September 27, 2021
Business Intelligence
Fisher clients benefit from the considerable industry experience of our consulting team combined with the leverage they get from the world’s most powerful proprietary database and analytics, FisherSolve®, and backed by Fisher’s global team of researchers, modelers, database designers, papermaking experts, and business analysts. Our investment in these resources allows us to deliver deeper insight and do so cost effectively.
Corporate and mill level information about ownership, locations, and personnel which, together with the other rich data in FisherSolve (production, assets, operations, costs, etc.), powers a truly unique built-in CRM capability.
Highly complete and updated continually as mills open, close, and change hands. Details include ownership, locations, and the kind of at-a-glace summary information needed for a general understanding of companies and their mills.
Personnel directory contains a comprehensive list of the people managing each key function in each mill and headquarters location, detailing their responsibilities and contact information.
Machine, line, mill, and company production data covers all grades and finished products; furnish and fiber details; speed, width, trim, and asset descriptions.
FisherSolve shows what each virgin and recycled fiber line makes in the “back end” of the mill. We cover every type of pulp made, from kraft to soda, APMP to BCTMP, and OCC to SOP. You can see the mix of wood species and recycled fibers used in each fiber line, expressed in tons and percentages.
For each paper machine and pulp dryer, we have even more detailed information. FisherSolve describes products produced in hierarchies to facilitate analysis. At a detailed level, there are over 500 paper and market pulp products to choose from. They roll up into Major Grade (Market Pulp, Newsprint, Packaging, Printing and Writing, Specialties, and Tissue), Grade (35 categories under Major Grade), Finished Products (170 unique products), plus Bleached/Unbleached, Coated/Uncoated, On-/Off-machine coating, and machine pH (acid, alkaline, or neutral).
To understand a mill’s capabilities, you need to know about its assets and quality. Equipment data is core to FisherSolve™. It powers the deep understanding FisherSolve™ delivers about mill operations, production costs, viability, competitiveness, production alternatives, conversion possibilities, and more.
The FisherSolve™ Mill Asset Database describes each major piece of operating equipment in every mill across fiber line, pulp washing, bleach plant, power, recovery, recausticizing, stock prep, paper machine, pulp dryer, and finishing stages. You can see details about type, model, builder, year installed, application, dimensions, speed, width and trim, technical age, current supplier, and more.
FisherSolve™ describes the type of control used at each controllable location. There are currently 34,000 controllable locations identified in FisherSolve™ including, for example, each pulp line, washing line, bleach line, evaporator set, recovery boiler, lime kiln, individual power boiler, stock approach system, paper machine, off-machine coater, winder, supercalender, and other locations throughout each mill.
FisherSolve™‘s rich asset and raw material database allows us to model every mill, pulp line and machine’s cost-of-production with a fact-driven mass-energy balance engine and deliver results with complete transparency. Unique to FisherSolve™ is the depth necessary for actionable understanding of manufacturing costs and their impact on a wide range of matters. Using “first principles,” FisherSolve™ details the costs of each machine making each of its products. Then it rolls cost data up to any level you need to see, for example:
Because we have modeled costs with a real-world level of detail, your understanding of mill operations can be much deeper and your conclusions far more insightful and reliable. Highly flexible analytics let you segment the market any way you need and display the data as cost curves, tables, and charts in any currency.
FisherSolve™ shows how each mill is configured to take wood or recycled fibers and process them into Finished Products. Each fiber line is described separately in terms of its size, age, builder, Technical Age, status, even ownership for those situations where different companies own individual machines within a single mill. Each paper machine is described in terms of its age, builder, Technical Age, status, ownership, speed, width, trim, efficiency, and more. Related flow sheets show how the whole mill is configured.
Related data shows the products each fiber line and paper machine makes, what its production costs are, what capacity trends there are, how much carbon is emitted to make each ton, how viable each is, and much more.
.png?width=500&height=374&name=Environmental%20Flows%20(Water,%20Wastewater,%20Carbon).png)
Water Supply & Treatment
The Water Module shows water and wastewater flows for each mill with data about volume, source, application, destination, and treatment methods for each site’s incoming water, outgoing wastewater, and sludge. We use it to measure water consumption per ton and compare it to the mill’s water risk.
Carbon Emission
The Carbon Module shows the carbon output of every pulp line and paper machine for each of the products they produce. Based on uniform international standards, the tool makes FisherSolve™ uniquely capable of measuring and benchmarking the carbon footprint of all players against their peers.
The tool shows carbon emission of various scopes, all the way from cradle to destination. Emissions from purchased electricity, biomass combustion, fossil fuel combustion, raw materials, and transportation from gate to destination are calculated and can be analyzed in any combination. As with all FisherSolve™ data modules, drill-down and roll-up capabilities allow for strategic analysis at any level you choose to examine for whatever combination of factors that are important to you.
To predict the long-term future of pulp lines and paper machines, Fisher created the Viability Module. Its algorithms reflect what owners consider when deciding what to do with their assets. Validated against several years of historical data on closures and survival, the result is not just an ability to evaluate the staying power of a given machine, mill or company, but also a powerful tool for understanding each asset’s strengths and weaknesses.
The tool takes into account cost-of-production, size, technical age, grade risk, position in company fleet, capital required, transportation, and other factors all of which can be considered under various economic scenarios. FisherSolve™ allows you to segment for any data set so that your Viability Benchmarking analysis reflects the issues particular to your needs.
FisherSolve™ describes the startups, closures, restarts, and repurposing projects done on every machine. You can analyze these quarterly historic and announced actions for any grade and region segment you wish.
Capacity Trends allows for time-series analysis of FisherSolve™‘s rich historic and announced data. Drill down to see how each machine’s products and capacity have evolved over time or roll up the detailed data to draw strategic level conclusions.
Unique to FisherSolve™ are the replacement costs, also called installed costs, of every major unit operation in every mill in the world. Together with our proprietary measure of assets’ Technical Ages, Installed Costs helps understand the magnitude of investment that would be required to bring each asset up to current standards.
FisherSolve™ provides one of the most extensive paper industry news services and then adds unique advantages that turn news into actionable intelligence. With MarketIntel News, Fisher first collects the news about the pulp and paper industry worldwide. Then, unique to FisherSolve™, that news is tagged to each asset, allowing users to read the news, analyze it, research what’s been written in the past, and act on it all in one place, just as you would with any other piece of intelligence in FisherSolve™. MarketIntel News subscribers also receive daily industry news delivered to their Inbox.
Industry News covers capital projects, mergers and acquisitions, shutdowns and startups, financial issues, technology, market trends and more. We collect news from sources all around the globe, including our own proprietary sources in each papermaking country. Our paper industry editing team consolidates duplicative and repetitive news items into “Events” so you can read the whole story all at once and go back to it for updates when they occur. We also provide intelligent summaries of events so you can get straight to the important aspects of each story.
Then we associate each news event with the mills, companies, regions, grades, and other subjects in FisherSolve™. This means that you can read everything there is to know about a mill with a single click. You can query the news database to find all that’s been written over time about whatever topic you are researching.
Covering every pulp and paper mill in the world producing 50 TPD or more, Fisher’s highly detailed equipment, production and cost data can be configured to suit your particular business intelligence needs. The scope of your subscription can be customized to include any data combination.
Included are all the powerful and flexible FisherSolve™ query and reporting tools you’ll need to extract meaning and insight from the data. Additionally, because all of the data is integrated with any combination of modules you select, it will perform with accuracy and transparency.
Market Optimizer allows you to better understand how to strategically allocate your volume globally to maximize your profits and explore markets that you have never previously considered.
This module provides you with a matrix view of our information, illustrating how your selected mill would compete in multiple destinations worldwide. This allows you to optimize your profits with just a few clicks.
