Paper Manufacturing

A leading European pulp manufacturer operating a state-of-the-art mill had been running PROFIBUS in their OT network with regular half-yearly status audits, but unplanned system failures were generating downtime costs of up to €80,000 per hour. The extent of shutdown recovery procedures — including cleaning requirements and restart time — made each unplanned outage particularly costly. The goal was to move from time-based maintenance to a proactive, predictive approach that could detect network anomalies and wear before they caused production stops. Indu-Sol designed and implemented a condition monitoring system tailored to the facility's PROFIBUS environment, supported by on-site training and alarm management configuration.

The completed system enables continuous network monitoring with threshold-based alerting integrated into the facility's existing alarm management infrastructure.

Project Overview

• Customer: Leading European pulp manufacturer, >€350M turnover, >500 employees'
• Sector: Paper industry, pulp production
• Project Completion: March 2023
• Goal: Minimize unplanned downtime and shift from time-based to predictive maintenance
• Project Value: Approximately €59,000

Challenge
The facility had an established PROFIBUS network with periodic manual audits, but lacked continuous visibility into network condition between audit cycles. Unplanned failures were difficult to anticipate, and each shutdown carried significant costs due to the time and procedures required to restore production. Management needed both a technical solution and a clear ROI case to justify moving to a permanent monitoring approach.

Certified Motion Control Professional Program

Strengthen Your Skills and Enhance Your Career

Become a Certified Motion Control Professional (CMCP) and join the elite group of system integrators, machine builders, manufacturers, end-users and others recognized in the industry for their professional knowledge and expertise.

Become Certified

Solution
Indu-Sol conducted a current situation analysis and network assessment, then installed 32 PROFIBUS-INspektor® NT units for passive, continuous network monitoring across the facility. Five PROmesh diagnostic switches were deployed to form a high-performance network backbone. PROmanage® NT was configured for centralized network maintenance and management, with threshold values aligned to the facility's alarm management system. On-site training brought both technical teams and management up to speed on the system, and the ROI calculation — demonstrating payback after a single avoided breakdown — provided the justification needed for full adoption.

Results

• Continuous PROFIBUS network monitoring with early detection of anomalies and wear
• Conversion of unplanned downtime events into plannable maintenance windows
• Significant reduction in unplanned system downtime and associated production losses
• ROI achieved by preventing a single hour of unplanned downtime against costs of up to €80,000 per hour
• Increased production process efficiency and long-term operational reliability

Download the Case Study >>
The pulp and paper manufacturing case study is a detailed look at how Indu-Sol's condition monitoring approach supports predictive maintenance in process-intensive production environments.