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Artificial Intelligence - in the service of paper production
23 April

Graduate students of the Graduate School of Technology and Energy of St. Petersburg State University of Industrial Technologies and Design came to the Koryazhma branch of Ilim Group, Russia's largest pulp and paper company, to collect material for their dissertations.

Specialists met with graduate students in the museum of production history, where the guests came from the industrial site to supplement the received information and impressions with facts and evidences of the birth, formation, stages of development of the timber chemistry giant on Vychegda.

Marina Slyuta is already a graduate student at the St. Petersburg State University of Industrial Technologies and Design. Vladislav Nikeshin is finishing his second year of study, he chose the topic of his PhD thesis long ago.

Young scientists believe that they are very lucky. Vladimir Sidelnikov, Head of the Department of Information-Measuring Technologies and Control Systems of Ƶ, who recommended the graduate students to get acquainted with the enterprise, is an old acquaintance of Alexander Koksharov, Head of the Research and Development Department of the Chief Technologist Service of the Koryazhma branch of Ilim Group.

For Alexander Vasilievich the arrival of scientists-future colleagues is also a pleasant event. Their generation will have to say a new word in the development of the industry, to find ways to improve the automation of production at a completely new level up to the introduction of artificial intelligence systems.

When asked how Marina Sliuta decided on her choice of university, the graduate student honestly said that the choice was almost random:

"In the process of studying I really got carried away. Before Koryazhma I visited several enterprises: Kondopoga, Segezha, Svetogorsk".

- Which production most impressed you?

- All of them. I got a lot of necessary information and impressions everywhere. The most striking thing is how much effort, knowledge, labor is invested in these industrial machines. And today's perception, we can say, is already on another qualitative level. Sending us here, our scientific supervisor Vladimir Ivanovich Sidelnikov said that we should see the whole technological process of paper making: "Then you will understand and love it". And so it happened. Even the smell of freshly produced paper is special. By the way, I tasted it too, both paper and pulp. Alexander Vasilyevich allowed it.

- What production facilities in Koryazhma did you visit?

- We saw the production of printing papers, sulphate bleached pulp, watched the bleaching and pulping process, saw the presspot. We visited the seventh paper machine: the coating plant, the sheet paper shop. The scale is amazing and I would like to contribute to the further development of production.

- In what area does your field of interest prevail? What will your scientific work be devoted to?

- Improvement of paper quality indexes management systems. We need to study the structure and main parameters of modern paper machines. Three main parameters are controlled on the machines: thickness, weight and moisture. It is necessary to develop a complex control system with multivariant parameters of product quality indicators. There are such systems in the world, but we set the task to develop our own, domestic and, as they say, "turnkey". Why pay someone for something that we can create ourselves and at a fundamentally new level? There are enough examples of successful import substitution today. We also want to say our word in this area.

Vladislav Nikeshin, like Marina, is a native St. Petersburger. After graduating from school, he chose the University of Industrial Technologies and Design consciously. He sees his professional mission in improving the production automation system:

"We are looking for the interrelation of various paper indicators and want to reveal the influence of one indicator on several others. Our task is to develop the concept of the 'bottleneck', i.e. to find the fundamental indicators and optimize the entire control system.The introduction of artificial intelligence into paper production is not a distant prospect at all".

- Did you get enough information at the branch to work on your dissertations?

Marina Sliuta:

- Yes, of course! A huge amount of information for thinking, for processing and application. We are very grateful to Alexander Vasilievich and Veronika Yurievna Bushuyeva, the engineer of ACSP. They showed and told us so much, spent so much time on us. The trip turned out to be very interesting and useful.

Vladislav Nikeshin:

- And emotionally intense. It was my first time at the production facility, and my impressions are fantastic. Theoretical study of technological processes does not give an idea of the scale of production. One thing is a scheme of a digester in a textbook, and quite another when you see this 52-meter high machine in person. Once again I was convinced of the correctness of my life choice of profession.