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.

A key to the new design is the Twin Power belt delivering power transmission to the applicator roll from both sides of the belt surface. Additionally, the Gates Twin Power drive system is completely maintenance free, and reduces application and operator downtime associated with the maintenance and lubrication of the previous gear drive. Caraustar was also able to demonstrate a significant decrease in noise levels with the new Twin Power drive. The measured decibel level was reduced from 94 dBa prior to the Twin Power implementation, to 74 dBa afterwards. This provides a more enjoyable work environment,...