Resources

Material for the people who have to justify this internally.

Evaluating a supervisory autonomy layer means answering finance, operations, IT and safety in the same week. These are the documents that answer each of them.

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No gated PDFsMill-reviewedUpdated per release

run_8f21c4 · agent graph · PM4 10 nodes · 1 approval gate
01 · orchestrator ingest.grade_target ✓ SUCCEEDED 02 · orchestrator twin.simulate ✓ SUCCEEDED 03 · pulp_stock stock.refine ✓ SUCCEEDED 04 · wetend_chem wetend.dose ✓ SUCCEEDED 05 · form_press form.headbox ✓ SUCCEEDED 06 · form_press press.nip ✓ SUCCEEDED 07 · dry_coat dry.steam ✓ SUCCEEDED 08 · defect_inspect inspect.web ✓ SUCCEEDED 09 · orchestrator approve.human ◆ APPROVAL 10 · quality_conf reel.qualify ✓ SUCCEEDED

Live example: Grade change PM4 · 135 gsm kraftliner → 110 gsm testliner, no break, ≤14 min off-spec

Guides

Evaluation guides

Written for a specific reader, not for a persona.

For the mill manager

Building the business case

How to model off-spec reduction, break avoidance and steam margin against a measured 90-day baseline instead of a vendor claim.

For the process engineer

What the agents actually decide

A walkthrough of each agent's scope, the tags it may touch and the verification it runs before writing.

For the automation engineer

The OT integration guide

Network segmentation, tag allow-lists, scan alignment, fallback behaviour and what happens when the edge node dies.

For IT and security

Architecture and data residency

Where data lives, what leaves the mill, how identity works and how the audit log is protected.

For the quality manager

Genealogy and conformance

How reel-level records map to ISO, TAPPI and FEFCO methods and what an auditor sees.

For the crew

Working with the agents

A short, plain-language guide to recommendations, approvals, overrides and how to make the system stop.

Tools

Calculators and checklists

Short artefacts you can actually finish in a meeting.

Calculator

Off-spec tonnage model

Enter machine speed, trim, grade mix and change frequency to estimate current off-spec tonnage and a target range.

Calculator

Break cost model

Translate break frequency and duration into annual lost tonnes and steam, per machine.

Calculator

Steam margin model

Estimate the energy value of tightening moisture 2σ before moving the mean.

Checklist

Readiness checklist

The twenty things that have to be true before a mill-edge install is worth scheduling.

Checklist

Baseline definition

How to define a defensible 90-day baseline both sides will accept at reconciliation.

Template

Security questionnaire responses

Pre-filled answers to the standard OT security questions, ready for your IT reviewer.

Run timeline

The worked example

Every guide refers back to this run so the numbers stay comparable.

run_8f21c4 PM4 · 6.8 m trim · 1,180 m/min SUCCEEDED
  1. 01 ingest.grade_target SUCCEEDED 0.8 s

    Mill Orchestrator — Pulled the 110 gsm testliner spec, customer tolerances and the standing energy budget from mill MES; locked the target envelope for the run.

  2. 02 twin.simulate SUCCEEDED 34 s

    Mill Orchestrator — Simulated 48 candidate transition recipes on the as-run paper-machine twin — forming, press, dryer and calender — and ranked them on off-spec tonnes, break risk and steam.

  3. 03 stock.refine SUCCEEDED 2 m 10 s

    Pulp-and-Stock — Stepped refiner specific edge load 1.9 → 1.4 Ws/m and pushed freeness toward 412 CSF while consistency held at 3.4%.

  4. 04 wetend.dose SUCCEEDED 1 m 26 s

    Wetend-and-Chemistry — Retention aid trimmed to 214 g/t and sizing to 1.1 kg/t against live charge and turbidity; first-pass retention recovered to 78% inside 90 seconds.

  5. 05 form.headbox SUCCEEDED 1 m 05 s

    Form-and-Press — Re-cut the slice profile across 78 actuators and set jet-to-wire to 0.994 to hold formation index through the basis-weight ramp.

  6. 06 press.nip SUCCEEDED 48 s

    Form-and-Press — Nip load reduced 620 → 540 kN/m to protect the lighter web; post-press dryness landed at 47.1%.

  7. 07 dry.steam SUCCEEDED 3 m 18 s

    Dry-and-Coat — Re-phased the steam schedule across 6 dryer groups and rebalanced the hood; reel moisture converged to 7.4% ±0.19 2σ at 6.1% less steam than the standing recipe.

  8. 08 inspect.web SUCCEEDED continuous

    Defect-and-Inspect — 18 line-scan cameras streaming; two edge-crack precursors detected at the drive side and cleared by a 40 kN/m nip trim before either propagated.

  9. 09 approve.human APPROVAL 52 s

    Mill Orchestrator — Speed ramp 1,180 → 1,245 m/min exceeded the site autonomy threshold. Held for the machine tender; approved by J. Okonkwo at 04:57:12.

  10. 10 reel.qualify SUCCEEDED 1 m 31 s

    Quality-and-Conformance — Reel R-24188 released: full genealogy written (furnish, chemistry, CD profiles, defect map, operator actions) and checked against grade spec.

Tool calls

The agent shows its work

Every tool invocation, argument and result is written to an immutable, human-readable log — and every reasoning step is expandable. Nothing about a run is hidden from the mill.

tool-call stream · run_8f21c4
  1. 04:51:04mes.read_orders({ machine: "PM4", next_grade: "TL-110" })
  2. 04:51:04ok spec locked · basis 110 g/m² · moisture 7.4% ±0.5
  3. 04:51:05twin.simulate({ candidates: 48, horizon: "18 min" })
  4. 04:51:39ok best recipe #31 · est. off-spec 6.4 t · break risk 0.07
  5. 04:51:40policy.evaluate({ recipe: 31, autonomy: "L3" })
  6. 04:51:40ok 9 writes permitted · 1 write requires human approval
  7. 04:51:41dcs.write_setpoint({ tag: "REF4.SEL", from: 1.9, to: 1.4 })
  8. 04:53:51ok freeness 388 → 412 CSF · consistency 3.4%
  9. 04:53:52chem.dose({ retention_aid: "214 g/t", sizing: "1.1 kg/t" })
  10. 04:55:18ok first-pass retention 71% → 78%
  11. 04:55:19dcs.slice_profile({ actuators: 78, jet_to_wire: 0.994 })
  12. 04:56:24ok formation index 84 · CD basis 2σ 1.7 g/m²
  13. 04:56:25vision.stream({ cameras: 18, model: "webdefect-v7" })
  14. 04:56:41precursor: edge crack risk 0.62 · drive side · 1,412 mm
  15. 04:56:42dcs.nip_load({ delta: "-40 kN/m", zone: "press-2" })
  16. 04:56:58ok edge crack risk 0.62 → 0.09 · web stable
  17. 04:56:59approval.request({ action: "speed_ramp", to: "1245 m/min" })
  18. 04:57:12ok approved by J. Okonkwo (machine tender) · logged
  19. 04:58:44mes.log_reel({ reel: "R-24188", genealogy: "full" })
  20. 05:02:46ok run complete · 11m42s · off-spec 6.2 t · breaks 0

Reasoning trace

Plan → thought → action → observation, exactly as the orchestrator recorded it.

GoalMove PM4 from 135 gsm kraftliner to 110 gsm testliner with zer…

Move PM4 from 135 gsm kraftliner to 110 gsm testliner with zero breaks and under 14 minutes of off-spec production.

PlanSimulate the transition on the twin first. Lead with stock and…

Simulate the transition on the twin first. Lead with stock and chemistry so the furnish is right before the basis weight ramps, then trim forming and press, then re-phase drying. Watch the web continuously; hold the speed ramp for a human.

ThoughtThe standing recipe drops basis weight and speed together. On …

The standing recipe drops basis weight and speed together. On the twin that produces a 3-minute moisture excursion because the dryer section unloads faster than the steam schedule can follow. Sequencing the steam re-phase ahead of the basis-weight ramp removes it.

Actiontwin.simulate(candidates=48) → recipe #31 re-phases steam 40 s…

twin.simulate(candidates=48) → recipe #31 re-phases steam 40 s before the basis-weight ramp and holds nip load until post-press dryness confirms.

ObservationRecipe #31 estimates 6.4 t off-spec against 9.8 t for the stan…

Recipe #31 estimates 6.4 t off-spec against 9.8 t for the standing recipe, with break risk 0.07. Two candidates scored lower on steam but raised break risk above the 0.15 site limit and were discarded.

ActionExecute recipe #31 under autonomy level L3: nine setpoint writ…

Execute recipe #31 under autonomy level L3: nine setpoint writes permitted, speed ramp routed to the machine tender.

ObservationEdge-crack precursor at 1,412 mm drive side at 04:56:41. Nip t…

Edge-crack precursor at 1,412 mm drive side at 04:56:41. Nip trim of −40 kN/m in press-2 cleared it in 16 s without a break.

OutcomeRun complete in 11 m 42 s. 6.2 t off-spec, zero breaks, 6.1% l…

Run complete in 11 m 42 s. 6.2 t off-spec, zero breaks, 6.1% less dryer steam than the standing recipe. Reel R-24188 released with full genealogy.

Measured

Numbers used across the resources

Design targets, marked as such [ASPIRATIONAL].

11 m 42 s Grade change on PM4 · baseline 19 m 05 s
6.2 t Off-spec tonnes per transition · baseline 9.8 t
68% Web breaks predicted more than 90 s early
7.9% Less dryer steam per tonne of paper

Figures are design targets and pilot-scoped results [ASPIRATIONAL]. Every number is reproduced from the mill's own reel genealogy, not our telemetry.

Reading

Background reading

Where our thinking comes from, outside our own writing.

Process

Papermaking science fundamentals

Furnish preparation, refining, retention, formation, pressing and drying — the physics the twin encodes.

Standards

ISO, TAPPI and FEFCO methods

The measurement methods a genealogy record has to map onto for conformance to mean anything.

Security

IEC 62443 for OT environments

The zone and conduit model our network architecture is designed against.

Compute

Physical AI at the edge

Perception, simulation and control on accelerated hardware, and why mill servers cannot carry the workload.

Autonomy

Levels of automation literature

Prior art on graded autonomy and human supervisory control, which our four levels borrow from.

Energy

Dryer section economics

Steam, hood balance and the industrial energy case for variance reduction before mean shifting.

Evaluation

A sane evaluation sequence

What a good six-month evaluation looks like from the mill's side.

  1. Scope one machine

    Choose a machine with frequent grade changes and a known off-spec problem. Do not start with the flagship.

  2. Agree the baseline

    Ninety days of historian data, agreed before anything is installed, using the mill's own definitions.

  3. Install and shadow

    Three to four weeks to rack, connect and validate, then shadow mode until the crew agrees the readings are right.

  1. Advisory phase

    Recommendations in the HMI. Acceptance and rejection rates are the real metric here, not accuracy claims.

  2. Supervised writes

    A narrow tag allow-list with per-write approval. Expand only when the crew asks to.

  3. Reconcile

    A signed comparison against the baseline. If the numbers are not there, the mill should say so and we should accept it.

Autonomy

Four levels, set per agent and per tag

A mill does not go from manual to unattended in one step. Pulpum makes the level explicit, auditable and reversible at any time.

Autonomy levels and the human role at each
LevelWhat the agent doesWhat the human doesTypical time to reach
L1 · AdvisoryRecommends setpoints and explains whyEnters every change manuallyWeek 1
L2 · SupervisedProposes a write; it executes on approvalApproves each write in the HMIWeek 3–6
L3 · BoundedWrites inside tag, rate and magnitude limitsApproves ramps and grade releasesMonth 2–4
L4 · UnattendedRuns the envelope without promptingSets the envelope; reviews the shift recordMonth 6+ [ASPIRATIONAL]
Guardrails

An agent that can move a nip needs a leash

Pulpum writes to production equipment. Every capability is scoped, every write is policy-checked, and every action is written to an append-only audit log the mill owns.

  • Bounded action space. Each agent can only write to an explicit tag allow-list, inside per-tag rate and magnitude limits.
  • Policy engine before every write. Autonomy level, shift, grade, interlock state and operator presence are all evaluated before a setpoint moves.
  • Human-in-the-loop gates. Anything above the site threshold — speed ramps, grade releases, safety-adjacent moves — waits for a named approver.
  • Immutable audit log. Append-only, hash-chained, exportable, and retained on the mill's own storage.
  • Hard fallback. Loss of the edge node, the network or the model returns control to the DCS's last known-good state within one scan cycle.
  • Tenant and IP isolation. Furnish recipes, grade models and defect libraries never cross a customer boundary. On-prem deployment available.

Compliance posture

StandardScopeStatus
SOC 2 Type IICloud control plane RUNNING In progress [ASPIRATIONAL]
ISO 27001Company-wide ISMS QUEUED Planned [ASPIRATIONAL]
IEC 62443Mill-edge OT security RUNNING Design-aligned
GDPROperator data SUCCEEDED Compliant
ISO 9001 / FSCQuality + chain of custody records SUCCEEDED Supported

Read the security overview

Integrations

It speaks mill, not cloud

Pulpum reads and writes through the systems already on the floor. No rip-and-replace, no parallel historian, no new HMI to learn.

QCS

Valmet IQ, ABB 800xA QCS, Honeywell Experion MX

Profiles, scans, lab results

DCS

ABB 800xA, Valmet DNA, Honeywell Experion, Siemens PCS 7

Setpoint reads and guarded writes

Web inspection

WIS/WMS line-scan, IR and transmission cameras

Frames, defect maps, break replays

Mill MES

SAP PP/QM, ABB cpmPlus, custom historians

Orders, grades, reel genealogy

Historian

OSIsoft PI, Aspen IP.21, InfluxDB

Time-series backfill and replay

Robotics

NVIDIA Isaac, winder and wrapper PLCs

Reel, roll and clamp-truck motion

Identity

Azure AD, Okta, on-prem LDAP

SSO, RBAC, named approvers

Edge

NVIDIA Jetson Orin, IGX, on-prem GPU

Sub-100 ms inference at the machine

See all integrations

From the control room

What machine tenders say

Autonomy earns trust one shift at a time. These are design-partner quotes from pilot deployments [ASPIRATIONAL].

"The first thing that convinced the crew wasn't the control — it was the log. You can scroll back and see exactly why it dropped the nip. Nobody argues with a timestamp."

Machine tender · PM4 · Nordkraft Mills

"We had two people who could do a clean 135-to-110 transition. One retired in March. The twin now does the sequencing and the second one supervises it."

Production manager · Aurora Board

"Break prediction was the wedge. Ninety seconds of warning is the difference between a nip trim and four hours of threading."

Process engineer · Ternvik Paper
FAQ

Straight answers

The questions mill managers and process engineers actually ask in the first meeting.

Yes, but only within an explicit tag allow-list with per-tag rate and magnitude limits, and only at the autonomy level your site has set. Level 1 is advisory-only: Pulpum recommends and a human enters everything. Most mills spend their first weeks there before enabling supervised writes.

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