To be frank ~ Why papermakers should run their own felt test

Paper machine clothing (PMC) can make or break a papermaker’s future, yet our industry’s attitude toward testing feels stuck in the past.  

Today’s paper machines cost upwards of $500m—and PMC upwards of $10,000 per unit—so papermakers need their machines running at optimal efficiency, 24/7, to turn a profit. 

With downtime and poor runnability costing thousands per hour, the stakes are high—and that breeds nervousness. A nervousness that leads to some production managers over-relying on their supplier to test the performance of their PMC.

This business as usual approach is both incredibly risky for papermakers, and incredibly wasteful for our industry. It leaves paper mills vulnerable to impartial data, and eats up supplier time that could be spent advancing the quality of their PMC products. 

Yet, there’s an easy solution where everyone benefits. And it’s about empowering papermakers to bring their testing in-house—a solution that’s never been easier, or more affordable, than with today’s technology. 

Empowering the papermaker

With access to the same handheld measuring tools as their suppliers—which are purpose-designed for measuring PMC permeability, tension, and thickness—papermakers can arrange their own daily felt tests in as little as 20 minutes. 

No longer reliant on their supplier’s weekly (or monthly, or even less often) survey schedule, papermakers have so much to gain with daily measurements: data to optimize their machines.

As daily tests build a larger body of objective data, papermakers can spot potential problems in advance, reduce expensive downtime, and importantly, optimize paper production to yield hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars.  

The technology is already available, today, for this to happen. 

So how do PMC suppliers benefit?
It may sound like all the benefits flow one way, while suppliers are left swimming upstream. But, that’s not the case. 

While the current weekly (or monthly) visit to each paper mill helps build data for PMC suppliers, those datasets are far more limited than the datasets papermakers can provide through daily testing. 

Armed with far more information—and the time of talented professionals freed up from no longer having to visit mills for standard monitoring work—PMC manufacturers can put more resources toward improving the quality and performance of their products.  Naturally, reallocating their resources in this way opens the door to innovation—empowering suppliers to develop ideas and test products that differentiate themselves in the market; an opportunity that’s lost through our current testing culture. 

A rising tide lifts everyone’s boat 

Producing paper machine clothing that offers 1% more paper machine output is far more valuable than a lower quality PMC that’s 10% cheaper, for both parties. And this is what’s possible when we empower papermakers to test their PMC in-house, and take it off the plates of the manufacturers.

Our mission at Feltest Equipment BV is to lift up the whole paper manufacturing industry. By measuring and improving the performance of fabrics and felts, we can unlock the greater potential of both papermakers and suppliers, working together for a better Paper Machine Clothing industry.

Contact Feltest today or visit our online shop to unlock your PMC potential.