Proactive Maintenance of Pressure Equipment

The Company produces premium-quality pulp and paper products in Canada. Similar to process requirements of the oil & gas industry, pulp production involves complex equipment; kraft mills often apply the same processes and operational systems as petrochemical plants.

To maintain its production rates, the Company had to manage the mechanical integrity and regulatory compliance of these assets. In particular, the company needed to ensure the mills – some dating back to the 1960s – would continue working reliably.

By 2005 the need for proactive maintenance was crucial and significant.

Cenosco started implementing information management systems for pressure equipment integrity (IMS PEI) and reliability-centered maintenance.

Since then, we have supported upgrading these systems and moving to IMS PEI in 2019.

Given the conservative nature of the pulp industry, an important requirement was supporting the Company in embracing the new systems and ways of working.

The real challenge came with the IMS PEI move in 2019.

This involved changing not just the operating system, but also the organization of the data itself, including work processes and management.

Leading the IMS PEI migration involved engaging closely with the Company to understand their requirements.

For instance, Cenosco needed to reorganize the data to achieve visibility to fit the requirements.

Following the implementation, we also provided training – first in person, then remotely – for 13 IMS users.

The Company has become a frontrunner in the risk-based inspection.

By applying the IMS PEI’s analysis to its extensive existing data, the company has been able to dramatically focus its equipment inspections.

In turn, this has reduced downtime, as well as labor and material requirements.

The IMS systems even enabled the early discovery of new corrosion in critical equipment, saving costs and preventing productivity losses.

Together with Cenosco, the Company is now exploring the integration of IMS PEI with an interface to automate data management.

The two software packages will share data automatically, reducing administrative workloads and the risk of human error.

They are looking forward to taking this next step, and to a strong future for this long-running partnership.