Halltown, MI – OX Paperboard fired up MillTools at their paper mill in Halltown, West Virginia on May 22, 2017. The new manufacturing execution system (MES) replaces a manual system of scheduling and tracking paperboard production at the oldest continually operational manufacturing facility in West Virginia. Members of Panther Systems’ Go Live Team were on-hand to assist the OX’s core team and users across the paper mill’s facilities with transition.
OX West Virginia turned up its first reels and trimmed rolls of paperboard on the new system at the start of the first shift of the production day.
Orders and scheduling
Panther’s Support Services Manager Mark Schmidt coached the front office, as OX retired a century-old system of handwriting orders and arranging index cards on office walls to schedule paper production. Schmidt also watched as the shipping department used Panther’s roll tracking software to locate rolls, move inventory, load trucks and provide drivers with shipping documentation.
Roll production
Panther Go Live Team members JJ Jones and Dan Schott supported backtenders, winder operators and fork truck drivers, and they put user training to work. Backtenders saved turn-ups in the MillTools database, input paper quality test results, recorded downtime and gave instructions to winder operators — all inside MillTools.
Then winder operators ran production patterns inside MillTool’s Winder application to create roll production. Operators used simple tools inside MillTools and roll quality data displayed on flatscreen displays to modify patterns on the fly and maximize production of good rolls while reducing waste.
Other users scaled, wrapped and identified shipping units with OX-branded labels, now printed out of MillTools at all three OX Paperboard mills. Panther watched as rolls of completed production filled one of the warehouses right on time for the first wave of trucks to be loaded.
Welcome changes
The addition of MillTools helps OX’s office team create mill orders and schedule production against customer purchase orders. As orders are created, MillTools automatically sends branded customer communication such as order acknowledgments if selected. This MES receives paper quality data from PantherQCS, the quality control system, which was already in place at the mill.
Roll quality data is applied to actuals, then MillTools generates TAPPI codes to identify all reels and rolls. Labels from Panther identify shipping units. Now, the paper mill is able to locate, move and reconcile inventory at a glance.
MillTools provides powerful tools to plan loads and ship products to customers, creating a certificate of analysis and manifest. The office team can invoice, issue credit memos and interface with OX’s existing accounting, trim optimization and logistics software.
Now, OX Paperboard mills in Illinois, Michigan and West Virginia are to standardize best practices at all of their mills, using MillTools. Managers are able to report and analyze production, quality and waste, using the same reports and dashboards for all OX Paperboard paper mills. OX now has more manufacturing intelligence and insight than many of her competitors.
About Panther Systems
Established in 1993, Panther Systems is heralded by pulp and paper experts as the leading provider of manufacturing intelligence solutions. Based in Vancouver, Washington, Panther Systems is known for MillTools, a suite of powerful purpose-specific software tools, used throughout the pulp and paper industry to manage production and products from the office to mill floor to loading dock. The company’s other offerings include historian quality control solutions like TestCentral and ProcessAnalyzer and PantherQCS. Visit panthersys.com for information or call 360-750-9783.
