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Pulp and paper’s future leaders: Meet Bilal Junaidi

The future of the pulp and paper industry is in good hands!

Armed with a strong work ethic, initiative, curiosity, and a commitment to training and safety, the 2022 winners of our Top 10 Under 40 program are positioned to take the industry forward.

Whether they work in leadership, operations, maintenance, support or human resources, these pulp and paper employees are highly regarded by their colleagues and peers.

To highlight the achievements of each individual selected for the Top 10 Under 40 list, Pulp & Paper Canada will feature one of 2022’s winners every week for the next 10 weeks. Nominations for the 2023 contest open at the end of the year.

This week, we introduce Bilal Junaidi, process engineer at Domtar in Dryden, Ont.

As a 29-year-old process engineer in the Power and Recovery department at the Domtar Dryden mill, Bilal Junaidi actively provides strong support to the team with demonstrated leadership. For the three and a half years he has been part of the team, he has strived to reach every objective and goal put in front of him.

Bilal is always at the forefront of troubleshooting process-related issues. With his quick and innovative thinking, he led the team to be successful in breaking records related to increased uptime, enhanced reliability and drastically reduced the amount of required boil outs.

Bilal has successfully implemented Statistical Process Control (SPC) for Dryden’s concentrator and recovery boiler operation to reduce process variability and improve the evaporator bottleneck. He has led formal process trials which have paid off in great dividends.

With his strong analytical skills, he has contributed to the success of many capital projects. He actively participates in the corporate power and recovery functional team where he has an opportunity to share his successes and learnings among peers and colleagues from other mills.

Bilal takes an active leadership role in procedure development and training to ensure the process operators are well equipped to be successful in their roles. He is active in many continuous improvement initiatives which focus on safety including leading incident analysis utilizing the Human Performance Improvement (HPI) principles. He leads the department’s “5S” Safety program which focuses on safety, efficiency and productivity. He is also an active member of the site’s Joint Occupational Health and Safety Committee representing the steam and recovery department.

Bilal wants to become an operating engineer. He has successfully attained his 3rd  class Operating Engineering certificate and is currently working towards his 2nd class accreditation.