We will not be running 207 until Tuesday!

Do not pulp for 207 until you hear from me.

 

Thanks,

 

Don B.

Water Operator Meeting

Our next water operator meeting will e held Thursday, February 17^th at 7:00 AM in the conference room.

Don B.

Crew Leader Meeting

Our next crew leader meeting will be on Thursday, February 10^th at 7:00 AM in the admin building.

Don B.

Tasks for Tonight

I would like to see the guillotine operated tonight. In addition we have rolls that have been returned that need to be slabbed. Please focus on these tasks. Tomorrow we will be pulping for grade 207 as we will be running grade 207 on Wednesday. Pulp for grade 207 and store it in the cleaner supply chest and continue to run the tissue machine out of the finished stock chest. We will not change over until Wednesday morning, so we will be pulping for grade 314 most of the day tomorrow. If you have any questions please call.

Thanks,

Don

Safety Alert!

In the pulp mill last night there was a minor injury involving a self dumping hopper. The employee was having difficulty latching the hopper, and injured their leg while trying to kick the latch. The employee had already tried to use a hammer without success. The hopper is in need of repair and it should have been taken out of service until it could be made safe to operate.

Everyone should take a few things away from this incident.

Always think before you act! Ask yourself a few questions before beginning a task such as:

a.      Can the job be done safely?

                                                              i.      If not do not attempt to do it. Find a safe way to accomplish the task!

b.      Is the action I am about to take the safest way to accomplish the task?

                                                              i.      If not, find another way!

c.       Will the action I am about to take put me in harm’s way?

                                                              i.      If yes, find another way or take the proper steps to eliminate the risk of injury.

d.      When in doubt, ask for help or input from your supervisor.

2)      Use the right tool for the job. Usually there is a proper tool for the task at hand and it is often not your foot or your hand. Eliminate the risk of bodily harm by employing the proper tools for the job!

3)      Inspect the equipment you work with for signs of damage that may render the equipment unsafe for use. If you feel the equipment is not safe to use, take it out of service and notify your supervisor.

Our goal is to have an injury free workplace. The only way to accomplish this is for every employee to stop and think about what they are about to do and make sure it is the safest way to accomplish the job at hand.

 

Shutdown Tomorrow

We will be taking an outage in the pulp mill tomorrow to replace the belt on the sludge conveyor. This outage is expected to last 6 hours.

In order to allow the tissue machine to run uninterrupted, we need to take the following steps:

1)    The dump chest must be empty by 7:00 AM

2)    The cleaner feed chest and finished stock chest must be full (90% or higher) at 7:00 AM

3)    The white water chest must be empty by 7:00 AM

4)    The cloudy pit must be lower than 35% by 7:00 AM

5)    The sludge pit must be lower than 35% by 7:00 AM

6)    The yard sump should be as low as possible by 7:00 AM

If you have any questions please contact me tonight!

Thanks,

Don B.

 

Remember, Safety First!

 

Results of the Yankee Dryer Gearbox Boroscope Inspection.

Lester Roundtree from Moventas , the manufacturer of our Yankee Dryer Shaft Mounted Gearbox was in the mill today during the washup to perform a boroscope inspection of the gearbox as we sought to determine the increased audible and vibration noise coming from the high speed input shaft area of the gearbox.

Our condition monitoring consultant, Machine Diagnostics Inc. had identified a bearing defect frequency during the survey they performed on the gearbox on Monday. Our inspection today was intended to verify the bearing defect.

The photo below shows the presence of 'fluting' on the bearing race and rollers. These are the lighter colored paralell lines on the surface of the roller. Left un-addressed, this condition would surely result in a catastrophic bearing failure and possible damage to the precision gearing components in the gearbox.
Changing the Yankee Dryer Gearbox would require 2 -3 days of downtime. Since we have no spare on the property we would have been down an extended length of time awaiting the arrival of a replacement gearbox.  (A spare gearbox was ordered last September and is due to arrive in early March).

 

 

Fluting is caused by induced electric current in the shaft of a motor passing through the bearing via the rollers. http://technicallyspecializedsolutions.com/Electrical_Fluting.html    This phenomenon normally occurs in motor bearings but can occur in the connected machinery if the path of least resistance of the induced current is   along the shaft.

 

We have taken several measures to eliminate this particular root cause of failure (fluting)  in various locations in the mill by specifying ceramic coated bearings in our motors, (diverts the path of the induced current in the shaft so it does not go through the bearing to get to ground ), installing shielded cabling between the AC drive and the motor (to reduce induced currents) and  installation of grounding brushes on the motor shafts (to provide a low resistance path to ground).

 

Replacement of the Yankee Dryer Gearbox input shaft bearings will require about 12-16 hours and removal of the gearbox cover during our upcoming outage to grind the Yankee Dryer shell surface. This will extend the grind outage by at least 12 hours – we can do this work during the time we are inspecting the dryer internals.    Moventas will provide a field technician and mill maintenance technicians will perform the work.

We should all be pleased we identified this defect before and not after the grind and especially before a catastrophic failure occurred.

This failure was initially identified by operators paying close attention to changes in the noise level of the machinery as we operate day to day.  By noting changes in noise level, temperature and/or vibrations we can augment and  assist predictive maintenance/condition monitoring efforts to verify if a failure is/is not in progress.  Identifying failures in the early stages allows us to plan repairs, reducing maintenance expense and the downtime associated with repairs which helps to make our mill more productive and profitable.
Well done AST Team !!

Think Safety, Work Safely

Mike Sherbak
VP - Operations

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Screen Basket Change Tomorrow

We need to fill the mill up tonight so we will have several hours tomorrow morning to change both screen baskets. Please make sure we have 80% in both the cleaner feed chest and the finished stock chest at 7:00 AM.

Thanks,

Don B.

Remember to put safety first!

2010 is in the record books, Looking ahead into 2011

Congratulations for finishing December 2010 and the 4th Quarter with ZERO OSHA Recordable Injuries
Please continue to put Safety First !  in everything you do here .....and at home. We need you !

2010 is in the history books.....

December ended with 2566 A tons and production averaged 82.77 tons per day

The 4th quarter of 2010 saw an increase in productivity of 2.45 tons per day averaging 82.9 tons/day versus 80.45 tons/day in the 3rd quarter.
The facility averaged just over 2542 A tons/month in the 4th Quarter.
This resulted in over 300 additional tons Q4 versus Q3

Looking ahead to 2011...please ponder the words of Edith Lovejoy Pierce.

"We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves.

The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year's Day".

There are 365 chapters to write in Augusta Select Tissue's book called Opportunity in the year ahead in every aspect of our business.


Put Safety 1st ! , 2nd and 3rd in every chapter :   Nothing we do here is worth risking injury to achieve. We have much work to do to enhance our safety processes and program so that we attain the worthwhile vision of having an Injury-Free Workplace. Be leaders in making safe operations the foundation of our success.

Acting upon the many opportunities to improve Safety, Quality, Customer Service,  Productivity and Cost
every day will bring our mill, our company and especially you, our employees,  a prosperous and truly happy and satisfying 2011.

Best wishes to all for a safe and prosperous New Year !
Think Safety, Work Safely,

Mike Sherbak

PS - Production Schedule has been updated.

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