Pulp & Paper Mill Maintenance & Repairin Northwest Indiana & Chicagoland

What does SSI do for pulp and paper mills?

We keep pulp, paper and packaging mills running with pump and gearbox rebuilds, process pipe fabrication, laser alignment and controls integration. Our crews work during your outages, and our Portage machine shop builds and repairs parts so the line comes back up faster.

In pulp and paper, efficiency and consistency are critical. A paper machine runs long campaigns at high volume. A single failed pump, drive or pipe can back up the whole process. Our job is to catch those problems on your schedule and fix them fast when they show up on their own.

What equipment fails most often in a paper mill?

Pumps, gearboxes and drive trains are the most common failure points in a paper mill. They run continuously in wet, warm and sometimes corrosive conditions, and they wear bearings and seals faster than equipment in a dry plant.

Equipment	Common problem	What we do
Stock and process pumps	Seal leaks, worn impellers, bearing failure	Pump rebuilds in our shop
Gearboxes and reducers	Heat, noise, gear and bearing wear	Gearbox rebuilds
Motors and couplings	Vibration, early bearing failure	Laser shaft alignment
Process pipe	Corrosion, erosion, leaks	Pipe fabrication and installation
Controls	Slow fault finding, outdated logic	Controls integration

How do you fit work into a mill outage?

We plan the work before the machine comes down. That means walking the job with your maintenance team, listing the equipment to rebuild or replace, and staging parts and pipe spools ahead of time. During the outage, crews work to the schedule you set.

After the outage, our preventive maintenance program helps you catch the next round of wear early. That includes alignment checks, inspections and rebuild planning, so fewer surprises show up between shutdowns.

Why does alignment matter on paper machines?

Alignment matters because misaligned shafts are one of the most common causes of early bearing and seal failure. On a paper machine, that means lost production. Laser alignment corrects offset and angularity at the coupling and gives you a written before-and-after report. It’s one of the cheapest ways to extend the life of a drive.

What process pipe work do paper mills need?

Paper mills need process pipe that holds up to wet, warm and sometimes corrosive service, installed inside a short outage. We fabricate stock, water and chemical lines in carbon and stainless steel, along with supports and pipe racks.

Most of the welding happens in our Portage shop, where conditions are controlled and fit-up is easier. Spools arrive ready to set. In the field, crews isolate the line, cut out the old section and tie in the new one. When a leak shows up mid-campaign, we can fabricate a replacement section and schedule the tie-in for your next window.

Can one contractor handle the whole job?

Yes. We diagnose, rebuild, fabricate, weld, align and recommission with our own crews. Mills don’t have to juggle a pump shop, a pipe fabricator and an alignment contractor. One crew carries the job to restart, and our millwright services cover the installation and setting work in between.

Our crews are ISNetworld and Avetta prequalified and run a job hazard analysis (JHA) on every job. If a machine goes down, call (219) 386-1506 any time or see our emergency repair page. Done right the first time.