A new resource for R&M professionals

For more than a decade, TAPPI has partnered with IDCON to provide its members with valuable information about reliability and maintenance issues in the pulp and paper industry.  That’s why it’s exciting to finally be inaugurating this new section in Paper360°, TAPPI’s official member magazine.

I think a humming paper machine—whether it’s running tissue, kraft, liner, or a specialty grade—is a thing of beauty. It reflects the work of thousands of men and women designing, testing, delivering, and operating each component technology, from the smallest bearing to the largest supercalender and everything in between. Yet in spite of this wide range, each component has this in common: it MUST be kept in top working condition, or the entire system suffers. Because that’s true, we’ve seen incredible strides made in the science of reliability and maintenance throughout the past decades.

That’s where IDCON comes in. Their reliability and maintenance experience and philosophy is a great fit for our industry, and their audit and benchmarking strategies have a proven track record. We’ve heard for years that TAPPI members and Paper360° readers want specialized R&M information they can really use in their mills—and it makes sense for TAPPI to turn to the experts to provide it. I feel it offers members and readers a real advantage to have this information delivered straight to their desktops (both genuine and virtual!) in these pages.

And we’re not stopping here. TAPPI and IDCON will be expanding this partnership to also deliver a dedicated R&M website with valuable additional content, a free newsletter, online communities (Connect and LinkedIn groups), events, and more.

So keep those machines humming—and let us know what you’d like to see in these R&M pages. We’d love to hear from you!

Best regards,

Larry N. Montague

TAPPI President and CEO