel very far to
get a good reference for the machine supplier.”
According to Haeffele, “We made some
enhancements that make this CrescentFormer
machine ideal for producing lightweight tissue
at high speeds. PM14 has a two-layer headbox
compared with the single-layer headbox on
PM12. The excellent CD profile is achieved
through dilution profile control (weight)
coupled with moisture control via a steambox
located at the suction pressure roll. With the
PrimeLine CrescentFormer, you get a very
nice, filled-in sheet for lightweight grades.
When you’re making a sheet that’s only about
a fibre and a half thick, it’s got to be filled
in. You also have no wire-to-felt transfer,
which dramatically improves performance at
very high speeds. Sheet formation is perfect,
and product quality is excellent.”
“We make products that are 100%
recycled from more than 250,000 tons of
wastepaper per year,” says Tony Epie,
Assistant Superintendent responsible for PM
4’s deink plant. “PM14 does not swing from
brown to white grades like PM12, so we chose
the FibreFlow drum pulper. This gives us
better yield and screens out the main
contaminants early in the process,” Epie says.
The quality of wastepaper is a moving
target. “Wastepaper today is more
contaminated and the adhesives are more
troublesome,” Epie says. “MOW is mainly
shredded, and generally contains a lot of paper
clips, compact disks, various plastics, and
sometimes a high percentage of groundwood.”
To counter this trend, SCA runs the first
loop much cooler than on PM12. “This gives
us a better chance of removing the stickies
before the heat of the process makes this more
difficult,” Epie says. “We also teach our
technicians to visually identify and remove
the key sources of stickies before the waste
ever gets into our system.”
The mixed office waste (MOW) DIP
system for Barton is rated for 350 bdst/d
production for PM14. In the first loop, accepts
from the drum pulper go through two stages
of high density cleaners, three stages of coarse
screening, three stages of forward cleaners,
and three-stage fine screening followed by
washing, pressing, and dispersion. The second
loop is the bleaching loop, which has flotation
and two stages of bleaching.
“The Andritz deink plant has a high degree
of flexibility and robustness built in,” Epie
says. “It can handle a wide variety of waste
streams. The main target is to deliver a lowash
furnish to the machine without
compromising yield. Our target is under 4%
ash in the HD towers. We chose aggressive
washing to remove the ash, clay, and inks.
The furnish is 100% bleached, with brightness
of 68-75 ISO. The yield is about 70% at the
deink plant and 67% overall.”
“The machinery is very well built and has
excellent quality,” Phiscator says. “It is
capable of achieving high speeds and is stable.
The machine is definitely operating ahead of
plan at this point in time.”
“I’d say the start-up and ramping up are
going very smoothly,” Freeman contributes.
“For PM 12, we had all new hires who had
never worked in a tissue mill before. This
time, we selected four of our top technicians
to prepare the training for PM 14. They
developed the materials, coordinated the
sessions with suppliers, and cross-trained all
the operators for both PM12 and PM14. We
were very well prepared for the start-up in
October.”
Ferguson notes that one of SCA’s primary
measurements is what they call Top Speed
Non Stop (TSNS). “If we could run at full
speed all the time, the score would be 100,”
he says. “Our TSNS scores are improving
–and we have seen very good numbers from
the PM 14 line.”
