3 Benefits of benchmarking your paper machine performance

We’re passionate about moving our customers' performance forward, which is why we initiated the Valmet Production Survey already more than twenty years ago. Since the beginning of the study, we’ve collected thousands of responses from diverse paper and board machines located all around the world.

If you're an executive that hasn’t bought into benchmarking paper or board machine performance, below are three reasons why you might want to reconsider that strategy:

1. Understand your performance in comparison to competitors

Having a thorough understanding of your own machine performance can only get you so far. If you’re aiming to improve your energy efficiency or overall paper machine efficiency, it might benefit you to understand the current industry or grade-specific averages to identify areas for improvement and their priority for attention. By gaining an independent perspective, you can establish realistic targets based on information for your industry.

2. Open minds to new opportunities

Whilst the results can make uncomfortable reading, benchmarking helps place organizational focus on change and provides the direction for the change process. It helps you clearly identify specific areas of opportunity for discussion based on data rather than assumptions or emotion. It can minimize any resistance to change, by creating an evidence-based direction to support your initiative.

3. Benchmarking helps you identify not only what is good performance, but to be a market leader

Market leaders are the ones that exceed industry benchmarks. If you’re comparing productivity, machine speed, any efficiency factor or energy efficiency, benchmarking can provide a better outlook as to where you are versus where you want to be. Where one or two percentage points can have a dramatic impact, that intelligence may warrant an investment or reallocation of resources. The challenge is that successful companies are no doubt working to widen the gap.

Are you ready to learn more about your performance?

If you’re interested in learning more about the performance of the machines within the industry, you can participate in the Valmet Production Survey and benefit the results and the benchmarking data it provides.

The next data collection period will start at the beginning of 2024. Please contact us, if you would like to participate. 

By providing your machine performance data you gain access to the widest paper and board machine production and energy efficiency data available.