Paper machine clothing cost is a small and shrinking percentage of total paper production costs, but the role PMC plays today in making a ton of paper or board has never been bigger.

Previous Supplier Side columns have extolled the virtues of maturing continuous improvement programs in our industry and how critical it is for all suppliers to be considered business partners to ensure mutual success. In regard to this theme, it's critical that we distinguish between genuine continuous improvement value and the ubiquitous term “days running life.”

It would be a tragedy, in the full meaning of the word, if the only measure of success for a highly engineered forming fabric, press felt, or dryer fabric is limited to days running life. Of course, the same can be said about many other pieces of equipment and components used in pulping and papermaking systems, making this a universal theme in almost every aspect of modern papermaking.

In Perspective
When comparing total production costs across the major grade classifications in North America, data suggest that clothing represents a paltry 2% of costs per ton. In the printing and writing paper grades, this relatively insignificant amount “pales” in comparison with fiber (50%+ and growing), labor (15% or more), chemicals (at least 10%), power and fuel (15%+ and definitely increasing), and other miscellaneous materials (as much as 10%).

Though paper machine clothing represents a very thin slice of the total production cost pie, it plays a critical and generally major role in making a ton of paper or board. Toward this end, most modern paper machine clothing is specifically designed to have a major impact on one or more of the aforementioned cost centers. And, in many cases, the application not only helps reduce these costs but can improve sheet quality while helping improve machine efficiency, which often is the “holy grail” measure of performance.

While it's true that clothing life is important, many other more important characteristics are often sacrificed in cases where it's the only or predominant design criteria. Generally, the running life of paper machine fabrics does not correlate at all with overall paper machine efficiency. In fact, the world's most efficient paper machines typically have relatively short but highly predictable clothing change cycles.

Raising the Bar
Most companies operating high efficiency paper machines want clothing designed for rapid startups, immediate high performance dynamics, and stable operation during the required machine run time. Many more options are available to the supplier and papermaker whose priorities of performance lie above basic operating life considerations.

We should all constantly remind ourselves that merely comparing the days running life does not reflect the true value of a piece of clothing. Moreover, judging a supplier company purely on clothing life tends to mask the true value of a very valuable partnership that can help the machine, the mill, and entire corporations remain profitable and viable for years to come in an ever-competitive global market.

Paper industry dynamics have changed dramatically in just the past few years, as they have in most other industries and businesses in North American and around the world. The basic criteria by which mills value and purchase clothing has to be updated if both producers and suppliers are to continue getting what they want and need from these vital, essential components of today's high efficiency paper machines.

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