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P U L P A N D PA P E R

Automated paper testing enables data-driven

innovation for quality management at
Wisconsin’s newest mill

Wisconsin’s first new, state-of-the-

art facility in over 35 years came
online in March 2021. A replacement
of its 73-year-old machine, Green
Bay Packaging’s new recycled paper
mill was built with modernization at
its heart and required best-in-class
paper testing to ensure repeatability.
The mill chose ABB’s L&W Autoline,
moving from manual to automated
testing at its new operation.

New facility brings modernization opportunities “We wanted to bring modernization and automation
Green Bay Packaging (GBP) is a family-owned, verti- to the new mill,” added Bob Mihalski, Director of
cally integrated manufacturing company head­ Continuous Improvement for GBP. “A couple things
quartered in Green Bay, Wisconsin, USA. Dedicated really stood out about the Autoline L, such as the
to the innovative development of its products and speed and volume of the test and the ability to take
forestry resources, GBP has a focus on continuous out testing variation between operators.”
improvement at all 36 manufacturing facilities
across 14 states. “Having an Autoline, we are able to run hundreds
and thousands of data points at the same time,”
Most recently, GBP decided to replace the Green Bay Blake Schweiner, Quality Manager for GBP, added.
site’s recycled paper machine (PM3) – originally “Benchtops couldn’t do that. And we get more de-
­constructed in 1948 – with a brand new testliner tailed profiles of the sheet for the whole width of
­machine (PM4) in a move that both preserved its the paper.”
1500 Wisconsin jobs and added more. The new mill
brought opportunity for other improvements, such Digitalized quality management
as automated paper testing. Testing has never been easier and for GBP, that
starts as soon as the reel turnup. While the tradi-
Moving from manual to automating paper testing tional way to start testing a sample in the Autoline is
As a long-time user of L&W benchtop equipment as simple as scanning a barcode, GBP has connected
for PM3, GBP was impressed with the quality of the their QCS and data historian so that the record for
instruments and saw that same superior reliability the sample is automatically populated in Autoline
and performance in ABB’s automated testing sys- based on turnup tags – no scanning required.
tem. This made L&W Autoline the first choice for
PM4 at the new facility.
 But perhaps the biggest tool for the mill is the abil- “If we tried to do this manually, it would tie up the
ity to visualize quality parameters in graphs by reel operators and take way too long, and we couldn’t
and/or grade within the user interface. necessarily trust the tests without the repeatability
Autoline offers,” Schweiner added. “We can run a
“Anytime we run a sample, 10 to 15 people can see few thousand tests automatically, which is a big
what the profile looked like from starting conditions help (for our special projects).”
and how it affected the final sheet. We can visualize
that all in one space,” said Schweiner. High availability with simple maintenance
A standout feature for the mill is the Autoline’s high
“And that’s not only from reel to reel, but the CD pro- availability and simple maintenance procedures that
files across the web too. We get an instantaneous allow the operators to work through any issues
graphical visualization to create metrics and adjust themselves. The user interface has pop-up windows
targets,” added Mihalski. “Plus, it’s quicker than for common system problems that identifies what
benchtops. We are using the graphics in the system and where an issue is.
and sending it back to the historian, and it gets to
multiple people in and outside the lab.” “There are typically five actions that solve 99% of
the common issues, making it easy to find the prob-
Faster single point testing lem and fix the problem” said Schweiner. “The mod-
Occasionally mills need the ability to retest stored ules are easy to get to, but we haven’t had the need
samples. With L&W Autoline, operator safety is for much maintenance, which is really nice.”
­designed into the system, and different testing
­options allow users to test a single point of the A modern upgrade for any mill
­retained paper sample. Some mill personnel had experience with the L&W
Autoline 400, and marveled at the many advance-
“We can test a sample in a very similar way we could ments in the latest generation.
do with the benchtop, but with this, it takes five sec-
onds,” said Schweiner. “And a lot of our interns and “The L outperforms the Autoline 400,” said Mihalski.
co-ops use it to solve problems. They can quickly “It’s more user friendly. More reliable. Even the look
test 15 samples – and bam, there’s the answer. The of it, it’s just an overall better experience.”
system is always calibrated, so it makes it easy.”
Benefits in moving to automated testing
Repeatability opens novel testing opportunities • Better consistency of tests
L&W Autoline provides a complete profile report in • Increased number of tests and data points
under ten minutes, including 100 quality parameters • Novel testing for special projects and optimization
by CD position. This availability of data makes spe- opportunities
cial projects more of a reality. “If we are relying on • Quicker feedback to production with built-in,
manual testing, we would only get an average of a ­intuitive graphics and complete CD profile
CD strip,” said Mihalski. “Now we can find new areas ­information
for optimization with the complete CD profile infor- • Saves time by being able to run many more tests
mation.” more efficiently including single point testing
• High availability with minimal maintenance and
GBP has even taken these special projects one step calibration
further. “We run studies we wouldn’t be able to run • Identifies areas of quality improvements needed
because of the repeatability of the system,” said in CD profiles, therefore increasing overall
Schweiner. strength averages

“For example, instead of a CD strip, we unwound a

reel to cut and place an approximately 125 foot sam-
ple through the Autoline to get an MD profile. This
allowed us to take CD process variation out of the
picture. What we are working on is just a theory at
this point, but we have the data for analysis.”

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