Displaying items by tag: Powerflute

As you may have heard Powerflute has a new owner. The past 12 years have been extremely interesting; I have been able to follow very closely how our Chairman Dermot Smurfit first led the buy-out of the company and then, together with our team, took it to where we are today. We all at Savon Sellu are very grateful to Dermot – we sincerely believe that without him we would not have been able to achieve the remarkable turnaround that has occurred. Under Dermot’s leadership the Savon Sellu mill has been transformed from “most likely to close” to “most successful” paper and board mill in Finland; indeed quite a leap given that the forest products industry is the most important industry in our country!

As one era ends, maybe with a feeling of some sadness, another one immediately starts offering new and exciting prospects! Our new owner Madison Dearborn Partners is a very experienced investor in our industry with an excellent investment track record. I am convinced that Madison Dearborn has bought a very good company in Powerflute; a company with excellent personnel, mills and products, and that we in Savon Sellu have gotten a very good new owner. We are already looking forward to see how much more we can improve!

During the due diligence process the operative focus has been “business as usual”. For us that, among other, has meant that we have made a new quarterly production record in Q3, continued our long term development plan by installing a breast roll shaker on the paper machine and new refiners in the pulping section and that we have opened a new sales office in Italy. The optimisation process of the new equipment and quality fine-tuning is currently in process and I hope to be able to tell you some interesting quality-related news latest by the end of Q1 2017.

I would like to thank you all, dear customers and friends, for your support and co-operation during 2016. Wishing you all relaxing festive season and a prosperous New Year 2017!

Juha Koukka
CEO of Savon Sellu Ltd.

Ever since the Savon Sellu mill was acquired by Powerflute in 2005 Pertti Kaasalainen, also sometimes called “Mr. Corrugated” by our clients, has been synonymous with our technical customer service. But Pertti’s troubleshooting history extends much further back as he already in 1990 stepped in to support FINNBOARD clients from his job at Metsä-Serla’s Neopac plant in Tampere. He gradually moved ever more into a technical customer service role and played an integral part in opening markets for the use of Kemiart’s coated liners and he played a big role in helping the US market grow to more than 100,000 tons p.a. for Kemiart in a few short years.

In the last few years, as he reached retirement age, Pertti worked on a part-time basis for Savon Sellu. This year Pertti turned 68 and informed us that he gradually would prefer the rocking chair over frequent flyer miles. We are very grateful for Pertti’s efforts on behalf of Savon Sellu and want to thank him for his invaluable support – truly a job well done!

Knowing that we could not rely on Pertti’s burning problem-solving interest for all eternity, we had been looking for a while for someone to step into Pertti’s large shoes. We now believe we have found a very good solution to this succession issue: Savon Sellu has entered into a contract with the consulting company Pro-Corr. Pro-Corr has been set up by Harre Medemblik; a highly experienced corrugated professional with close to 10 years of experience as Senior Process Specialist at BHS. Our contract with Pro-Corr commits us to use 2 weeks per month of Harre’s services for 11 months each year.

One aim of this new co-operation with Pro-Corr is to move our technical customer service offering from a reactive, problem solving approach towards a proactive, client service approach. We believe most of our clients will welcome a more regular support program and that regular plant visits by Harre will become a valuable and welcome resource. As a first step, we have started to work on a schedule of client calls for the rest of 2015. Many of you may already have been contacted by your Powerflute® sales representative about scheduling a first visit but please feel free to contact us if you would like to schedule one!

September 15 we celebrated an important milestone at Savon Sellu; the production of the 8^th million ton of fluting on our board machine which was started in 1968. To commemorate the occasion we organized a party for invited customers from all over the world. Participants arrived from as far as Argentina, China and the Philippines but of course also many from our closer European and Middle Eastern markets. The day included an extended mill visit, presentations, e.g. the introduction of our new quality specifications, a cruise on Lake Kallavesi and a dinner at the Kuopio Club. The next day a few brave golfers set off to master the spectacular Tahko New Course in chase of the Dermot F. Smurfit Invitational Trophy.

The 8^th million ton celebratory roll was presented by Dr. Dermot F. Smurfit to International Paper, specifically the Gandia plant. The roll was signed by representatives of International Paper, by Powerflute’s Chairman and CEO, by representatives of Savon Sellu’s management and workers and by our sales agent in Spain. The roll travelled the usual route from Kuopio to Gandia, standing out also in the ports and in the vessel as a very special roll!

During the event we also showcased our latest major investment; our new fully automatic roll packaging line. This line allows us, as the first and only supplier of pure Nordic virgin fibre Semi-Chemical Fluting to fully serve the new generation of 3350 mm wide corrugators. The new line can handle rolls of up to 3600 mm and offers improved roll protection in the form of corrugated end-shields and tighter wrapping. In addition, we are introducing printed wrapping. We are convinced that tighter and printed wrapping will reduce roll damage along the transportation chain.

We are very grateful to all of you who gave your time to participate and to make this a special event. We at Powerflute Savon Sellu had a great time and sincerely believe that sentiment was shared by our valued guests!

Powerflute’s® long-term development program continues! After the headbox investment, paper profile improvements and product specification upgrades, we have now taken the next step. In accordance with our long-term plan, we have now focused on better managing the pulp-cooking and fibre-treatment process. We believe this is the area where the key to producing the best possible semi-chemical fluting lies.

In conjunction with our annual maintenance standstill in August, we have now upgraded the process controls in our pulp mill and installed a new stage in our mechanical fibre treatment. These improvements allow us to treat our fibres more gently, which in turn allows them to create a stronger fibre net than before. This means that our paper from now on will be easier to handle, increasing the operating window on the corrugator. These investments also give us a more stable process, which should translate into a more consistent product quality from order to order. We are therefore confident that you, our customer, will experience improved productivity due to the better runnability of our paper on your corrugator.

In the short time since the August standstill, we have been able to verify these improvements through our own laboratory tests as well as through initial customer feedback. While this already has been a very encouraging development, it is also just the beginning as we will continue to fine-tune the process and hope to achieve further improvements still! And this is where we also will need your help: Close co-operation with you, our most valued customers, is of essential importance for us as we strive to maximise the benefits of our enhanced capabilities. We can improve Powerflute even further, which we are convinced will be a valuable asset in our joint battle against the threat of plastic boxes in the most demanding end-use areas.