Software system "ASC: Corrugated cardboard"

Key facts

Arkhangelsk pulp-and-paper mill is one of 10 largest mills in Russia. At the cardboard cutting plant of the mill the 2.1-meter wide cardboard line is cut into rectangular pieces at the speed of 160 m/min. The pieces are used for making boxes. The plant operators' task is to ensure the production of required number of boxes, made of several rectangles of different size.

The challenge

As the number of different types of boxes has grown to 100 per week, and the number of boxes of each type went down to few thousand, the material losses have dramatically increased to 5-6%. The human mind was unable to review all possible combinations of rectangles of required sizes, and choose the one that would yield the least trim. Also time for re-tuning of the finishing equipment had to be considered.

The solution

The automation system for cardboard cutting plant operation planning solves these problems with the use of mathematical methods and optimization algorithms. The system functions include:

• Generation of all feasible cutting orders according to specified types of boxes
• Finding the cutting order, which ensures production of required number of boxes, including the warehouse stock
• Production optimization according to material losses
• Monthly planning of plant operation (target figures may be loaded from other systems)
• Price calculation for each type of box
• Tracking the effect of each additional type of box on total plant material losses
• Documentation, reporting and archiving
• Integration with other systems, including process control systems and other.

Results to date

The use of the automation system enabled the plant operators to reduce the material losses from 5-6% to 2-3%, which amounts to saving of several hundred thousand dollars per year.

Consideration of re-tuning of the finishing equipment in cutting equipment operation planning has remarkably reduced the number and duration of finishing equipment shutdown periods.

The use of the automation system for plant operation planning has also noticeably reduced the production planning time.

Customers

The software system had been successfully installed at the following enterprises:

1. OJS "Arkhangelsk pulp-and-paper mill"
2. OJS "Arkhbum" (branch in Podolsk)
3. OJS "Bumsnab" (Nijny Novgorod)
4. "Veresk-1" Ltd. (St.-Petersburg)
5. "Granit" Ltd. (Pavlovsky Posad, Moscow region)
6. OJS "Kiev pulp-and-paper mill"
7. "Naberejno-Chelninsky cardboard-and-paper mill" Ltd.
8. "Yaroslavl cardboard" Ltd. and other.

At the moment the software system is being installed at several industrial enterprises of Russia.

Pdf version of this page

Download pdf version of this page: ftp://pmasc.karelia.ru/pub/ASUP/GofraP/Gofra.zip

"ASC: Corrugated cardboard" demo

Download "ASC: Corrugated cardboard" demo (in English): ftp://pmasc.karelia.ru/pub/ASUP/GofraP/CorrugatedSimpleCutDemoEng.exe

Certificate of the Foundation of algorithms and software of the Russian Federal Agency for Education

For the software system ASC has Certificate of the Foundation of algorithms and software of the Russian Federal Agency for Education: