Process variability and inherent efficiency enhancement in industrial processes: Two case studies in pulp and paper industry

In this paper, the correlation between process variability attenuation and efficiency enhancement in industrial processes is studied. The starting hypothesis of this work states that process variability attenuation brings about efficiency enhancements in both energy and productivity aspects. To test the hypothesis, a multi-variable statistical approach requiring no process model is proposed. The approach is applied to two case studies in pulp and paper industry. The results approve the starting hypothesis while they can further be used to justify any capital investment in advanced control systems to attenuate process variability.