During the course of studying bottlenecking issues at a number of pulp mills, Beca AMEC has developed a particular technique we call the Mill Optimisation Project (MOP), which can assist mills or industrial plants to improve the returns from any existing physical asset.
A MOP is a structured approach that focuses on the actual issues that prevent stable production, with the aim of delivering capacity increases and improving cost performance and quality.
For this reason, a MOP can achieve a better rate of return than alternative approaches to plant investment. Existing operations and equipment are reviewed, and the emphasis is on optimisation to avoid or minimise capital expenditure. Technical and business intellect is the substitute for capital and investment.
A MOP has five key steps:
- Baseline analysis
- Benchmarking
- Project definition, later followed by:
- Implementation
- Monitoring and feedback.
In the MOP approach, baseline analysis provides the current performance, variation of key production and process elements, and provides the data for cause and effect analysis. The technique looks at both external and internal benchmarking, with the latter being particularly important as every plant has its own unique character.
Projects are defined from the study, often involving operational changes, which require implementation with ongoing monitoring and review.
A MOP is typically used in large process unit operations, when a complete mill is being reviewed. Application at a department level is not common, due to complex plant interactions, but where the client has the data available, a mini-MOP has been successful.
The MOP will support the business plans of both paper mills and pulp mills, positively impacting on production and quality KPIs, and flowing on to safety and cost. Incremental improvements to capacity and quality can help a mill to realise potential production goals within the constraints of existing configurations.