“Similar solutions will be applied at all key facilities of the KLB Mill, namely at the KLB machine, evaporation plant, RB4 as well as in the Cooking and Washing Areas. A medium fidelity model of the entire Ilim’s facilities in Ust-Ilimsk, i.e facilities of the old Mill and new KLB Mill, will be developed to ensure a complete understanding of the Ust-Ilimsk Mill material balance”, said Pavel Yurchenko, Vice-President, Ilim Group. “In the long term it is planned to implement the Digital Twin technology at other Ilim’s locations. This will enable us not only to significantly reduce costs and resources and increase equipment operational independence, but also to improve our environmental performance”.

“The implemented solution is an important step to develop the concept of an autonomous production process in the Company”, emphasized Irina Pirogova, Director, IT, Ilim Group. “It allows to minimize human factor impact on the decision making with regard to process management and ensure more efficient equipment operation. The pilot project appeared to be promising both in terms of replication of this solution on other Ilim’s recovery boilers and implementation of the Digital Twin technology at other process areas”.

“The project represents the perfect combination of domain knowledge and a standardized IIOT Metris UX/X platform solution”, said Erich Gatterer, Director Business Development, ANDRITZ AG. The Solution is based on a high-fidelity simulation model, combined with an optimizer which is built on a profit margin calculation, with high process accuracy. The simulated values are transferred continuously via Advanced Control Experts (ACE), which are responsible for stabilization and optimization of the production process, to DCS and enable autonomous operation of the plant.

“ANDRITZ is one of the leading suppliers of IIOT solutions for the Pulp and Paper industry, and they clearly play more important role for providing greater value to our clients. We are especially delighted that this successful project is implemented in Russia. We see great interest among our customers and great potential to bring this additional profit to them and Russian Pulp and Paper Industry”, says Sergey Malkov, CEO of ANDRITZ LLC.