Recurring Damage to Large Paperboard Roll During Rail Transportation
Industry: Paper Manufacturing – Large Roll Paperboard
Background
A global leader and manufacturer of paper-based commercial products has recurring damage to large paperboard rolls. The company manufactures paperboard and folding paper-based packaging for well-known consumer brands of food, beverage, food service, household, personal care and pet care products.
The company has multiple mill locations that produce the paperboard and paper-based products that are transported to their converting facilities. Extensive use of rail transportation is used to deliver the large paper rolls to the converting facilities.
Situation
The Logistics Manager contacted Impactograph about significant damage occurring to the large paperboard rolls during rail transport to their converting facilities. The problem is significant since damaged rolls cannot be used in their processing equipment which causes disruption in the production process and also hurts profits.
The Logistics Manager goal is to have substantial reduction in paper roll damage for 2021, to identify the problem areas during rail transport and assign accountability for the damage. His damage reduction initiative raised questions for Impactograph as to where the damage is occurring and why is it happening?
Proposed Solution
Rough handling is a fact with rail transportation – loading & unloading, hard braking, rail car coupling, cars rocking, uneven rails, etc. When the Logistics Manager spoke with our Vice President of Sales, Darryl Termine, they had a lengthy discussion to understand the transportation process in addition to what was happening and what steps to take in solving the damage to the paper rolls.
The product device recommended to identify damaging impacts to the paper rolls is the Impactograph Digi-Shock G impact recorder. The impact recorder provides key data during the complete transportation chain and in this situation is used to analyze the shipments during handling. The recorder gives details for g level impact on the x, y, & z axis to determine the direction of damaging impacts. The recorder also provides impact vector, time, date and duration of impacts. The data will be used to determine when, where, what G level and from which direction the damaging impact occurs.
Once the test process using the Digi-Shock G units is completed, the planned device to be used for future monitoring will be the Trans-Monitor TD (timer display) impact indicator. The reason for this is the number of Digi-Shock G impact recorders needed by manufacturer is cost prohibitive. The Trans-Monitor TD will be the ideal solution for cost efficiency and its time date stamp.
Conclusion
By using the Digi-Shock G when transporting the paper roll by rail, the company will be able to determine the when, where and why the paper rolls are being damaged. They will then be able to take corrective action in the transportation chain and reduce potential damage to their product. Also by using the Trans-Monitor TD in the future to monitor their shipments, will alert logistics to any new damaging impacts.
Stay tuned for more information about this customers situation. We will provide a future update with more details to what the manufacturer discovers and how their damage problem is resolved.
If there are any questions or if you think these monitoring devices can help with the products you ship, contact us today.
Impactograph Technical Support at Its Best
An interesting side story about customer support and how Impactograph helped the paper manufacturer with a damaged Digi-Shock G.
There was an urgent request from the Logistics Manager who contacted Darryl Termine about a Digi Shock G that was damaged. The manager explained to Mr. Termine that when the railway handlers were unloading the paper roll, the Digi-Shock G that was used to monitor the shipment was severely damaged.
The mission data was critical to the customer since it was a completed mission. The customer asked Impactograph about getting the data extracted from the crushed recorder. As it turns out, the Impactograph technical team achieved excellent results by extracting the data helping the customer to evaluate their critical mission data.
Read about how the IOG technical team was successful in extracting the data and see images of the damaged device. We did say rail transport was rough. Note: The Impactograph Digi-Shock XT impact recorder with its solid aluminum case should be deployed if the impact recorder is at risk of incurring any physical damaged in a heavy industrial environment.
