PowerGrip® Twin Power®0 pages

Case Study
PowerGrip® Synchronous Belt
Gates PowerGrip® Twin Power® Drive
delivers for Out-of-the-Box Paper
Manufacturer.
Industry Segment:
Manufacturing of recycled and converted paperboard products
The pulp, paper, and paperboard industry is diverse, with many
different individualized segments. The overall industry’s revenue
for the year (2006) was approximately $77 billion, with a very
lucrative gross profit of over $27.9 billion across 667 established
firms. Within the converted paperboard segment, demand for
paperboard boxes is projected to climb over 2.1 percent per year
to nearly $35 billion in 2009 (Freedonia Group).
Customer Profile:
Caraustar Industries, Inc. is one of the world’s largest integrated
manufacturers of converted and recycled paperboard. Since
their inception in 1938, Caraustar has successfully navigated
this competitive market. Last year, Caraustar recorded almost
$1 billion in sales, driven by double digit sales growth which
has become the norm. Today, ranking number one in recycled
paperboard production in the U.S., second largest producer of
tubes, cores and composite containers and in the top 10 of folding carton production, Caraustar has become one of the nation’s
leaders in recycled packaging products. Currently, they employ
over 5,700 associates, and have over 100 facilities in 29 states,
Mexico, England, and Canada.
Caraustar Boxboard Production
Caraustar is divided into three operating groups comprised of
the Mill Group (recycled paperboard and boxboard manufacturing), recovered Fiber Group (fiber processing), and the Converted Products Group (consumer and industrial packaging).
Caraustar operates fifteen mills located in the South, Midwest
and along the Eastern Seaboard.
Within the Mill Group, Caraustar operations involve processing
raw materials into non-corrugated boxboard. Along with stateof-the-art paper machines, several of the mills have on-site
converting processes that further refine the boxboard into a
variety of finished products for commercial or industrial uses
and packaging components. These manufacturing operations
reinforce Caraustar’s place as the number one overall supplier
of recycled boxboard in the United States.
Gates Twin Power Belts:
Replacing Gears for Optimal Efficiency
Boxboard manufacturing is conducted within Caraustar’s
Charlotte, North Carolina mill facility. One step in the overall
boxboard production process is adhesion. A paster application
delivers a layer of adhering paste to the heavy stock paperboard, via a powered application roll. A Caraustar employee operates the paster application and feeds sheets of approximately
4 foot squares into the machine at two second intervals.
Previously, Caraustar’s paster application utilized gears to rotate
the application roll. This process not only involved frequent
maintenance,
downtime,
and messy
lubrication
to remain
effective, it
also was very
noisy. The
two paster
applications
are positioned
side-by-side, and each operator had to wear ear protection due
to the high dBa (decibels audible) noise levels. Furthermore,
operators could not communicate to each other even from the
short distance the paster applications stood apart.
The Gates sales and engineering team did a complete plant
survey and cost savings analysis for Caraustar, optimizing their
operations while delivering quantifiably cost savings. Within
each paster application, the gear system was replaced with a
heavy-duty Gates PowerGrip® Twin Power® 14mm pitch belt.
The belt is 2800mm in length and 55mm in width to provide
required strength and durability as the applicator roll turns.
The complete drive system includes the sprocket hardware with
three different sprocket types (six in total), and a 32-tooth idler
for optimizing belt tension.