ABB adds new features to its innovative Web Imaging System to help paper makers enhance quality

Full Sheet Formation Analysis and Real-Time Wrinkle Count will help pulp and paper makers achieve optimal results

Technology leader ABB today launched two new features as part of its Web Imaging System, designed to help manufacturers deliver on-specification paper as part of ABB’s commitment to providing end-to-end integrated solutions for the pulp and paper industry.

For fine paper and paperboard manufacturers seeking to optimize printability of their end product, reduce rejects and achieve consistent output quality, Full Sheet Formation Analysis provides conclusive, highly visualized measurement of paper uniformity for the full web. Aiming to redefine the standard of measurement accuracy, this patent-pending new feature offers deeper and more precise analysis of formation, helping papermakers better optimize established paper properties to achieve higher quality goals.

While traditional measurement techniques only look at a small portion of the web and may not reveal the floc sizes or shapes, ABB’s full sheet solution leverages proprietary methods, processing parallelism, and the flexibility of the FPGA (field-programmable gate array) based smart camera platform to reveal and classify paper formation floc sizes and shapes. This greatly improves the ability to determine the uniformity of paper formation, while removing the possibility of misleading results.

For linerboard and liquid packaging manufacturers that require accurate detection and analysis of wrinkle formation, Real-Time Wrinkle Count provides online measurement and analysis of all paper web-based products. The new feature is the only system available for pulp and paper manufacturers that identifies wrinkles and aggregates the data to easily reveal problems across the web in real time, giving papermakers a competitive edge on maintaining quality.

The feature captures up to 1.4 million wrinkle defects per camera without overloading the system and sends alerts when KPIs are outside of user-defined thresholds. It then aligns defect maps to sample machine or cross direction location. It provides highly consistent results, enables precise laboratory correlation, allows for better management of the process, and reduces the amount of rejects.

“The launch of these two powerful new features demonstrates our continued investment in our Web Imaging System and reinforces our commitment to helping papermakers achieve the highest quality in their product output,” said Stephen Mitchell, Product Manager, Web Imaging at ABB. “We are determined to push the industry forward with the development of new measurement techniques that use the most advanced technology to make online quality control easier to achieve.”

Real-Time Wrinkle Count and Full Sheet Formation Analysis are part of the ABB Ability™ Quality Management System integrated solution suite consisting of products, services and applications for quality control. ABB’s web inspection system, with formation analysis and/or wrinkle count features, will deliver actionable information to ABB’s QCS (Quality Control System) and DCS (Distributed Control System) systems, based on industry-leading ABB Ability™ System 800xA, enabling process alarms and quicker corrective actions to quality issues.