September 7, 2006 - StoraEnso Tour

The last email was just getting too long for anyone to read at one sitting so I decided to continue to the StoraEnso tour in another email...

On Thursday we went to Wisconsin Rapids to see the StoraEnso paper plant. We weren't allowed to take any photos but this tour was also a 9 1/2 on a scale of 1 to 10! StoraEnso is a Finnish company and has locations throughout the world. StoraEnso calls the HUGE machine we saw their "16 Machine" because it is in Location #1 (Wisconsin Rapids) and was the 6th machine installed there. When they decided to build the machine in the late 1990's, the parts for the machine were brought in on barges through the Great Lakes and on railroad cars and by truck. They had to close down some highways and some parts of the city to get the huge parts through the streets. The machine is 40' wide, 30' high and 500' long.

The first step in the process (long before things advance to the above machine) is that the logs are brought in and the chipper eats them up and spits them out. The chips are then mixed with water and chemicals to make a pure white pulp. (There are photos of the chipper and the logs coming in by truck and railcar and the rows and rows of logs stored waiting to be used.) The pulp is piped to the 16 Machine to start the paper making process. The 16 Machine is 500' long and completes the entire process from pulp to finished glossy coated paper. The pulp goes onto a "screen" and the moisture is shaken out of it. Then the screen with the pulp is pressed between rollers to press the moisture out of the bottom of the screen and then through another set of rollers to press the moisture out of the top. Then it goes through a series of steam rollers to dry the paper. It comes out of the machine and is rolled onto 21' wide rolls that weigh 23 tons. Automatic optical scanners check the paper as it is being wound onto the roll and if they find a defect it is marked on the edge of the roll. This roll of paper is then rolled onto another roll so that any defect can be cut out. It then goes through a coating machine that sprays a finish on the paper to give it a matt finish and then is wound on ANOTHER roll. At this point the roll weighs 33 tons. If the paper is to be sold with a gloss finish (magazine covers, annual reports, etc.) this roll is moved to another machine which uses air to buff the paper to a shine. The paper is held off of any rollers with air pressure so that no marks are put on the gloss paper.

The machine can turn out 4200 feet of this high grade paper per MINUTE (more than 45 miles of paper in one hour). It usually operates at about 3600' per minute though.

The paper that comes off of this machine is still on a 21' roll, but consumers can't use (and truckers can't carry!) a 21' wide, 33 ton roll of paper! The roll goes to another machine that puts cardboard "cores" on an empty roller. The paper is fed onto this roller and the paper is wound yet another time. Then blades slice through the paper to match the width of the core. The core is not cut by these blades. There might be 5 different width rolls on 5 different width cores after the cutting process. Some customers use the paper on these rolls, but most people use sheets of paper to print on so most of these rolls go to the "sheeting department".

In the sheeting department, the rolls are loaded onto a machine that cuts the paper into sheets of roughly the size that is needed. At the next station the huge stacks of paper are divided into smaller stacks that can be precision cut to exactly the correct size. Sometimes these final cut sheets are packaged in boxes (about 1000 sheets) and sometimes they are placed on a pallet (maybe 10,000 sheets) and wrapped in brown shrink-wrap for bulk shipping.

The next step is the BEST part. Each box and each pallet is automatically loaded onto an AGV (automated ground vehicle) - actually robot cars - and carried to a space in the warehouse. The AGV sets the package down on a stand. An automated "loading robot" comes along and picks it up, scans its barcode and places it on a shelf in the warehouse. At this point, it has been entered into inventory and its precise location has been noted in the inventory computer. There are 11 layers of shelves in the warehouse (it is approximately 9 stories high). These 11 layers have a front storage section and a rear storage section. When an order is placed the loading robot moves to the space where the item is stored. If something else is in front of it, it picks it up and moves it to the nearest empty space. When it moves that package to the nearest empty space its NEW inventory location is noted in the computer and the loading robot does NOT have to move it back after it gets what it was looking for in the rear space. The loading robot puts the ordered package on a stand, an AGV comes along and picks it up and takes it to be loaded onto a truck to be shipped. There are very few lights on in the warehouse. The robots do not need lights and there are NO people there at all. By not having the lights on, the company saves about $60,000/year in utility bills.

We took the scenic route back to Green Bay and saw some great looking farms and countryside.

http://www.kodakgallery.com/BrowsePhotos.jsp?&collid=71978771503.656198030403.1158341310704&page=1&sort_order=1&navfolderid=2006&folderid=0&ownerid=71978771503