For decades, PCA and IDCON have served the same industries. The two companies have often worked with the same mills and tackled similar challenges. At times, they've even competed with one another. Now, under TRM's growing family of reliability-focused companies, that shared history is becoming a shared strength.  

One of the best examples of this efficacy is IDCON's Owe Forsberg. Owe has many years of experience helping paper mills overhaul their work practices and reshape their company culture to achieve lasting change. Let's unpack one such account.  

A Machine That "Should" Have Been Performing Better 

During a multi-year partnership, IDCON worked with a regional paper mill that was experiencing recurring issues with one of its most important paper machines. The mill was plagued by inconsistent output. Other mill assets were outpacing the struggling machine, which was a drag on financial performance.  

As Owe quickly perceived, the root cause was cultural, not technical. Company leadership even pushed some of the blame onto Owe. The reality is that they were given the tools they needed to be successful, but the individuals working on the machines refused to adapt their way of thinking.  

Introducing the Process and Encountering Pushback 

Owe and his team began by implementing fundamental work-management practices to solve the mill's maintenance shortcomings, such as: 

• Planning and scheduling 

• Clear roles for shutdown coordination 

• Rebuilt PM routines 

• Disciplined meetings 

• Better accountability across operations and maintenance.  

"When you implement a management process or way of working, there is always resistance," Owe recalls. Leadership wanted results but didn't want to change the way they worked. Operations wanted to pick their own priorities instead of following the plan. Making meaningful gains took a long time because the mill was fighting bad habits, not a defective machine. 

The Turning Point 

The breakthrough happened when leadership asked why another machine in the same mill performed better. The answer was simple: the people running it. The stronger-performing machine had a cohesive crew and solid leadership.  

Once that insight landed, the mill reassigned some of the experienced talent from the high-performing machine to the struggling one. Finally, everything came together. Performance began to improve. 

When leadership owns the process, everything changes.  

The Role of Change Management 

Today, many mills pin their hopes on digital transformation with the goal of removing people from the process in order to solve all of their challenges. But digital tools don't fix cultural problems. If you can't plan, schedule, prioritize or run a shutdown effectively, the latest tech won't help — it just becomes an expensive way to get the same poor results.  

A Reliability Win Built on People 

The paper machine eventually became stable, productive and efficient. That's the value that IDCON and PCA bring to the table. Together, they enable organizations to adopt better processes while introducing some much-needed discipline to maintenance culture. This approach helps ensure that mills don't just make change but sustain it.