Autonomous control of chemistry dosing is a key element in improving efficiency. By ensuring precise chemical dosing is executed promptly, the guesswork and delays traditionally involved in maintaining product quality are eliminated. In addition, by minimizing the overuse and underuse of chemicals, mills experience reduced production costs and quality variances while improving adherence to quality target specs. Mills implementing OPTIX Applied Intelligence have reported significant cost savings from reduced chemical consumption and fewer off-spec batches. By optimizing processes continuously and autonomously, the platform maximizes production throughput and helps mills meet demanding customer specifications without sacrificing profitability and quality.

By automating repetitive production line tasks, operator work hours are freed up to focus on high-value activities. Additionally, OPTIX provides real-time insights and recommendations, enabling operators to make informed, data-driven decisions while maintaining full control over the pulp and paper mill process when needed.

Mills deploying OPTIX have reported significant reductions in chemical consumption (by up to 25%) and improved quality target adherence (of over 60%). These measurable benefits translate directly into an ROI of up to 500% when fully deployed across the mill.

OPTIX continuously monitors production settings and detects deviations that could impact quality. When an issue arises, real-time root cause analysis identifies key variables, allowing our models to prescribe corrective actions. This ensures consistent adherence to quality specifications and minimizes process variability.

OPTIX uses advanced technology to proactively identify and address inefficiencies in production, unlike reactive manual monitoring or diagnostic analytics, which only react to problems after they occur. By predicting and preventing issues before they happen, OPTIX allows mills to move beyond reactive “what happened” and “why did it happen” analysis to a proactive “what is going to happen” and “prevent it from happening” approach. The ability to predict, prescribe, and automate process optimization makes OPTIX a unique solution for manufacturers looking to modernize.

Once connectivity to the mill historian and SCADA system has been established, the platform can be in production in 4 weeks or less. In addition, since the platform was designed from the ground up to be deployed in legacy operating environments, OPTIX integrates seamlessly with existing IT/OT infrastructure with minimal disruption to operations.

Yes, OPTIX is highly scalable and can be deployed across multiple products, grades, lines, and facilities — regardless of size, production volume, or product specification tolerances. Its flexible architecture allows mills to expand autonomous control from a single quality parameter and control element to a multi-parameter, multi-control implementation.

Yes. OPTIX can be deployed as an “open loop” architecture, allowing operators to manually take corrective action, or a “closed loop” architecture, supporting OPTIX’s ability to automate action through the mill’s SCADA system or IoT gateway.

The platform requires 6-12 months of historical process data supplemented by real-time data collected from sensors, control systems, and/or lab testing. The OPTIX implementation and data science team works with the mill’s IT team early in the implementation process to ensure the process data required to support our models is available, clean, and consistent.