Umka Board Mill invested in three large rebuild projects, selecting Valmet as the main supplier. The rebuilds increased their capacity by nearly 70 percent and significantly improved board quality. As a result, Umka now meets the market’s demanding expectations and is attracting new business and customers.
Investing in the future
Umka Board Mill is a family-owned business and a member of Kappa Star group, with a long history in paper making. Located in Umka, Serbia, the mill currently produces 220,000 tones of recycled coated white lined chipboard annually, with a basis weight range of 210–450 grams per square meter. They utilize an equal amount of recycled paper from the total output.
Seventy percent of the board is used in the food packaging sector, while the remaining thirty percent serves the pharmaceutical, hygiene product, automotive, and toy industries. In 2019, Umka was at a crossroads, with two options. They could continue as before, with old technology and an annual production capacity of 130,000 tones. Or they could invest in new technology, increase capacity, and open new markets. Umka chose the latter and started to look for solutions.
The investments began with the main goal to increase capacity and enhance the quality of the board. Valmet was chosen as the main supplier for three major rebuild projects. In addition to the investments, both commercial and operational efficiency were improved internally. “Just a month after the first rebuild, we achieved the best results in Umka’s history. And four years later, Umka increased the capacity by almost 70 percent,” says Saša Dobrić, Operations Director at Umka Board Mill.
“We can now serve more than 40 different European markets. We’ve increased the cooperation with our existing customers and opened new projects with them. We’ve also gained new customers, new markets, and new niches,” says Nikola Pejović, General Manager at Umka Board Mill.
Three large rebuild projects
The first and largest project started up in 2021, in the middle of the Covid pandemic. The biggest changes were three new headboxes, a hybrid forming section with multiple fourdriniers, a new curtain coater, and a new winder. “We were guided by the principle that the potential supplier must meet our requirements, both in providing the best possible technology and being reliable – not only during the project phase, but in the coming years and decades,” Dobrić explains.
Covid restrictions challenged the project from the outset. All the meetings in the engineering phase and even the Factory Acceptance Test (FAT) were organized online. “At the end of the day, we managed to proceed and prepare everything on time. The reconstruction itself was done within 90 days exactly as planned, without a single day of delay,” says Dobrić. “The second jumbo reel produced was already the sellable product.”
Based on the positive experiences, from negotiations to the engineering, start-up, and optimization phases, Umka decided to continue the cooperation with Valmet in the next two projects. In 2023, a completely new OCC line was started up, and seven new coating air dryers were installed in 2024.
