Paper pundits: The story of International Paper

International Paper (IP) crossed the thousand-crore mark, in the financial year of March 2015, clocking a turnover of Rs 1147 crores, with sales of 215846 metric tonnes of paper

For Rampraveen Swaminathan, chairman and managing director, International Paper APPM, the asset investment strategies is focused on three areas de-bottlenecking, environmental performance and product differentiation

Since entering India, IP headquartered in Hyderabad, has witnessed tremendous growth. IP clocked in a growth rate of 4% in the financial year 2015

Creating and re-positioning the brand IP and to provide the right and innovative solution for customers has been the key focus for Avtar Singh Matharu, associate vice president-marketing at IP

Safety and achieving environmental leadership is high on IP's priority list. This can seen imbibed in each and every employee at the Rajahmundhry and Kadiyam mill of IP in Andhra Pradesh

Today, the Rajahmundhry mill churns out 1,80,000 metric tons of paper per year and 850 workmen ensure the production is carried out smoothly

The comapany has invested in Bielomatik A4 sheeting paper machine at the Rajahmundry mill. The state-of-the-art sheeting line is designed to convert paper reels into A4, A3 and FS (Fullscape) size products

With the state-of-the-art sheeting line, the conversion capacity is 265 metric tonne per day. The extended facility was built in 2013 within 13 months with an investment of over Rs 100-crore

The Bielomatik sheeter installed has automated the sheeting process in the facility and has advanced inline ream wrapping, carton packing and palletising capabilities

With this investment,IP APPM has bagged an exclusive global partnership with HP to manufacture their copier range, which were earlier being imported by other IP mills to India

Atanu Chakrabarti, senior vice president of sales and supply chain at International Paper has been instrumental in streamlining the supply chain. IP's on time in full delivery of the finished goods has improved by 8% in 2015

To train the 2,500 workforce of IP, the Rajahmundhry plant is equipped with a state-of-the-art learning centre, which was inaugurated in January 2016. Here, the behavioral, managerial and technical skills are honed

The Rajahmundry mill has a fully automated workflow with minimal manual intervention. The pulp feeder and digester is continuously monitored centrally

Factors such as the squarness in cut sheet, brightness, PH values among others of the paper is constantly monitored at the in-house testing centre

The mill is equipped with four paper making machines and the interesting part is that, 65% i.e. around 34MV of the total power required to operate the mill is generated in-house, through the recovery from the boiler

The plant houses effluent treatment plant from Germanyfor lechate handling, which is the first such plant to be commissioned in India. The 12-crore plant was set-up in 2014, with the aim to achieve "environmental leadership" says Swaminathan

The Kadiyam mill currently houses three paper making machines and has a capacity to churn 60,000 tonnes of paper per year

The Kadiyam mill is dedicated for producing specialised paper such as paper cup stock, coloured paper among others and the highlight of the plant is the sophisticated de-inking unit, to recycle used paper

Around 2000 tonnes of used printed paper is recycled every month, which is sourced through a centralised process from printers, corporate and educational institutes

The Kadiyam mill has a productivity level of 90%, due to stringent maintenance process. Yearly once both the mills are shut down for 10 days and 1500 workmen from all over the world execute a thorough inspection and maintenance process

Cost reduction is another important factor that IP focuses on and employees take up different continuous improvement projects. For example, a project on Ash, a raw material used in manufacturing paper was taken up which resulted in a savings of about Rs 1.8 crore rupees in a year. Seen here, the Kadiyam mill team

The mills are equipped to treat the effluents generated, which is done through primary, secondary and tertiary treatment of the water

K M Kasetty, a veteran at IP says, "We follow the best manufacturing practices, which is based on EHS (environment, Health and Safety), cost reduction, people, reliability and capital"

IP has launched clonal plantation centres (CPC) to develop superior clonal saplings which can double the productivity of pulpwood as compared to conventional seedling methods. Seen here is the team of Mulagapudi CPC

This Mulagapudi cloning centre is spread across 5.4 acres and has 20 low-cost polyhouses. These cloning centre employs women from nearby villages, which has resulted in enhancement of their socio-economic status

In total, there are five clonal centres in and around Andhra Pradesh, with the latest being the Mulagapudi CPC. The centre works in ateam-based system and women’s groups are trained to produce low cost Casuarina clones and independently manage each polyhouse

IP APPM to promote farm forestry and for the benefit of farmers launched the Rythukosam Smart Card to enable direct transfer of the monetary benefits of the farm forestry harvest to the farmers’ bank account

For the year 2015, 100% of the wood was sourced in and around Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, within a radius of 350sq/mt. IP has strategically placed wood depots, wherein farmers can directly supply the woods to these depot. Seen here is a wood depot at SR Peta.

P-APPM had launched its farm forestry program for clonal plantations in 1980s. So far under the program, over 1.75 billion saplings has been planted in an area of over 2.52 lakh hectares. Around 55,000 small scale farmers are covered under this program

Sanjeev Baldwa, proprietor, Surbhi Papers and a distributor of IP products says, "After the IP came into the picture, the approach has been more professional and customer centeric. Today the focus is on detailing and increase the brand value through branding of products and customer driven processes"