About the company
A market-leading maker of tissue, pulp, packaging and building materials is transforming the way it works in response to digitalization, globalization, evolving safety and environmental mandates and a changing workforce.
The challenge
Executives at the company knew past success did not necessarily equal future success. In the face of near-constant industry disruptions, company leadership prioritized innovation, agility and resilience as essential. To transition from a remarkably successful 20th-century manufacturing business to a foremost 21st-century knowledge-based company, digital transformation was required. This included enabling remote operations to improve mill efficiency, safety and productivity, assessing risk and improving plant cybersecurity.
However, digitally transforming the company, enabling remote plant operations and ensuring the security of operational technology (OT) assets was challenging. Some staff questioned the viability of digital transformation and remote operations. Others expressed concerns about the increased cyber risks the transformation would likely bring. Then came COVID-19.
As an essential business, the company needed to protect the safety of its employees, ensure reliable operations and rapidly increase plant production to meet a spike in demand for paper goods during a global pandemic. At the same time, continuing to progress its corporate digital transformation initiative remained a priority to ensure long-term competitive advantage.
The solution
Based on the progress with existing digitalization and remote operations initiatives, when COVID-19 struck, the company was able to quickly respond and leverage its existing solutions from Octave to increase production safely and reliably.
Tempo Control System Effectiveness (formerly PAS PlantState Integrity) enabled engineers, many of whom were suddenly working from home, to continue to access data required to ensure safe, reliable operations. Engineers could review operator changes to critical settings, such as reconfiguring control loops or shelving or disabling alarms, as well as quickly identify process anomalies and address nuisance alarms without direct physical access.
Tempo Automation Integrity (formerly PAS Automation Integrity) provided centralized multi- vendor control system configuration visibility. Engineers could view existing control system configurations, analyze planned and unplanned configuration changes and detect and troubleshoot configuration issues remotely and efficiently without logging in to multiple systems.
OT cybersecurity specialists used Cyber Integrity (formerly PAS Cyber Integrity) to obtain an automated, accurate view of all OT and IT assets and their associated cybersecurity risks – a crucial requirement due to increased malicious cyber activity. Remote operations capabilities provided by these solutions enabled the company’s operational staff to demonstrate resilience in the face of COVID-19 and preparedness for future operational challenges. Prior digitalization investments were validated, and digitalization and remote operations skeptics within the company could see how the future of paper goods manufacturing will be more digital, automated and efficient.
