In a high-volume uncoated free sheet facility, any disruption to production has serious financial implications. The ability to reduce stopages, even marginally, is highly beneficial to these producers. Sheet breaks are events where the continuous sheet product physically separates in the machine. After a sheet break occurs, the mill must spend valuable time getting back to producing the proper grade. The time from the end of a sheet break to running at grade is referred to as “recovery time.”

An uncoated free sheet facility in the United States wanted to investigate the correlation between sheet break recovery time and the roll sets in the machine. The mill asked Precision Roll Grinders (PRG) to investigate.

After analyzing the data, PRG determined that one roll set was 15% faster on average in sheet break recovery than another. The mill and PRG agreed that this difference was significant enough to be worth further investigation. As a result, further analysis with PRG’s Six Sigma analytical capabilities has meant this mill now has a finer understanding of their process and how to address a common issue affecting their production.

Please reach out to PRG today to gain a greater understanding of your process through proven data analysis methods.