Digital Transformation: Adding a new chapter to the history of paper making, Christian Jung, Sales Account Executive, T.CON Rosario Othen, Research Associate, Institut für Textiltechnik of RWTH Aachen University

PAPERTECHNOLOGYINTERNATIONAL
Digital Transformation: Adding a new chapter to the history of paper making
Christian Jung, T.CON GmbH & Co. KG
INTRODUCTION:
Paging through the history of paper production unveils an unprecedented story full of innovations and resilience. Given this
abundance of incremental improvements over time, modern day challenges of the industry appear in a different context. A glance at the
hurdles successfully taken by manufacturers throughout those many years proves that the occurrence of both disruptions and crises as
such is inevitable. It is rather the reaction to them what determines the path forward. Whether the invention of groundwood pulp technology
to solve rag shortages (in 1843 by Gottlob Keller) or establishing TCF as a response to chlorine-based pollution (in the late 1980s) – every
epoch had its answer to seemingly untamable problems. Fast forward to the present, the key is transforming digital processes. If our current
“chapter” had a title, it would be “Digitalization”. Let’s discover how it can be another success story added to the book.
The emergence of a growing number of digital solutions has
altered the velocity and magnitude of changes within the industry
drastically – even when considering only the last decade or two. A
trend that is only about being speeded up even more by Artificial
Intelligence (AI). As digitalization itself certainly is not a completely
new phenomenon, it makes sense to evaluate where the industry
stands now, before assessing new approaches of embracing it.
Industry assessment: Less advanced than possible
The present level of digital maturity in the paper industry
is subject of the 2025 study “Digital Transformation in the Paper
Industry: Assessing Maturity, Challenges, and Opportunities”
published in the journal Sustainability. Conducted by Othen,
Padberg, Möbitz & Gries, it investigates both major challenges and
potential benefits arising from digital transformation.
The paper is based on an in-depth survey made during
the ZELLCHEMING Expo 2024 where industry experts in a broad
range of positions from 24 different corporations were interrogated.
Whereas a third rates themselves above the industry average, two
thirds state that they are at an early stage of digitalization, i.e. on a
scale from 1 to 6, the stages 1-3 apply to this group. Talking about
the biggest deficits his study reveals, researcher Rosario Othen
concludes: “Companies are struggling with modern approaches,
dealing with legacy systems, networking them and data quantity and
quality. There is also a picture of many isolated solutions, with hardly
any holistic approaches. Other sectors, such as the automotive and
electrical industries, are more advanced in this respect. One glimmer
of hope is that at least the relevance of data as a basis for decisionmaking processes is being recognized.”
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