With a strong focus on energy efficiency, sustainability, and digital monitoring, Forbes Marshall continues to support pulp and paper manufacturers in improving operational performance. In an exclusive interview with Paper Mart, Mr. Mahendra Autade, Product Manager, Forbes Marshall, discusses the company’s integrated solutions across boilers, steam and condensate systems, automation, and advanced monitoring. He also shares insights on leveraging IoT-based analytics to enhance reliability and predictive maintenance, the role of steam optimization in boosting productivity, and the key challenges facing the industry, particularly around technology adoption and digital connectivity.
Paper Mart: What are you displaying here at Paperex 2025?
Mahendra Autade: At Paperex 2025, Forbes Marshall is showcasing a comprehensive range of solutions focused on energy efficiency, sustainability, and digital monitoring for the pulp and paper industry. Our display includes boilers, steam and condensate system equipment, automation solutions, metering instruments, and advanced monitoring tools. All the instruments showcased are designed to help paper mills monitor performance, sustain operational efficiency, and achieve long-term energy conservation in a sustainable manner.
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PM: How is Forbes Marshall deploying IoT-based monitoring and analytics? How do you plan to leverage that for improving reliability, energy efficiency and predictive maintenance in pulp and paper plants?
MA: Ensuring control over runaway paper making costs requires regular monitoring, uptime and setting up recipes and improving operator expertise. Our EverSense for Paper Machines dashboard provides an overview of specific steam consumption, condensate recovery factor, production loads, operating steam pressures, paper break, uptime of individual components and where applicable, vacuum system and heat exchangers. Forbes Marshall Digital goes beyond just connectivity with our specialists monitoring the live plant data and providing actionable insights to plant personnel. This saves valuable time and resources for all our customers. EverSense for Paper Machines, a Forbes Marshall Digital solution helps ensure productivity, safety, reliability and sustainability of operations for paper mills.
Out of more than 800 paper mills in India, we have installations in over 450 plants, primarily involving steam and condensate systems.
PM: How does Forbes Marshall help paper mills reduce steam consumption and improve drying efficiency?
MA: Forbes Marshall plays a significant role in helping paper mills optimize steam usage and improve drying efficiency. Out of more than 800 paper mills in India, we have installations in over 450 plants, primarily involving steam and condensate systems. These solutions help reduce maintenance and production costs while increasing productivity by approximately 3–4% without requiring major additional investments. By improving steam utilization and condensate recovery, we enable better drying efficiency on paper machines, which directly enhances paper quality and overall operational performance.
PM: What solutions do you offer to help pulp and paper plants cut energy costs and improve boiler performance?
MA: Starting at the boiler level, Forbes Marshall offers boiler efficiency monitoring systems that can improve boiler efficiency by 3–4%. For paper machines, we provide complete steam and condensate system solutions that can increase productivity by 5–6%. Additionally, with growing water scarcity concerns, we offer advanced water monitoring and management solutions for ETP and utility systems. These solutions help measure water consumption, identify reuse opportunities, and optimize water treatment. With the right technology, paper mills can save 5–6% energy even in a 100 TPD plant, resulting in substantial cost savings across operations.
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PM: What are some of the major trends and challenges we are seeing today in the industry?
MA: One of the major challenges in the pulp and paper industry today is the relatively low acceptance of new technologies, especially digital connectivity and advanced monitoring solutions. While the benefits of IoT, analytics, and automation are well proven, adoption remains gradual due to resistance to change and limited awareness. Increasing technology acceptance and encouraging data-driven decision-making will be critical for the industry to achieve higher efficiency, sustainability, and long-term competitiveness.
For paper machines, we provide complete steam and condensate system solutions that can increase productivity by 5–6%.
