Modernizing plant floor operations is a big undertaking, but in pulp and paper mills—and other high-hazard industries—effective modernization can be the difference between an operation that is safe and profitable and one that’s not.
From confined spaces to chemical and noise exposure to the use of combustible materials and electrical safety concerns, heavy industries face several unique operational challenges that add to the complexities associated with modernization. Below are five key steps companies should take to modernize their plant floor operations.
1. Conduct a plant health assessment
The first step in any modernization journey is to understand your current operations. This can include evaluating your equipment, overall production lines, talent pool and how you utilize data. Taking this step helps plant managers proactively identify any potential gaps, risks or opportunities for improvement. Ideally, plant managers should start by clearly defining the challenges they’re facing and the outcomes they want to achieve.
While it may seem small, a proper plant health assessment is critical to ensuring that any actions you take are focused, informed and specifically designed to solve your unique challenges. It also provides a roadmap for modernization and can be helpful in creating a long-term plan for making informed decisions on where and what to invest in. Skipping this step could lead to a haphazard approach that doesn’t address long-term needs.
2. Modernize technology as needed
After performing the plant health assessment, plant managers should have a good idea of what equipment, systems or technologies are outdated and need to be replaced. Relying on dated technology can decrease reliability and cause more downtime and higher service costs, especially if replacement parts are harder to find. It can also create security vulnerabilities.
In general, legacy systems consume more energy, limit productivity and rely on a shrinking skilled workforce to maintain and operate them. Modernizing equipment where appropriate can help increase automation, save on energy costs and boost output. Additionally, modern systems are often future-ready and can more easily integrate AI and advanced data and analytics platforms.
3. Evaluate your safety and compliance programs
In high-hazard industries, a robust safety program is crucial for ensuring employees return home safely every night. Heat stress, heavy equipment, excessive noise and electrical safety are all challenges that workers in these industries face every day. While it may not be top-of-mind when modernizing operations, plant managers should still incorporate safety into their modernization plans.
Businesses should ensure that electrical equipment maintenance procedures are compliant, and that workers have access to the necessary safety training. Additionally, plant managers should check that lockout/tagout procedures are effective.
As a side note, safety equipment can also be modernized or added. While hardhats, gloves and other PPE are obviously table stakes, high-hazard facilities can benefit from advanced connected safety solutions like sensors and wearables. These can give safety managers a more comprehensive view of their workers’ safety status and can help proactively identify risks before they become incidents.
4. Centralize your data and analytics platforms
Data and analytics are becoming increasingly important to businesses in heavy industries. Collecting and analyzing data can empower plant managers to enhance product quality, output, productivity, machine utilization, maintenance efforts and more. But getting those results isn’t always simple. A company might collect data but not leverage it. Or the systems they use to collect data might operate in silos. Even worse, they might collect the wrong data.
Streamlining your data collection efforts can go a long way towards alleviating those challenges. First, plant managers should make sure that their assets can collect data. Next, they should understand what data is being collected currently, and what additional data they might want to collect. Finally, plant managers should consider centralizing or consolidating their platforms to eliminate potential silos and provide a single, easily accessible view into their data. This can allow plant managers to more easily glean insights and make informed decisions that can enhance operations.
Start by identifying potential process improvements and use cases and design a data strategy that meets those immediate needs and has the capability to grow and scale in the future. Savvy plant managers will include these digital transformation efforts as part of their overall modernization strategy.
5. Review your maintenance procedures
Do you have insight into how your assets are performing? Can you monitor the condition of your machines, and spot issues before they become potential failures? A key part of modernization is understanding your current maintenance procedures. Ideally, plant managers should strive to move from a “reactive” to a “predictive” maintenance model. Having the ability to monitor heat, vibration and other key data points for high-value assets can empower plant managers to better understand what machines may require maintenance–and when–before they fail and cause production to go offline. There are many tools that can enhance maintenance performance, but a solid network and modernization strategy is critical for successful implementation.
As a side benefit, an enhanced maintenance strategy can also positively impact safety efforts.
Ensuring business continuity
Heavy industries, including pulp and paper, face significant headwinds on several fronts–from an unpredictable supply chain to skilled labor shortages, pricing uncertainties and more. In the face of these challenges, operations managers might be hesitant to make these investments, and instead take an “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” approach. However, it’s important to consider that modernization shouldn’t be viewed as a capital expense, but instead as a business continuity strategy. Make sure you’re investing not only to solve today’s challenges, but also to set your operations up for future success.
Understanding your current operations, upgrading equipment, prioritizing safety and progressing on digital transformation efforts lays the foundation for workforce efficiency and long-term success. Additionally, incorporating a smart modernization plan can help extend the life of critical assets, and prepare facilities for next-generation technologies like AI, manufacturing execution system (MES) software and robotics.
Ultimately, modernizing and safeguarding plant floor operations will help keep the plant operating continuously, efficiently and safely. Keep this guide handy as you work on 2026 planning and budgeting to ensure that your plant has the resources it needs to do this important work.
