The theme for this year’s Tissue World conference – Innovation – was
a big hit. An important topic that attracted high-level
speakers and gave much food for thought to the roughly
300 delegates who attended. But that knockout idea that
transforms an industry didn’t make its appearance,
though Voith and Metso have interesting and important
developments that could drive down the cost of premium
product.
Hardly surprising, really, that revolutionary ideas are
in short supply. Tissue is a long established product
that has evolved over decades and serves its many purposes
extremely well. How do you improve a product that is
already superlatively good at what it does?
The world is full of such mature businesses, that meet
and even exceed consumer needs and expectations. Examples
abound of brilliantly adapted products. In a closely
related business to tissue, think of photocopy paper.
How could it be better than it is today? How do you improve
on the wheel? Bread? Or the hammer?
Indeed, it is arguable
that many innovations, across a wide spectrum of needs,
are as much steps backwards as tokens of progress. Think
of fast food – indeed of food in general, where
convenience and design has so often replaced taste and
nutrition. But think, too, of architecture or classical
music. Does anyone prefer the recent versions to the
old? Perhaps, though, Ralph Waldo Emerson’s old
dictum: “Build
a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to
your door” still
applies. And companies abound that claim to have done
just that –take
a look in Google under ‘better mousetrap’.
But in tissue, progress seems to have been slow, even
if there has been a marked leveling up of quality and
a vast extension of the number of countries with significant
consumption. To see what the experts thought of innovation
in tissue, Tissue World asked a dozen to say what they
see as the greatest innovations of the past 20 years
and to look ahead to the potential areas for innovation
in the future.
Unfortunately, the big companies (we asked them) chose
not to respond to the question, whether through modesty
or confidentiality we are not sure. Five leading lights
of the industry did give us their thoughts, however.
Here is what they said.
Fabio Perini, founder of Perini
Navi, the yacht builder, and the Faper Group of companies,
which includes Futura, Milltech and Focus:
If we want
to identify the real innovations of the past two decades,
we have to look at the market. Here, what has changed
most is the distribution chain, with the large retailers
gaining a dominant position. On the manufacturing front,
while much has been done to differentiate products and
qualities, and important gains have been achieved in
terms of efficiency and productivity, from a purely technological
viewpoint, there has been no great revolution.
For the foreseeable future, I believe more progress will
be made in efficiency, energy control and costing. But
what we could really do with is a major breakthrough
in papermaking technology – decades
have passed since the introduction of the crescent former,
yet it remains the dominant technology.
On the converting front, where we actually modify and
differentiate the quality of the product, where we add
value and create distinctive features, there is enormous
scope for innovation. So I believe that it is converting
that will spring the greatest surprises.
Jiang Manxia, Secretary General, China National Household
Paper Industry Association
In the past 20 years, the most important innovations
in tissue can be summarized in three categories: tissue
machine, converting machines and products.
In tissue machines, the patents expired on Kimberly-Clark’s
Crescent Forming device. In the 18 years since then,
the technologies of new crescent forming devices, multi-ply
headboxes, TissueFlex press, Advantage (Air) Cap etc
have been widely used. There has also been an important
shift to wider tissue machines and higher speeds. As
a result of all these technological changes, many more
producers have been able to make premium grades of tissue.
Through the adoption of TAD technology, the softness,
bulk, absorbency of tissue has been improved greatly.
Excellent tissue can be produced.
On converting machines,
we are seeing higher speeds, greater widths (to match
tissue machine developments) and better efficiency.
Electric and programming operation has reduced the errors
of manual operation. Standard production has promoted
the machine quality and reduced the machine price.
Strong combination. It could conform to diversified market
and has easy operation.
In products, we have seen widespread
application of recycled fibers, the merging of retailing
private brands and much product diversification and differentiation.
For example, multi-ply products, products with added
surface agents including perfume, lotion, aloe, vitamins
etc. Tissue products commonly have a faint scent and
improved functionality for better body care.
In future, there will be further important innovations
as follows: the adoption of TAD technology will reduce
the cost of investment and operation; energy saving technology
will improve; nonwood fibers will be adopted to produce
premium tissue; more high added-value products will be
produced. Finally we will see the integration of the
complete line including paper making, converting, packaging
and storage.
Giuseppe Antonini, CEO and Managing Director, A Celli,
Italy
According to our Technical Director Maurizio Gatti, who
has spent more than 30 years in tissue and paper business,
the most important innovation in the last two decades
is the introduction and expansion of waste paper as raw
material for tissue production.
At the beginning of the 1980s the final product was of
poor quality but , because of the continuous growth of
cellulose prices, tissue producers tried to develop a
product closer and closer to the one obtained from pure
cellulose. As a consequence, a number of sophisticated
processes have been developed for handling different
recycled paper grades, to reach softness, high whiteness
and absorbency, comparable to what is achieved with virgin
fibers.
In the field of high quality products, market demand
has stressed the search for maximum softness and bulk:
To achieve that, the TAD machine has been revamped, allowing
high thickness as well as high softness and absorbency.
On the other hand, the high production costs of TAD tissues
have generated new technologies for conventional machines,
such as layered head boxes, ultra high temperature hoods,
jumbo or shoe presses, chemical additives for softening
the web.
In the converting area, new processes, such as many embossing
types, have been created, to increase the bulk of the
finished good. The last trend of the market, particularly
in the Far East, is the ultra-light tissue paper, with
specific design of the machine, mainly in the dry zone.
For the future, we assume that the current trends will
be even more focused on the concepts of softness, bulk,
cost-effectiveness, energy savings, material utilization
consciousness….
Cao Zhenlei, President
of China National Pulp & Paper
Research Institute
It is a very hard question for me. I do not think there
is a most important innovation in tissue in China for
the 20 years. But what is important in tissue is the
growth: we did not have any 20 years ago; now we have
over 4 million tons. For the next 20 years, China still
needs to catch up with the rest of the world in tissue
consumption. For innovation, I am thinking there are
two restrictions: one is to improve the well being of
our lives; the other is to reduce our impact on the environment.
Esko Uutela, President, EU Consulting
The most important innovations of the past 20 years are:
| • |
Coreless toilet tissue - Japanese introduction |
| • |
UCTAD from K-C/Metso |
| • |
ATMOS from Voith (but no major breakthrough yet) |
| • |
Tissue shoe press technologies from
Voith and then Andritz and Metso |
| • |
STT from Metso (but no major breakthrough
yet) |
| • |
New through-the-sheet embossing technologies
to increase absorbency (Perini as leader) |
I do not see some other developments, such as black
tissue from Renova, as any important things at all. TW
