Articles related to management

The US and European pulp and paper industries are in the throes of two distinct and separate mergers (or takeovers, if you prefer). One is being driven from Europe, the other from the United States. Despite noble efforts from the respective executive suites some employees will be upset. This has happened in similar situations before.

If you read my last column, you heard about how a Chief Purchasing Officer of a global, Fortune 50 manufacturing company views categories of spend, risks, contracts, and global suppliers. I did not have enough space to cover all my questions and answers from the interview, so we will pick right up where we left off.

In most jurisdictions, it is illegal to hold a cell phone while driving a car. Yet in most paper mills, one does not see this sort of restriction, indeed, anything close to it. Should we have similar restrictions in mills? I think so...there is almost no place in a pulp and paper mill where a phone is appropriate.

I must admit I did this back in the day, and I recently heard this practice still happens. Hourly workers are usually protected from this, with or without unions, so it is a practice where one needs to focus on the management ranks. I am talking about ridiculously long working periods.

Observing mill engineering departments for a few decades, I've noticed a haphazard application of well known nationally and internationally recognized standards in small, mill originated upgrade projects. I'll even admit that, decades ago, I likely participated in this negligence. Standards are created for a reason.

This is the column I promised you last week. Your reaction will be either scoffing at it or believing it--there will be no middle of the road reactions. If you decide to believe, contact me and I will help you, at no charge, to get started.

Veritiv Corporation, a leading specialty distributor of value-added packaging, facility solutions and print products and solutions, announced today that Stuart Crockford has joined the company as Senior Vice President - Business Development to lead Veritiv's mergers and acquisitions (M&A) strategy. In this newly created role, Mr. Crockford will be responsible for leading all aspects of the company's business development and M&A strategy.

I don't think I have ever been around more depressing pulp and paper mills than those experiencing poor maintenance. The only thing that can drive morale down faster is producing a product in a declining market (anyone remember newsprint?). Sadly, many senior managers view maintenance as a cost.

Have you noticed how many "chiefs" there are now in large corporations? Historically, there was always the Chief Executive Officer. The head honcho. The person reporting to the Board of Directors of public companies or directly to owners in a privately held company. Even that role didn't come about until well into the 1920's. Henry Ford was only the President at Ford Motor Company. Then, along came the Chief Operating Officer, leader of all operational assets and people, then the Chief Financial Officer, leader of the capital structure and investor base. In modern times, over the last couple decades, you can add in Chief Information Officer, Chief Marketing Officer, and even a Chief Diversity Officer. Lots of chiefs these days are needed to manage a vast and sprawling organization to meet the goals set forth by the Board of Directors.

Veritiv Corporation announced that Stuart Crockford has joined the company as Senior Vice President - Business Development to lead Veritiv's mergers and acquisitions (M&A) strategy. In this newly created role, Mr. Crockford will be responsible for leading all aspects of the company's business development and M&A strategy.

Sometimes I think maintenance suffers from "macho disease." We talk about changing out press rolls, monitoring machine bearings and other sorts of "big deal" maintenance projects. I would hate to think how many times I have been exposed to pump and motor alignment. Yes, it is an important subject, but it is not everything. There are other things that can shut you down, too (or at least cause you to lie).

It is my favorite month because maintenance can pay huge dividends. Or maintenance can kill you if you ignore it. I've told many mill related tales of maintenance in this column over the years. For some reason, when I started to think about maintenance for this year's column series, I went back to my youth and some maintenance disasters that took place when I was a teenager at home.

We have spent the last three weeks talking about transportation issues and challenges in the pulp and paper industry today. About a year ago, I had an epiphany in the transportation and warehousing area. I went out and got a "patent pending" status on it. Due to all my other activities, I only feebly marketed it. At the time, my idea was to sell the idea. In the meantime, I have now decided to present it here for you to ponder.

Jerry Seinfeld has an old joke that goes like this. He is out driving in a rural area. He passes a log truck. Then he meets a log truck coming towards him. He asks, "If the people over here need logs and the people over there have logs, couldn't they just call each other up and avoid driving these logs all over the place?" It got a big laugh. Of course, real life is not this simple.

To borrow from last week, I don't care if it is the bar of soap going down the conveyor or the shipment of pulp from Brazil, the costs in transportation is the onloading and the offloading. These termination points are also the points most susceptible to mishandling and accidents. Granted the load must be secured appropriately, depending on the application, but you'll find the problems and the costs are at the ends.

The appointment is effective immediately.

It is transportation month here at Nip Impressions, and there is a lot to talk about. I almost titled this first column of the month "Transportation Follies" but then thought better of it. There certainly are many transportation follies in the headlines these days. However, I thought I would spend this first column of the month in a cerebral fashion. What do you think of when you think about transportation?

I promised you this column last week. Everyone in a capital project is under pressure. The mill team is under pressure to bring the project in on budget (remember how you kept shaving the budget to get the project through the board of directors?). The suppliers are under pressure to win the project at the highest possible profit for them, and will promise the moon, if they don't have to put it in writing. And this is all good, for it gives an old guy like me a steady income as an expert witness in project lawsuits. The grayer and thinner my hair has gotten, the more I can charge.

I have served as an expert witness in several capital project cases (dare I say disasters?). How do projects end up in this condition (disasters)? There only seem to be two major causes of such fates. The first is believing in magic and the second is dishonest dealings. We'll cover magic this week.

Antti Jääskeläinen assumes interim role leading UPM Communication Papers business area as of 15 January 2024.

Tord Steinset Torvund (33) is employed as Chief Financial Officer (CFO) in Norske Skog ASA from 1 March 2024, because the current CFO, Rune Sollie (57), having announced that he wishes to resign.

There have been several capital decisions in recent years that have left me scratching my head. In these cases, a great deal of funds have been expended to clean out old paper machine halls for the express purpose of installing new machines of a different grade.

Back when I started in the industry, one bought everything for their new machine, printing press, or flexofolder/gluer piecemeal. Yes, there was a primary machinery supplier, but the capital project team and the project engineers bought everything else separately and integrated it all into one concomitant system. Due to growth of the industry, project teams became less experienced, and the system fell apart. Startup dates and startup curves were missed because of missing but vital components. Major machine suppliers had ready excuses for not meeting performance guarantees and there was a lot of finger pointing.

I am speaking about the capital projects sector for 2024 and going forward a bit.

I am sure you have heard the story many times about how I lost all steam producing capability in a northeastern Ohio mill in the winter of 1987. It was early February and temperatures had plunged to -20 F. I was not at the mill at the time, but no difference, both the powerhouse and the maintenance departments reported to me...

Mark Holbrook began his career 25 years ago with Scott Paper and continued to progress to more senior positions within Kruger Products.

As you have probably noticed by now, I have taken a bit of a cynical view in this power and energy month here at Nip Impressions. I tend to do this when secular subjects become so widespread and accepted as the whole truth, all other theories be damned. Experience and logic tell me that such widespread, cult like belief must have a few cracks somewhere and those cracks must be explored. Thus, I will continue down this path this week and next.

The Cop28 Climate Change Conference currently underway in Dubai seems to have hit a couple of speed bumps on the way to banning fossil fuels.

There are a group of Mennonites in southern Ohio I love dearly. I try to go visit them a couple of times a year for a few days. My next visit is planned for the weekend of 16 - 17 Dec 2023. When I get there, my phone goes off and into my bag. There is no electricity. Heat is wood. Farming and local transportation is done with horses. They do use the bus system for long-distance traveling, and they do this quite often. Sounds inconvenient? It is the price of freedom.

The question for you, dear reader and marketer, is what are we missing? Our typical product cycle is to try out a feature or a concept and gauge the reaction. Then it lives or dies. But let's turn this around. You may know better than we do what the next innovation in digital marketing to the pulp and paper industry should be. Sometimes one can be so close to something that they miss the obvious. We want to make sure that is not happening to us. Hence we want to hear from you.

Often, the barriers to innovation boil down to an unwillingness to take risks. If those risks involve technological changes, that just adds to the resistance. In the last thirty years, communications, for instance, have gone through startling changes, more changes than had been seen by humankind from the first written and spoken words up until then. These changes profoundly affected the pulp and paper industry and have blown by as if we were sitting still.

One of the major barriers to process innovation is knowing too much about the subject. Knowledge of a subject sets up unconscious barriers to innovation. Think of learning to drive an automobile. I have taught three teenagers how to drive. In all three cases, their first time behind the wheel experience resulted in eyes darting about rapidly. As they became familiar with driving, the eye darting subsided because they learned what was important and dismissed everything else. Same is true of a process or procedure. If you know it with your eyes closed, so to speak, you are dismissing a great deal of information that might be helpful in innovation. It's the "we've never done it that way syndrome." There are a couple of ways to shortcut this.

Mark McHugh named President and CEO, effective April 1, 2024.

A couple of seemingly disparate items strike me as we start to think about innovation and strategy this month. The first is the press release a couple of months ago announcing the coming departure of the chairman of a major pulp and paper company. Reading between the lines, one could infer that this chairman and the board are out of ideas as to how to take the company forward. The other is the current popular human resource acronym, DEI, which stands for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. As with most such acronyms, this one is too simplistic and is itself too inclusive, likely being applied where it is not appropriate.

Targeting $1 billion of select asset sales over the next 18 months.

At their best, all the sensors, software and specifications you have pertaining to quality are merely aids to your personnel as they produced quality services and goods at your company. This is true for even the most sophisticated (buzz word alert!) AI systems. If your people and culture are not tuned in and dedicated to producing quality, it will not happen. In the pulp and paper industry, we have not done such a good job of starting where quality starts--with our people and our culture.

Everything that comes onto your mill site must meet established standards before it gets to your mill site. Multiple suppliers must be in place to provide quick backup if a primary supplier fails. I would dare say the plan for the quality of the product you will make in a month or two must be already established now. When it comes to the quality actions needed from the human component of your operation, that must be planned six months to a year before you need it.

Little did I know when I wrote the column last week, "Quality is Attitude" that there would be a sequel, but here it is. We usually think of quality, and concomitant attitudes about quality, as we think of suppliers serving customers. So, what would you say about customers providing outstanding, unheard-of quality to their suppliers? Would you infer from this that such a company, if it existed, would have quality service so ingrained that their customers could rest assured the quality they receive in service and products is top notch? I have found such a company and unabashedly want to tell you about them and their president.

Many of us recognize quality and we love to acquire it. Few of us love to create it. We'll explore the love of quality and how to create it this month.

As we continue to think about quality in a different way this month, I have to say quality is attitude. I have seldom seen an angry person produce quality services or products. Likewise, I have never seen a glib, happy-go-lucky person produce quality either. Let's face it, quality is serious business. It can be a complicated business, too.

It has been widely reported recently that companies are "quietly cutting" employees. If you are not familiar with this term, it means your job has been eliminated, but you haven't. You'll be put on the sidelines until a place can be found for you. Likely your department has been eliminated, but to avoid paying you a severance package, you are "being placed in inventory" until a position can be found that matches your perceived skill set.

Extremely touchy subject, but I have never let that stop me before. DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) is at least on the lips of every human resource professional today. What should be your posture and response?

Niklas Beyes is appointed CFO and a member of Ahlstrom's Executive Management Team as of September 15, 2023. Current CFO Jorn P. Jensen will leave Ahlstrom on September 15 to pursue new opportunities outside the company.

It is being reported that Smurfit, of Dublin, Ireland, and WestRock, of Atlanta, Georgia, are in merger talks. These are interesting times indeed. I recall in 1986 when Smurfit bought Container Corporation of America (CCA) with the help of Morgan Stanley. In fact, the combined company name included Morgan Stanley. Long term, that merger did not end well.

International Paper announced that Chairman and CEO Mark Sutton has requested that the Board of Directors move forward with the next phase of the company's CEO succession plan. This phase in the process will include a comprehensive evaluation of internal and external candidates for Sutton's successor. Sutton will continue in his role as chairman and CEO until his successor is in place.

There is a new norm for work attendance. It was caused by the Covid lockdown, and if you are not aware of it, you must have been under a rock for the last three years. In the hourly ranks in our mills, it seems to be working itself out. Mills are adopting the twelve-hour day and hourly workers in many cases are working fourteen twelve-hour days out of each twenty-eight days, on various schedules of day and night shift. Maybe this will work and be widely adopted. That is a few hours more than a straight forty hour per week job, but who works forty hours per week. Salaried staff schedules have been more of a problem.

Fos the Rat says, "We've been talking to Mr. Jim this month and he has told us some amazing stories. Let's see what he has for us this week."

Fos the Rat says, "Every August, I look forward to taking over Mr. Jim's column and providing the insights of the Pulp Rats. This year we've done things a little differently, but here we are, already, at the end of the month. I hope you have enjoyed these interviews as much as I have enjoyed doing them. Let's see what Mr. Jim has to tell us today."

As we discussed last week, this year we are using a different format. Fos the Rat is interviewing Mr. Jim in a side room at the Pulp Rat Convention. Last week's story relayed matters that can happen within one's company. This week, we'll move outside the walls and see what can go wrong when an outside company has an evil intent.

Fos, the Rat, says, "I am going to use a slightly different format this year. Yes, the rat convention is going on as usual, but I have reserved a private room off the main convention floor and Mr. Jim has agreed to being interviewed concerning some of the situations he has seen over his fifty plus year career in this industry."

How clean is clean? What are we willing to pay for things to be incrementally cleaner?

Let's not forget what business we are in. Simply, that is to manufacture, convert, and/or print paper. There are many other activities in which mills must engage but these must be our focus--this is how we spin our invoice printer. I have lived through nearly the entire environmental era to date. Perhaps it is time for a new third party to rise up and help us with the entire environmental equation.

By and large, we all want the same thing for ourselves, our families and our friends. Clean air, clean water, and a pleasant view of nature. In most places governments have disincentivized (read: one can go to jail) managers from disobeying when it come to environmental regulations, so regular and repeated excursions from what is expected are matters of reasonably respecting compliance requirements. So why do your mill's neighbors have an adversarial relationship with your mill? There can be several reasons for this.

Conditions should not be us and them, but that is what they have become. My solution? At this point, you have no choice but to be absolutely transparent to your local neighbors and be cautious of the traveling rabble-rousers. This situation is no fault but our own.

This is environmental/regulations month here at Nip Impressions. I must ask, what has changed in the past year? It appears the rhetoric has become shriller, the regulations more onerous and the government has become more invasive.

Last week we talked about the missing doctor blades and how the solution cost the mill serious money through their own inability to manage their needs. I have a story from the other side of this issue as well.

If I am being a bit hard on purchasing this month, it is because I often see purchasing as a silo in our mills and corporate structures. Purchasing is often thought of as price, terms and conditions. There is a lot more that purchasing can do for the mill. It is not all about pricing, terms and conditions.

Today's purchasing professionals are much better than the ones I ran into early in my career, but there is still room for improvement. A great purchasing executive must be a strategic and tactical thinker, also keeping their company's ESG goals in mind.

We can't start talking about purchasing without talking about corruption. This is my 54th June in industry, and I wish I could tell you that corruption in purchasing has diminished over this period, but I can't. One bright spot I know is a mill in Texas where a new purchasing agent eliminated all hats, pens, calendars, meals...any freebies provided by the vendors and suppliers. Sounds harsh? Once the camel gets its nose under the tent, there is no stopping.

No, this is not a retirement announcement. I am merely pointing out that we are done with energy for this month. We'll be back with more energy columns in December. If you haven't figured it out yet, Nip Impressions features energy two months per year--May and December. Energy is that important. As I have said before, it has been important for my entire career and will be far into the future.

Mitch Butier has decided to retire as CEO, effective September 1; will remain as Executive Chairman Deon Stander appointed President and Chief Executive Officer

I have been beating around this energy trends subject all month. It is time for me to get serious and give you some help. Are there any sure-fire energy solutions you can do now and not be required to back track later? Let us think about it for a minute and see what we can develop and what can be set up for continuous improvement.

At this point in time, we have forgotten that using electricity as a widespread energy form is an almost new experience. My own grandparents, for instance, were born (early 1880's) when electric lights were brand new and only in the homes of the rich in concentrated urban places like New York City. It was years before they experienced these in the US Midwest. While electricity brought many advantages and improvements to life, business and industry, it was not without its negative side effects, too.

Let's take a walk down nostalgia and fantasy lanes this week. I am so frustrated with energy issues; I see no other choice.

It is energy month again, and, quite frankly, I am getting tired of talking about energy matters. As I have stated before, the first energy crisis occurred about four months after I received my undergraduate degree. We have been talking about energy ever since, not only in our mills, but in life in general. At first, the issue was, do we have enough? At the time, known petroleum reserves were about eight years, which would have gotten us to 1981. Obviously that was incorrect. Later in my career, climate change became the issue when the powers that be decided we face global warming instead of global cooling.

When I was young, binge drinking seemed to be the personally destructive behavior of choice. In one mill where I worked, the staff was in the habit of having a beer blowout after every shutdown day. I don't know if that is still a widespread activity or not. Of course, drugs, especial fentanyl, are widespread today and kill many people. We have had this tragedy hit close to us. Today, however, I want to talk about overeating and weight. We all, including me, struggle with this.

What I am about to describe can happen anywhere...work or home. Most of us would say our life is more important than material goods. However, here in our neighborhood, two people have lost their lives in the last six months because, in a rapidly developing situation, they thought saving material goods was paramount. They didn't have time to think it through.

In recent years, companies have started emphasizing safety off their premises as well as at work, for anything that causes an employee to be missing from work is a cost. It is just a matter of how big that cost is.

As we start safety month, we could almost repeat the issues discussed last month in maintenance month. We'll spend some time this month talking about attitudes as well. Attitudes have a lot to do with safety.

We started off this month talking about obsolete equipment and processes left in place. This is not what I am talking about now. Here, I am talking largely about installed spares.

There has been a vast improvement in the selection of materials for new capital projects during my 53-year career. There are new materials, upgrades to old materials and a general view of specifying materials more suitable for the application now than in prior decades. If you have read me for any length of time, you know I like galvanized steel for all structural components (indoors and out) and stainless for nearly everything else where appropriate in pulp and paper mills. Granted, there a bleach plants constructed of titanium, but those are more the exception than the rule. I like plastic, too. CPVC pipe, FRP tanks are your friend.

Last week, we talked about the first step to better maintenance. That was cleanliness, as in wholesale cleanliness by removing dead and obsolete equipment. To me, the next thing after cleanliness is oil and grease--lubrication.

If you have taken an automobile to a dealer's repair shop lately, you have no doubt noticed how clean and neat the facility is. I have been wheeled into operating rooms in prestigious hospitals with more clutter and cobwebs than one will find in the typical auto dealer repair shop. Automobile dealers work at a high charge out rate, out of a rate book. They have a constant struggle between the profitability demanded by their owners and the resistance of the customers to high prices. The repair shop is a profit center. The repair services provided by the maintenance department in your pulp or paper mill are treated as a cost center, a cost center the mill does not want to own. Big difference from the automobile dealership repair shop. Perhaps this is at least one reason why pulp and paper mill maintenance centers are so unkempt and trashy.

Your mill has all sorts of motive equipment, from skid steer loaders to clamp trucks to over-the-road transportation providers. The outside suppliers who maintain this equipment have a tremendous amount of valuable information that can save you hundreds of thousands of dollars, sometimes on a monthly basis. The key is how you approach accessing this information.

At this point the decision to go electric in your motive equipment or trucks is an easy one. If the vehicles are used for short range and there is charging time, go electric if it makes economic sense. For everything else, don't even bother doing the calculation.

A lot of money leaks out of a company through the travel budget. It does not need to be this way.

It is transportation month and I will be the first to admit that this column will likely not make you any money. But occasionally, we should have a little education and fun without worrying about ROI, eh? Over the years, when I have brought up these matters with individuals, I get, "Well I didn't know that." So perhaps I can give you a little education, too.

If you are building statues or monuments, when the construction is done, you are done. We don't build statues and monuments in the pulp and paper industry.

If you have spent your career in the shelter of large, rated companies, you likely have not experienced this problem. Some explanation. By "rated" I mean a company that carries a rating by a Dun & Bradstreet, Fitch, or some other recognized rating agency. Most such companies fund their capital projects through their corporate treasury.

Very long time reader Dene Taylor wrote me a note after last week's column (Week of 9 January 2023 "First Number Uttered") suggesting the second number uttered is the time to complete a project. Mike Higgins offered a similar comment. This is so true and in line with the items I covered the first week of this series, the week of 2 January 2023. I have seen so many schedules blown over the years that they are uncountable. The worst are the rebuild schedules, for they are the ones that take an operating machine out of production for a period of time, endangering the customer base. There is a lot of pressure to make these as short as possible.

Capital project budgets suffer from "first number uttered" syndrome. Whatever project cost number gets to the executive suite first is the one that every decision hangs on. That number may arrive from a back of the envelope exercise, an article read in a trade publication, or some other unresearched source. The corollary to "first number uttered" is, "surely we can beat competitor x's reported costs." More projects have been doomed by these kinds of thinking than any other I have ever known, and remember, we're talking about my fifty-three-year career here.

What continues to amaze me are the stories of projects gone bad. Large, small, makes no difference, there are still for me, after nearly 53 years of watching projects from all sides, reports of disastrous projects. In this time period, experienced and learned people have brought forth courses, books and institutes to tackle the subject of project management, yet my side gig of being an expert witness in construction lawsuits continues to thrive. These are the top five reasons I think capital construction projects fail...

The 10,000-pound elephant in the room is that old digester that you abandoned in place. Or maybe it is an old paper machine, or an old bleach plant. Managers have gotten really cute about abandoning old equipment in place rather than take a write-down. The error in this is that one has no idea what kind of energy consumption or fluids consumption (water, lubricants and so forth) are taking place in that abandoned unit operations.

The first energy crisis started within four months of my graduating from college. You might say I, and anyone younger than me, has spent their entire career energy centric. Yes, at times energy became relatively less expensive than at others, but it was always there.

I think my long-term proclamation that all energy is political (which is proven true every day in the popular press), licenses me to wander a bit from our normal management and technical topics here as we attempt to figure out how to get the pulp and paper industry through this coming Northern Hemisphere winter.

In May of each year, we talk about Energy Trends, and we wrap up in December with Power & Energy. Energy is an important topic in the industrial and post-industrial world. As I have said many times, modern energy is all politics. It doesn't help that most politicians and journalists did not go to STEM schools for their secondary education.

So, what have we learned from this series of columns?

Discerning when to be innovative or not is just as important as the art of innovation itself.

Be creative, but make sure you are creative from many points of view. Additionally, don't get hung up on your idea, there may be a better one.

I think anyone can train their brain to be creative. It is a matter of recognizing and knocking down the subconscious mental barriers in your thinking. I believe most are not creative because they won't let themselves explore the possibilities. I know this happens to me even though I am aware of this barrier.

I suspect when I started this series four weeks ago and you saw the word quality, you immediately thought about the products or services your company provides. That is normal. However, we first must get our house in order, starting with ourselves, before we talk about the products or services our company provides.

As we talked about attitude last week, you should have picked up some ideas for making sure your customer relations exude quality, but there are a few more items I would like to emphasize.

Generally, I think that a cheerful countenance and an empathetic attitude convey a person of quality, and like I have said in other parts of this series, an aura of quality is contagious throughout your entire sphere of influence.

The modern phone is a miracle device. The downside is that it may expose us in multifaceted ways that are not flattering.

Giving allowances is easy, but those expenses add up alarmingly quickly. Not a great solution. So to use returns and allowances to boost sales in your mill, let's take a page out of an experienced consultant's book and learn about the changes made at one mill, which led to significant mill-wide improvements in just three months. The strategy was quite simple.

Quality starts at home, and that home is often your home, your car, and your workspace. Organization exudes quality. Ever walked into an automobile dealership? Was it disheveled or spotless? How would you react if you walked into an automobile dealership that was untidy? If we are going to talk about quality, we must start with ourselves in the places we live and work.

Hidden Costs

Nothing is free

Spinning the Invoice Printer

So, you want to be a consultant

One of the best managers I ever had the privilege of working with was in charge of our pulp mill. We'll call him V.C. He was an unassuming fellow, but when V.C. stepped into the control room to address an issue - anything at all - things got done. Best management practices can fill volumes of books and occupy weeks of classes, but V.C. had three characteristics in particular, finely honed, which kept employees in the pulp mill working extremely well together.

Well, after a few days, the Great Mother came back. She did not mention gorging herself and neither did anyone else. Great Mother, "We have gotten very far behind, and our time is almost up. Til, can you come forward and read the remaining cases? If we have time, we will take them up at next year's conference." Til came forward.

The Rats took a break for a couple of days. We found a pond for swimming and had a good time. On the way back to the meeting area, we went past a place where the Big Things eat food that they heat up very quickly. Out behind, there were bins full of discarded food, so we had quite a feast. The Great Mother got sick from gorging herself and was very embarrassed. The Great Mother always takes her role very seriously and is very conscious of her decorum. Gorging herself was out of character. She must have felt quite ill, for when we reconvened the Junior Mother was presiding. "Attention, please!" she called us to order. "The Great Mother is a bit under the weather and has asked me to preside over this session. Today, we are going to quickly look at cases where Big Things threatened the companies for which they work. Clerk, please read the cases."

After a brief recess, the Great Mother called us together again. "What is on the docket for today?"

After three lights, the Great Mother called us together again. "We have heard a particularly disturbing story," she began. "It seems as though the Big Things want to be known for protecting this whole place where we live, but some of them take what they call shortcuts at times. The RBI, or Rat Bureau of Investigation, has been looking into this. I'll let them explain." Phineas Kirby came to the front of the room...

Western Forest Products Inc. announced that it has appointed Steven Hofer as its President and CEO and a member of the Company's Board of Directors ("Board"), effective September 7, 2022. Mr. Hofer succeeds Don Demens, who will remain at Western in an advisory capacity until March 31, 2023 to ensure a seamless transition. Mr. Demens will step down from the Board effective September 7, 2022.

By Jim Thompson interpreting for Fos the Rat ... Yes, it is August again and its is corruption month at Paperitalo Publications. We rats have observed in the past year that the human engagement in corruption is not limited to pulp and paper mills. This last statement may sound naïve, but one must understand our methods of communications are rather limited (basically just walking around and talking to each other) so we perhaps don't get all the information Big Things do.

As we wrap up Environmental and Regulations Month here at Paperitalo, we would be remiss if we did not mention the minefield that regulations relating to Human Resources have become.

Don't think you can turn regulations into a marketing advantage. Thinking that a customer base must buy a certain good or service and hence this will make an automatic market for you is a potential mistake.

The general intent of regulations is to keep order in society and keep the population safe. A dictionary definition of regulations is "a rule or directive made and maintained by an authority." My cynical version is this: "those who have power by fiat telling those who own assets what to do." Over the decades, we have seen many actions that follow my definition here in the pulp and paper industry.

A little regulation is probably good, but a lot of regulation chokes business to death.

Sorry about that, but the energy news is coming thick and fast for all of us these days. I am sure you remember old Jim telling you to carefully preserve your boilers, regardless of what form of energy they consume (I have also said these are the only types of idled assets to save). I hope you have heeded my advice. It appears the rapid transition to "Green Energy" sources appears to have some problems.

A tough subject and one all of us, not matter what side of the negotiating table we sit, should treat with respect, not forgetting our fiduciary duty.

Today, we need to know the delivery status of items way before their expected delivery date. We even need to know what ship they are on and where that ship is at any given moment. As shortages continue, this becomes even more important.

The purchasing department is an area of great opportunities. It is also a place where all the profits of the mill can be dribbled away, and a potential source of grossly unimaginable corruption. The purchasing department must be carefully managed.

As we wrap up this month on energy trends, there is one certainty over which you have complete control. That certainty is this...energy you don't use frees you from others' control. If we think of a pulp and paper mill as a "black box" this means that energy we use inside the mill that we generate ourselves frees us from the vagaries of the markets and external suppliers.

Sonoco, one of the largest sustainable global packaging companies, today announced that Julie Albrecht, who has served as Vice President and Chief Financial Officer since March 2019, will be departing the Company on June 30, 2022. Albrecht will remain in the CFO role through that date to ensure a smooth and orderly transition of responsibilities. Her successor will be the subject of a future announcement as the Company is undergoing a retained search of internal and external candidates.

If you have read this column for any length of time, I am about to repeat something you have heard before. I am always in favor of removing obsolete and unused equipment quickly with one glaring exception. That exception is this: power plants.

Weyerhaeuser Company today announced the appointment of David M. Wold as senior vice president and chief financial officer, effective immediately. Wold has served as vice president and chief accounting officer since May 2019, and he replaces Nancy Loewe, who is leaving the company.

The answer to dirty energy today seems to be electricity. For mobile transportation, cars and trucks, electricity moves the emissions from many points (tail pipes) to either single points (power stations) or theoretically no points (solar, wind and hydroelectric). The first thing we need to understand is that our choice of energy is cost, ease of use, and emotions. Notice that glaringly absent from this list is science. Energy choices have long since left science out of the equation.

Of course, it is. You ask how I can write a column about this. What we don't realize is how rapidly and how important energy has become to modern societies. The following is a column I wrote for my hometown newspaper about six months ago. While not about energy, it describes a real scenario, that while current, could have easily been widespread conditions about 70 years ago in the United States. The boiler, an important object in this piece, was manufactured only about sixty years ago.

On the Nip Impressions calendar, May is energy trends month. There is hardly a timelier topic, except perhaps food trends, but Nip Impressions does not cover food and my doctor wants me to lose ten pounds, so I try not to think about it. I would guess a good half of the headlines in the popular press today are about energy. These then fall into two categories, security of supply and what to do about, what I will call "dirty" energy.

I was doing some consulting in a mill a number of years ago that had a sign by their entrance that stated they had won some "safety award of the year" some years before the time I visited. I chided them and asked what they had been doing since the time of the award? Obviously, they had not won it again. Unfortunately, about five years after my visit, they had a triple fatality at that mill--contractors on an outage. There are a couple of issues I would like to unpack from my opening paragraph.

Many of us take OTC (Over The Counter) drugs. These can be abused, too. Especially on outages. I'll tell a story on myself...

Sonoco announced promotions among its senior operational leadership which are aligned with the Company's strategy to simplify its operating structure to improve efficiency and effectiveness, according to Howard Coker, President and Chief Executive Officer. The appointments are effective immediately.

There was a fatal automobile accident in our neighborhood lately that can serve as an excellent study on how we think when there is little time to sort out the situation. There are lessons here for all of us.

Glatfelter Corporation, a leading global supplier of engineered materials, today announced that Ramesh Shettigar, Vice President, ESG, Investor Relations & Corporate Treasurer, will be promoted to the role of Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer & Treasurer, effective May 6, 2022.

I like to remind people of the following resource any time I get a chance. It is a good way to start off safety month here at Paperitalo Publications. It is simply this. On our website, PaperMoney (www.globalpapermoney.com), we have been keeping track of the industry's safety performance. In its sixth year now, the department, "Reported Risks" is a current chronicle of "Risks: Fires, Fatalities and Catastrophes." It is a good learning resource and a source of endless safety meeting subjects.

It has been over a decade ago that I started talking about manufacturing your own spare parts with additive manufacturing. It is now moving from an interesting idea to a vital necessity. Between logistics problems and world turmoil, the spare parts needed for your machine may not be available. Most, except those of the most critical metallurgy, you can make in your own shop with less skills than a first-class welder or machinist.

Over the years, I have talked about this miserable old mill that I worked at long ago. When I was young, when I had a choice, I always ran towards opportunities that had lots of problems. My philosophy was that situations in trouble were the best way to advance your career. I have never been interested in career safety, it is boring and leads to complacency. So, I end up at this mill, in the prime of my career. It is large, ancient and a mess...

We have more aids for maintenance today than ever before. Detection instruments, storeroom software, built in monitors, training, you name it. Maintenance has never had more help than is available today. So, why do we still have maintenance failures?

Probably after August (Pulp Rats Month), Maintenance Month is my favorite month of the year on the Paperitalo editorial calendar. My dad was notorious for avoiding maintenance. It was an expense he loathed in the same manner as many mill managers and operations executives do. I followed his example for a while, saw the fruits of such policies and became a maintenance fanatic. A couple of old family incidents are in order.

I don't think most mills realize how close we are to interacting with robots every day. The box plants are ahead of us on this. The new Super Plants require about two thirds the employment for the same level of productivity. They are all 110" corrugators and they have a heavy component of robotics. I am expecting to see a flurry of box plant upgrades between now and 2030. Super plants won't be super then--they will be the norm. Back in the papermill, a couple of ready for here and now human aids are available.

In today's world, you may want to think long and hard about how the new or replacement piece of equipment (or other vital supplies) reach your mill. If you can afford to wait 12 - 18 weeks for those special refiner plates to arrive, put them on a ship. If you are losing production or quality every day because you do not have them, fly 'em, the most economical overall cost.

Back in the old days, we used the term "FOB." This meant "Freight on Board." There are other terms these days, but they mean nearly the same thing. One could purchase items "FOB seller's dock" or "FOB purchaser's dock." Internal logistics personnel have, for the last couple of decades, thought it smart to handle the logistics and freight themselves and purchase nearly everything "FOB seller's dock." They think they are saving money and justifying their existence. No more. In today's world, I would recommend that you purchase nearly everything, especially capital goods, "FOB purchaser's dock."

After 14 years with Canfor, Alan Nicholl, Executive Vice President, Bio-Based Solutions & Pulp Operations, has accepted the role of Managing Director with Licella Holdings, Canfor's joint venture partner in Arbios Biotech (Arbios) effective April 2022. Alan will continue to serve as President & CEO of Arbios.

Ewertz has worked at SCA since 2017, where he has been responsible for investor relations and served as head of business control for business areas Publication Paper and Pulp, respectively.

Expanded team will be instrumental in delivering future growth and ongoing continuous improvement focus at Greif.

If you are like most facilities these days, your transportation system, outside the fence, if not in shambles, is at least limping along. What to do?

Give your operations and maintenance folks the help they need to make the project truly successful.

I've often been asked, "how often should our project team meet once our project is under way?" My answer is based on your average spend over the life of the project and at peak times (especially in rebuilds).

I have written assessments on lots of projects. Every one of them follows the same pattern in the same order. Three questions: 1. What are the markets? 2. What are the raw materials? 3. What are the assets (including tangible assets and human assets) that you place between (1) and (2) to have a successful project? If you don't start here, your chances of success are very low.

Most of the people I talk to today have not prepared or managed capital budgets under the conditions we find ourselves in now. Well, I saw my first capital budget in an industrial setting in March of 1970. Perhaps I can help you a bit--we had similar issues back then as those we are facing today--the administration in the White House in those days thought they could control inflation with price controls which caused me to miss two planned 25 cent raises as a co-op student, from $2.75 per hour, to $3.00 per hour to $3.25/hour, over a period of 18 months. Glad I could do my part to help tame inflation; as a student operating on the pay as you go plan (no loans), one makes too much money anyway.

Have you ever had a conversation like this? "I was going to by a car from Brand X because it is cheaper and has more features than Brand Y." "Well, you obviously bought Brand Y. Why?" "Brand X didn't have any in stock and didn't know when they would get any." So, really, in the end, Brand X didn't mean anything because you could not get Brand X. Their price could have been twice the price or half the price of Brand Y, it just didn't make any difference. You may find yourself in this place with certain pieces of capital equipment now. You may have to become a "satisfier" instead of an "optimizer."

I don't think this is a one size fits all question as you look at your marketing going forward. Some customers will be interested in your energy usage, others will be interested in what your products can do to save them costs in their manufacturing and logistics schemes. Please note that in all scenarios in this column, I will be talking primarily about business-to-business sales, not business to consumers.

I recently read an article in the Wall Street Journal which was discussing the write down coming in some energy assets, such as coal reserves, as the economy switches to "greener" energy sources. Like it or not, agree with it or not, there seems to be a move afoot to completely change our acceptable energy sources. You can interpret this as follows: energy is going to get more expensive, a lot more expensive, in this new world.

Sean McLaren, currently the Company's President, Solid Wood, will become the Company's Chief Operating Officer.

What concerns me today is that we seem to be more interested in the form of energy rather than its efficiency or cost. Energy has taken on somewhat of an "identity politics" persona. In earlier days, it was security of supply and efficiency. Today it is products of combustion that seems to garner the attention.

If you have read this column for any length of time, you know that old Jim has told you countless times to carefully mothball energy assets that are out of favor, for sooner or later, they will come back into fashion again. This statement is a corollary to my principle, all energy decisions are political. This calendar year has seen a sudden swing to an overwhelming global opinion that climate change is "settled science" and we can't decarbonize fast enough. Couple this with ESG (Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance) principles and boards of directors worldwide are moving at warp speed towards these extremely popular ideas.

The components and devices to do what I will describe here exists now. Someone just needs to assemble the bits and pieces.

If you think you can't innovate, the problem is purely mental. Creativity can be learned and you can use it in many ways to make your work environment more productive and safer.

Getting innovation right is crucial to optimizing profitability. Too soon, and the equipment may not be able to deliver as promised. Too late and your competition may have already eclipsed you.

There have been many attempts to institutionalize innovation. Sometimes the domiciles of higher education seem to think they have a lock on innovation capabilities. Likely, in some areas, they do. The innovation with near term payoff, however, often takes place at the millsite. It is an activity in which everyone can participate and can be made into a fun (and profitable) activity if structured correctly.

We are in the process of revitalizing and restarting the Light Green Machine Institute, a 501c3 educational institute we created back around 2008. The Light Green Machine Institute's mission statement is "Holistically reducing the environmental impact of pulp and paper processing."

The fourth step in quality is the training and morale of your personnel. All your employees need to be thoroughly trained for the job at hand and not only trained but taught to think so that they can take action when they see something occur that can affect quality.

The third step in Quality is the quality of your raw materials. Some might have thought this is the second step. No, it's the third, for you don't know the quality of raw materials required until you know the quality you are promising your customers.

The second step in Quality is a solid standard of product performance. If you are in the tissue and towel business, these are likely internal standards. If you are in the containerboard or other paper products businesses, these are likely recognized industry standards. You don't know what quality is if you can't define it.

Canfor Corporation announces our bold ambition to become a leader in sustainability, a vision that includes commitments to sustainable forestry, a stronger focus on safety, health, wellness, inclusion and diversity amongst our employees, and strengthening partnerships with Indigenous communities.

Pat Elliott has been appointed to the role of Chief Financial Officer (CFO) for Canfor and Canfor Pulp and will also retain his responsibilities as Senior Vice President, Sustainability.

The first step in the path to producing a quality product is the housekeeping in your facility. I know I sound like a broken record, but in truth, housekeeping is the first step in many actions in your mill or converting facility. I have never seen quality products consistently produced in dirty or sloppy facilities. It is just not possible.

If you are the top person on your site, get out of your office and visit your people regularly. I recommend 6 a.m. rounds, with flashlight and small notepad in hand to take notes on what you find (or put them on your phone). Shake hands, get to know your people. If you are over a large facility, don't do it all in a day, but make sure you visit every department at least once per week.

Where human/machine interface is going in our paper mills is hard to guess, it seems to be just at the cusp of arriving as we implement Industry 4.0. On one hand, it will make us better papermakers, but on the other, like my automobile experiences, we will likely have many of the unconscious dependencies...

I was assistant project manager in the engineering department at a mill back in the early 1980's. I have referenced this experience a number of times in this column over the years. One of the upgrades we made at the time was to go from pneumatic controls to digital computer control. This means that the machine, which only a few days ago was operated from benchboard on the floor was now operated from a control room. Now a mere month later, the bench boards are gone. Keep in mind, the crews on this machine had been running it from benchboards for about 14 years...

This is my 52nd September in the workforce. I think management is tougher than ever. Think about it--when I started even OSHA did not exist. People were glad to have jobs and they put up with all sorts of things at work that simply aren't tolerated today, both from the standpoint of society's mores and from a labor regulatory perspective.

Pactiv Evergreen Inc. announced that Douglas "Doug" Owenby will join Pactiv Evergreen as Chief Operations Officer, effective September 13.

The ORBIE Award recognizes CIOs who have demonstrated excellence in technology leadership and are judged by an independent peer review process.

Pete Watson to retire and be succeeded by Ole Rosgaard effective February 1st, 2022.

Heritage Paper Company announced today that Greer Hill has been appointed as the company's Chief Executive Officer, succeeding Charles McCampbell, who has served as CEO of the company since he founded the business in 1980.

Novolex announced that Dennis Norman has been appointed Chief Financial Officer, effective March 1, 2021. In this capacity, Norman will lead Novolex's finance organization and will be responsible for finance, accounting, treasury, risk management and information technology.

Weyerhaeuser Company has announced leadership and organizational changes that position the company to further enhance the long-term value of its timberlands portfolio.

BillerudKorsnäs has appointed Christoph Michalski as new President and CEO. He succeeds Lennart Holm, who has been acting President and CEO since November 2019. Christoph Michalski will assume his new position November 1, 2020.

The new organization will be built along the business flow around three functional areas: Wood Supply, Operations and Commercial. In parallel, the resources for sustainability and innovation will be grouped in a common new function, Sustainability & Strategic Development.

The Board of Södra has appointed Lotta Lyrå as new President and CEO. She will take office this year and thereby replace CFO Peter Karlsson, who has been Interim President since 20 February this year.

Twin Rivers Paper has once again announced a leadership change. President and CEO Bob Snyder will retire from Twin Rivers effective immediately, and Tim Lowe has been appointed by the Board of Directors to assume his role in an interim capacity.

Clearwater Paper Corporation announced the appointment of Michael (Mike) J. Murphy as senior vice president and chief financial officer, effective April 13, 2020, to oversee the company's finance and strategy functions. Mr. Murphy succeeds Robert (Bob) G. Hrivnak who will be leaving the company.

We inform that Peter Oswald (57) takes over as new CEO and Chairman of the Management Board of Mayr-Melnhof Karton AG from Wilhelm Hörmanseder (66) for a period of five years already with the start of his mandate to the Management Board as of April 1, 2020.

He replaces David Williams who spent more than a decade in the position.

Verso Corp. announced Friday its board of directors has elected CEO Adam St. John to serve also as the company's president, effective immediately, replacing Michael A. Weinhold, who resigned.

Verso Corporation on March 11 announced that Michael A. Weinhold has resigned as President of Verso, effective March 10, 2020.

Rayonier Advanced Materials Inc. announced that the Company's Board of Directors will nominate and appoint two new independent directors to the Board.

The American Forest & Paper Association (AF&PA) announced the election of International Paper Chairman & CEO Mark Sutton as the new AF&PA Board Chair and released its 2020 slate of AF&PA Board Officers.

Sonoco has announced organizational updates to its Global Industrial and Consumer Products divisions, led by Executive Vice President Rodger Fuller.

DS Smith Plc announced that Adrian Marsh, CFO, will leave the Group to become CFO of William Hill PLC.

Interfor announced that senior vice-president and chief financial officer Martin Juravsky has advised the company of his decision to resign from Interfor effective April 30, 2020, to pursue another opportunity with a Toronto-based publicly listed company.

Mondi Plc. said Tuesday that Andrew King, Group Chief Financial Officer and a director of the company, will be appointed as Group Chief Executive Officer or CEO with effect from 1 April 2020.

DuPont Inc. announced that Chief Executive Marc Doyle and Chief Financial Officer Jeanmarie Desmond are leaving the company, effective immediately.

Interfor announced that Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer Martin Juravsky has advised the Company of his decision to resign from Interfor effective April 30, 2020, to pursue another opportunity with a Toronto-based publicly listed company.

Kimberly-Clark Corporation announced executive leadership changes to accelerate the company's progress toward achieving its K-C Strategy 2022 goals.

WIELAND, an ENR Top 400 Construction firm headquartered in Lansing, MI, has announced a new leadership and management structure for its company effective January 6, 2020.

Pixelle Specialty Solutions has promoted Timothy R. Hess to Chief Executive Officer (CEO). Mr. Hess will continue to report to Steven J. Klinger, Executive Chairman of Pixelle.

Sappi North America, Inc. announced the promotion of Tom Radovich to Managing Director of Sappi North America's Cloquet Mill in Minnesota, effective as of Dec. 1, 2019.

Restrepo Hired As Director

Stora Enso is merging its container board business in the Packaging Solutions division with the Consumer Board division, creating a new Packaging Materials division.

Re-Proposes Declassification of Board of Directors and Elimination of Supermajority Voting Provisions.

Smurfit Kappa in Lurgan has invested in the development of its senior management team by engaging training consultancy Square Box to undertake a range of tailored training programmes.

Verso Corporation announced that Michael A. Weinhold has been named President of the company, reporting to Chief Executive Officer Adam St. John, effective immediately.

Printing Industries Alliance has announced that Thomas J. Quinlan, III, Chairman, President & CEO of LSC Communications has been selected as the recipient of the 2020 Franklin Award for Distinguished Service -- the highest honor given an individual by the graphic communications community.

The Board of Directors of BillerudKorsnäs AB has appointed the current Chairman of the Board, Lennart Holm, as acting CEO from November 5, 2019. Petra Einarsson leaves as CEO with immediate effect.

Cascades Inc. announced the appointment of Mélanie Dunn, Elif Lévesque and Nelson Gentiletti to its Board of Directors. The appointment of these new directors is effective as of Oct. 22.

Management has changed radically in my lifetime. The future promises much of the same—an evolving landscape with many perils for those who fail to keep up with what society considers acceptable.

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Annica Bresky will become chief executive of Finnish pulp, paper and packaging board maker Stora Enso Oyj from December, taking over from Karl-Henrik Sundstrom.

I would be shocked if I have to tell any Nip Impressions reader what the most important machine is, but in keeping with the theme I am following this month, I will—the invoice printer.

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I haven’t seen this situation in any actual pulp and paper mill offices yet, but I am sure it is coming. It is hard to resist fads and the more outlandish, the harder they are to oppose. I am speaking about these modern office layouts.

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You already know what the most important job is (if you don’t, I will be reminding you before this month is out, for sure). Today, however, I want to talk about the Second Most Important Task. The Second Most Important Task (SMIT) is to create new products, or fresh modifications of your existing products.

Bjørn Einar Ugedal (48) has been appointed new Managing Director at Norske Skog Skogn AS from October 15, 2019.

The Board has initiated the search process for a successor.

Interfor Corporation announced that long-time President & CEO Duncan Davies will step down on December 31, 2019 and that Ian Fillinger, currently the Company's Senior Vice President & COO, has been appointed President & CEO effective January 1, 2020.

Over the years, I have written many columns and books on management, particularly management in pulp and paper mills. However, if I can summarize this subject in one sentence, that sentence is: "Make your boss look good." There is no better way to advance your career or the business of your company than following this platitude. However, this does not come without some caveats and assumptions.

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Orora announced that after more than 10 years leading the Orora business Nigel Garrard has decided to retire from the position of Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer.

Winterhalter was named CEO back in March.

If you are looking for goods and services in the pulp and paper industry, you need to check out the Paperitalo Directory!

If you are looking for goods and services in the pulp and paper industry, you need to check out the Paperitalo Directory!

If you are looking for goods and services in the pulp and paper industry, you need to check out the Paperitalo Directory!

If you are looking for goods and services in the pulp and paper industry, you need to check out the Paperitalo Directory!

Sonoco joins a growing coalition pledging to advance diversity and inclusion in the workplace.

If you are looking for goods and services in the pulp and paper industry, you need to check out the Paperitalo Directory!

If you are looking for goods and services in the pulp and paper industry, you need to check out the Paperitalo Directory!

Mario Plourde, President and Chief Executive Officer of Cascades, has announced a change in leadership for the company's Tissue Group: Jean-David Tardif will take over from Jean Jobin as President and Chief Operating Officer.

If you are looking for goods and services in the pulp and paper industry, you need to check out the Paperitalo Directory!

Twin Rivers Paper Company LLC announced that Ken Winterhalter, who currently serves as the Company's President, has been named Chief Executive Officer.

If you are looking for goods and services in the pulp and paper industry, you need to check out the Paperitalo Directory!

Sonoco announced that Julie Albrecht has assumed responsibilities as the Company's Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, effective March 1.

The city of Dallas approved Mint Valley Paper's site design review and floodplain development permit on Friday, following a 14-day comment period.

If you are looking for goods and services in the pulp and paper industry, you need to check out the Paperitalo Directory!

If you are looking for goods and services in the pulp and paper industry, you need to check out the Paperitalo Directory!

Kadant Inc. announced that Jeffrey L. Powell will be named president effective April 1, 2019 and CEO and a director effective July 1, 2019, as part of a succession plan adopted by the Board of Directors.

If you are looking for goods and services in the pulp and paper industry, you need to check out the Paperitalo Directory!

Domtar Corporation has announced two well-qualified leaders to manage its Kingsport, Tennessee and Nekoosa, Wisconsin, mills.

All members of the Metsä Tissue Management Team report to CEO Esa Kaikkonen.

I used to say the winter price of heating oil depended on the commuting experience the heating oil traders had on their way into Manhattan from suburban Connecticut each morning. If they had a cold, miserable experience, they jacked up the price. Maybe that is not giving them enough credit, but I don't think I am far off. Believe it or not, I have sat in capital strategic planning sessions in our industry that display just about the same perspicacity...

I have been saying for some time that major capital projects often have a large political component to them. Throughout my career, this has been true to a certain extent, in the modern age with animation and graphical availability available to everyone, it is become even more the norm rather than the exception...

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As hard as it is to get innovation right, a subject to which we alluded last week, pulling the plug on a bad project is even harder. If you read the management books, they will often quote someone like Winston Churchill, Vince Lombardi or Teddy Roosevelt, with an admonishment to never, ever, give up. Sometimes you need to give up. It is called throwing good money after bad...

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As you might have guessed, November is Innovation and Strategy month at Paperitalo Publications. I thought would we would start out talking about lost innovations. There are many clever innovations with industrial application from the past that have been lost to the present era...

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When I think back over my five decades in industry, one stands out when the subject of quality comes up. It is the 1970s. The 1970s were the age of shabby. I don't care what kind of product it was, retail or industrial, I would suggest the 1970s were the low point of quality, at least in the United States. So, what changed?

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There is an old phrase, "We don't have time to do it right, but we have time to do it over!" So true. When you produce off-spec goods you will break into production to remake the order so you don't lose the customer. The losses are incalculable. Examining why you make poor quality goods or deliver poor quality services is instructive and a good place to start to buff up the overall management of your organization. Why did you produce poor quality goods? There are only three or four key high-level metrics that need to be examined out the gate...

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All of a sudden, plastic contamination is in the news. Restaurants in our area, for instance, have started posting signs concerning plastic straws with the claim that the world uses 500 million plastic straws per day. I find that number a bit incredulous, for it means that 1 in 16 of us, including newborn infants, use a plastic straw each day. There has also been a video on LinkedIn of a woman paddling up to a pile of plastic near the water's edge somewhere. It looks awful, but the video fails to comment on her being on a plastic surfboard, an item that used to be made of wood. I am, by the way, in favor of getting rid of as much plastic as we can (paperboard milk cartons and paper grocery sacks, anyone?). But what does all of this have to do with Quality Month at Paperitalo Publications. Just this...

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If you have not heard of Industry 4.0, you will. In fact, later this month Paperitalo Publications is launching a new newsletter on the subject as it pertains to the pulp and paper industry. We are calling it Industree 4.0™. Industry 4.0 means more sensors, more data collection and more data analysis in real time. It will mean higher quality products made at lower costs, for upper and lower control limits will be able to be set even closer to the desired outcome for many attributes.

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You will see it all the time, both corporately and individually. People, and people representing corporations, will demand very high quality from others but will tolerate themselves or their organizations delivering low quality goods and services. This is hypocrisy, yet it is not as bad as things can get. Those who accept low quality goods and services are nearly a lost cause when one tries to deliver high quality goods and services. They just don't get it.

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Last week we talked about harassment and one-sided fantasizing. We did not call it one-sided fantasizing, but that is what it was. Our last topic in this series is going to be relationships that start at work. In this case, both parties are willing participants. I think modern communications systems have made these easier to do. Email, texting and so forth are far easier than putting "personal and confidential" notes in internal mail systems. Modern communications are also far easier to trace, too--email and texting leaves a trail that others can find (such as your spouse's lawyer)...

In my nearly fifty years in the business world, I've learned that both sexes do an amazing job of fantasizing what members of the opposite sex think of them or how they interact with them. These daydreams are often quite detailed and often R-rated. There is only one problem with them--they are false vignettes that have nothing to do with reality...

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Harassment may or may not involve members of the opposite sex. It can be male on female, female on male or sex on sex. Your coworkers engaged in harassment can have many different motives, often hard to discern. It is sometimes hard to determine if one is being harassed or not...

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Several months ago, Helen Roush, our Executive Vice President, suggested we do a series on Male/Female/Harassment issues in the workplace. I agreed and further agreed we would do it in September, our editorial calendar month reserved for management issues. As a warning--these columns may be "R" rated in places--but since we attract an adult audience, this should not be a problem.

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Weyerhaeuser Company announced that Doyle R. Simons has elected to retire, and its board of directors has appointed Devin W. Stockfish as president and chief executive officer, effective Jan. 1, 2019.

Domtar Corporation announced leadership transitions for two fluff pulp producing mills, in Plymouth, North Carolina and Ashdown, Arkansas.

The compensation package for International Paper's former CFO is now public.

Verso Corp. is changing the size of its board of directors. The company will shift from seven members to five at its upcoming annual meeting in September, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Crown Holdings, Inc. announced that Robert H. Bourque, Jr., has been selected to become President of its Transit Packaging Division effective August 1, 2018.

International Paper appoints Timothy S. Nicholls as Senior Vice President and CFO, succeeding Glenn R. Landau who is leaving the company for personal reasons.

Vesa Volmari has been appointed General Manager of UPM Kaukas integrate and pulp mill as of 1 August 2018.

Cenveo, Inc. announced that the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York has approved its amended disclosure statement (the "Disclosure Statement"), paving the way for the Company to commence solicitation of votes for approval of its amended plan of reorganization ("Plan of Reorganization") and emerge from Chapter 11 this summer.

Robert G. Burton Sr., chairman and CEO of Cenveo Inc., will resign as part of a reorganization agreement with the company's major stakeholders that will enable the Stamford-based printing company to emerge from Chapter 11 this summer.

Louisiana-Pacific Corporation has announced Sallie Bailey has elected to retire as CFO of LP.

Kimberly-Clark Corporation has named Giuseppina "Giusy" Buonfantino as Chief Marketing Officer, reporting to Tony Palmer, President of Global Brands and Innovation.

Gustaf Nygren has been employed as new Manager of SCA Maintenance. Gustaf comes to SCA from Quant Service Sweden AB, where he has held the position of VP Operations Manager, Scandinavia.

Gustaf Nygren has been employed as new Manager of SCA Maintenance. Gustaf comes to SCA from Quant Service Sweden AB, where he has held the position of VP Operations Manager, Scandinavia.

Rottneros has appointed Kristin Israelsson as mill manager of Rottneros Mill. She will take office no later than September 1, 2018 and will be part of the Rottneros Group management team.

West Fraser announced Ted Seraphim's plan to retire as Chief Executive Officer at the end of the second quarter of 2019.

Orchids Paper Products Company, a national supplier of high-quality consumer tissue products, announced the appointment of Mindy Bartel as Chief Financial Officer effective immediately.

Leena Lie has been appointed Senior Vice President, Marketing and Communications and a member of the Global Executive Team at Huhtamaki latest as of October 1, 2018. She will report to CEO Jukka Moisio.

UPM Raflatac announced that it has appointed Diddier Solano as its new Area Sales Director for Mexico and Central America.

Takashi Sugiyama, President, Graphic Packaging International Pacific Rim, has elected to retire on July 31, 2018 after 15 years of dedicated service with the Company.

DowDuPont Inc chief Andrew Liveris will step down on April 1, making good on an earlier promise to retire as the company named existing managers to head its materials science unit when it is spun off as Dow next year.

The appointment of Hans Sohlström as Ahlstrom-Munksjö's new President and CEO was announced on December 21, 2017, and he will assume his position on April 16, 2018.

Graphic Packaging International, LLC has announced the appointment of Spencer Maurer to Senior Vice President, Americas Foodservice, the business unit created from the combination with International Paper's Consumer Packaging business.

Graphic Packaging International, LLC announced the appointment of Mike Farrell to Senior Vice President, Supply Chain.

Wangqiu Song has been appointed President, Metsä Group China and Asia.

Mercer International Inc. announced that Adolf Koppensteiner has been appointed Chief Operating Officer of the Company effective January 1, 2018.

FPInnovations has appointed Stéphane Renou as President and CEO. Mr. Renou will officially assume his new role on December 14 as successor to Pierre Lapointe, who has held this position since December 2008.

The Sustainable Forestry Initiative Inc. (SFI) has elected Michael P. Doss to the SFI Board of Directors. Doss is President and CEO of Graphic Packaging Holding Company.

Due to approaching retirement, there will be changes in SCA's Group Management.

Camilla Wikström has been appointed SVP, Production at Pulp Business of Metsä Fibre and a member of Metsä Fibre's management team.

Some people (and I suspect they are often the same people I described above) think doing a quality job is relevant only to their outside customers and clients. Wrong! In fact, one could not be more wrong than this. Practicing internal quality principles really saves money (practicing quality externally saves and wins customers). Internally, two things go wrong when we fail to hold to the highest quality standards...

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If your reputation for quality is horrible, there is only one choice--fix it. But to reach that one choice, you must first be willing to accept the feedback that your reputation for quality is poor. This is a hurdle for many organizations; they are dismissive of customer feedback, and say to themselves, "It is only a single case" or "customers are not willing to pay for quality." I know of three organizations that have met this challenge head-on and done something about it...

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Maria Baldin has been appointed the new Director of Communications and Sustainability at Södra. She will assume her position on 1 January 2018 and will be a member of Group Senior Management, reporting to President and CEO Lars Idermark.

Catalyst Paper announced the appointment of Edward (Ned) Dwyer as President & Chief Executive Officer.

Verso Corporation announced that Robert M. Amen, chairman of the company's board of directors, has decided not to stand for reelection at the company's 2018 annual meeting of stockholders and, in connection with his decision, has resigned as chairman of the board effective October 6, 2017.

Wait a minute--you did not know your quality was broken? Your product or service quality is always broken. It is always broken because quality is a moving target. What may have been the best quality among your peers last month may send you to the bottom of the heap this month.

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Over a quarter of a century ago, quality was all the rage in industry. Business books on quality abounded and everyone had laser cut letter Q's sitting on their desks (at least in my world). About this time, I had a boss who attended some great quality seminar and came back reporting, "Quality is just as good as the customer requires, no more, no less." He was wrong. Welcome to quality month at Paperitalo Publications...

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PaperWorks Industries, Inc., a manufacturer of paperboard and specialized folding cartons, announced that C. Anderson "Andy" Bolton has joined the company as president and chief executive officer.

Many employees spend an inordinate amount of time trying to read the "tea leaves" of the boss's behavior. Most of this effort is a waste of time...

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Last week we talked about exactly who is defined as part of your team. This was done from the stance of making sure you don't, due to naïve generosity, take on work outside your scope and in the end, do everything poorly. At the same time, you must ward off the outside work without building silos or fortresses that seed discontent. This week, we will deal with two issues that may come up as you protect your team and strive for excellence in your team's area of responsibility, as well as good relations with all of your coworkers.

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A team is your specific, small group of personnel assigned to do a specific job or set of jobs. Although I am not much of a sports fan, I can give an example from there. Suppose the quarterback notices that the waterboy forgot to fill the drink containers? Does he ask for a time out so the players on the field can do this job? No. While in the bigger picture, they are all on the same team, when it comes to specific tasks they are not.

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Arctic Paper S.A. has announced the appointment of Göran Eklund as new CFO of Arctic Paper S.A. as at the 1st of September.

I recently had a discussion with a long-time industry professional concerning this question: which is more important to a given mill--the technology or the management?

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Håkan Larsson, Director of Forestry and President of Södra Skog, will assume responsibility for strategic issues within the Södra Group. He will remain a member of Södra's Group Senior Management and continue to report to the President, Lars Idermark.

Every August, we focus on corruption we have seen or heard about in the industry in the past year. As usual, these stories are told by Fos, a pulp rat. It is my privilege to put Fos's stories in print for you...

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Every August, we focus on corruption we have seen or heard about in the industry in the past year. As usual, these stories are told by Fos, a pulp rat. It is my privilege to put Fos's stories in print for you...

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Every August, we focus on corruption we have seen or heard about in the industry in the past year. As usual, these stories are told by Fos, a pulp rat. It is my privilege to put Fos's stories in print for you...

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Every August, we focus on corruption we have seen or heard about in the industry in the past year. As usual, these stories will be told by Fos, a pulp rat. It is my privilege to put Fos's stories in print for you...

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I was talking to an old friend who spent one of his college days' summers doing fetch-and-carry work in a paper mill. Although it had been many years ago, he was still in awe of that "big ol' paper machine" and the fact that it took "twelve or thirteen men" to run it. No more, Tom, I said...

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Resolute Forest Products Inc. announced the appointment of Patrice Minguez as president of the company's tissue group.

"You've got to know the territory." As I remember it, this was a song sung by a chorus of some erstwhile salesmen in the Broadway show "The Music Man." If you are a mill manager or a department manager, it is your responsibility to be a walking encyclopedia about your territory and all that is in it. You've got to know your territory...

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The real objective of the environmental advocacy groups today is their own survival. They cannot afford to declare a great victory, for then their incomes dry up. They are in quite a predicament!

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Avery Dennison Corporation announced the appointment of Gregory S. Lovins to senior vice president and chief financial officer, effective immediately.

It was not so long ago that engineers and scientists often came from a rural background. This is still true in developing nations, but for those of us living in developed nations, it is usually no longer the case. My own experience is a good example...

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This column is for the younger generation. Ready? Away we go! You get your degree and head off to the mill to work. Or perhaps your first job is with a supplier. In any case, you are proud of your accomplishments to date--but reality is about to set in. After you sign the pile of papers from the human resources department, you will be taken to your new office...

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Do you have trouble getting subordinates to do what you want them to do? There can be many reasons for this, but one of the most common is that YOU are not doing what you want THEM to do...

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Kimberly-Clark Corporation announced that Jeffrey Melucci has been elected by the company's Board of Directors as senior vice president and general counsel, effective September 1, 2017.

Appvion Inc said on Wednesday it hired investment bank Guggenheim Partners LLC to help address its $440 million debt load amid slumping sales after many consumers turned to electronic communications.

I have spent a lot of time talking to investment bankers. Their interest is in buying into deals, looking at bankrupt companies for possible purchase and so forth. In short, they are looking for nuggets in the pulp and paper industry. Such are the fortunes of a mature industry. If you have been located in a mill or a headquarters for some period of time, you may have already seen company names and logos come and go, while you personally occupied the same space. Observing colleagues in the industry, I have noticed a number of behaviors that could use some improvement, to the benefit of the persons whose careers may be affected...

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To further improve efficiency and strengthen the competitiveness for the Professional Hygiene business in North America, SCA has decided to close the tissue production plant in Flagstaff, Arizona, in the US.

If you are buying inspection services, make sure you are getting them. I was in a facility once where I saw what happens when these things go wrong. This facility had some high priced instrumentation for which they had an annual inspection contract. It just so happened that I was very familiar with one piece of instrumentation that was on this inspection cycle and I was standing beside it when the inspector came by. I knew every flaw this instrument currently suffered. The inspector's entire activity, as I observed it, was to take off last year's inspection sticker and put on this year's...

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Appvion, Inc. announced that Tom Ferree, the company's CFO for the past 10 years, will retire from Appvion on June 30, 2017.

The Supervisory Board of Voith GmbH has appointed Andreas Endters as Chairman of the Board of the Group Division Voith Paper as of October of this year.

Wandering around the industry as I do, I am often amazed at the perceived roles people think they have, as indicated by their actions and words each day. Many appear to have no clue to the overall picture. It is really quite simple...

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A person starting a career is a bit of an open book. Such people may have had some work experiences, maybe even some military experience, but, in general their expectations about the work environment are recognized, even by them, as just that: expectations that may or may not become reality. It amuses me, for instance, to hear some of the ideas soon-to-be college graduates have about work. One told me something to the effect that once she started to work, she saw excitement in life as being over--you go to work each day, do the same things each day and forty years later you retire. Sadly, I have actually met people who have done exactly this. What I am getting at here, though, is something more subtle...

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No matter how much formal education you have acquired, there is one forum that stands above others in importance. It is one in which you participate first as a receiver, and then, later, if you have children, as a provider. It is the forum of the family dinner table...

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On the heels of veteran Vice President and Casting and Release Paper Managing Director Tom Collins' announcement of his retirement, Sappi North America, leading producer and supplier of diversified paper and packaging products, has announced the combination of two key business units, Packaging and Release, and three notable promotions.

There is a lesson here for us all--an opportunity for a critical self-examination of how large decisions are made...

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Mondi, the international packaging and paper Group, hosted a press conference on 5 May at the interpack 2017 trade fair in Düsseldorf at which trends in the packaging industry and the focus on growing its packaging business were discussed.

Two days after Norske Skog said he was staying, it was announced that Sven Ombudstvedt has resigned as president and CEO of the company.

Metsäliitto Cooperative's Supervisory Board has in its meeting on 4 May 2017 appointed M.Sc (Engineering) Ilkka Hämälä the CEO of Metsäliitto Cooperative as of 1 January 2018.

Louisiana-Pacific Corporation announced that its board of directors has appointed Brad Southern to succeed Curt Stevens as the CEO of LP effective July 1, 2017.

Over the years, I have heard many conversations start with, "If I were in charge of this place..." If you were in charge, what would you change? Why would you change it? How would you accomplish the changes? When would you change it? Let us take things one at a time...

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Board of Directors Appoints Mark Staton as President and CEO; Company Appoints Mitchell I. Quain as New Director

Recently I have seen a number of cases in which human energy was not being expended to any appreciable extent. Actually, I was witnessing laziness. I have not discussed this topic in a long time, so perhaps it is time once again to bring it up. It is a topic that tends to offend some folks, for people do not like to be singled out as lazy or unenergetic. To assuage the embarrassment of the truly guilty, let me say that we all are struck by this at one time or another. And we must admit that we know some people who are in a permanent rut of inactivity. So, who to blame? What to do?

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The Supervisory Board of Arctic Paper S.A. has appointed Per Skoglund as President of the Management Board and CEO, and Małgorzata Majewska-Śliwa as Management Board Member.

The phrase, "perception is reality" is often a cautionary warning as to how others might perceive what one is doing, or how they look and so forth. I want to talk today about times when perception is not reality and how this might affect our actions...

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Kimberly-Clark Corporation has named Larry P. Allgaier as Group President of Kimberly-Clark North America.

You are reading this, most likely, at an operating facility. I am going to give you two important challenges that are vital to the success of your company, no matter what your position is.

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I will bet you have tasks, if viewed by a critical eye, that would appear somewhat ludicrous. They may include a meeting you attend regularly that does nothing toward moving your enterprise forward. They may be insane reports that no one reads, or some other habitual exercise that does nothing...

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Years ago, when I started this column, I decided one important thing to be done here was to beat the drum for safety. Well, we have, and we plan to continue doing so. I am writing today, however, about general liability--caused by people or caused to people through exposures of various kinds. Some of these are safety matters, some are security matters. Others can arise out of employment law...

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Schweitzer-Mauduit International, Inc. (SWM), announced that Frédéric Villoutreix, who has served as CEO and Chairman of the Board since 2009, will be departing the Company effective May 5, 2017.

Klabin S.A. announces that Fabio Schvartsman, upon the expiration of his contract and after six years of dedication to the Company, is resigning as the CEO of Klabin, due to his nomination to assume the helm of Vale S.A.

There are some ways in which original capital purchases can serve to reduce maintenance costs and downtime...

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Avery Dennison Corporation has appointed Gregory S. Lovins as vice president and interim CFO, effective immediately.

Today we spend lots of time talking about predictive, preventive maintenance and have all sorts of seminars and software to manage this. There is no excuse for not having a strong predictive, preventive maintenance program. But can it all come down to something as simple as proper care of bearings?

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Rayonier Inc. announced that the Company has reached an agreement in principle to settle the securities class action litigation pending against it in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida.

If you have read my thoughts on maintenance storerooms over the years, you will accuse me of having been all over the place, and you will be correct. At one time, I adopted the attitude that everyone should do what they were best at doing, and in the case of paper mills, this was making paper, so they should outsource storerooms. I still think this is good for small consumables and specialized repairs (such as roll repairs and recovering). However, for other items, such as pump assemblies, screens, motors and so forth, keep your own--but take care of them. This philosophy certainly applies for existing papermills (but read to the end)...

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Smurfit Kappa's former chief executive, Gary McGann, plans to step down from the paper and packaging group's board in May, as he devotes himself to restructuring and finding a new executive team at embattled baked products group Aryzta.

Christian Fischer was promoted to the post after a decade as executive vice president of the company's packaging and cellulose segment.

We have been conditioned to think maintenance is a cost and unscheduled maintenance is acceptable. There is no basis for this logic; it is just a rumor passed around from board room to board room. It is time for your senior management to take a long hard look at the numbers, not the traditions...

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Klabin S.A. announced that its Executive Board will have a new organizational structure. Eduardo de Toledo takes over as CFO and Investor Relations Director, replacing Antonio Sergio Alfano, who is retiring.

Deltic Timber Corporation appoints John D. Enlow as President and CEO, effective March 8, 2017.

We have spent the entire month talking about driverless trucks, drones, robots and so forth. So what is in the future for humans in this scenario?

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International Paper announced the following senior leadership changes. Thomas J. Plath has been elected by the Board of Directors to become Senior Vice President, Human Resources and Global Citizenship, effective March 1, 2017.

Schweitzer-Mauduit International, Inc. (SWM) announced today plans to rebrand all of its acquired company corporate brands in 2017, under the SWM umbrella to create a unified, global leader in the industries it serves.

We have heard a lot about drones delivering packages, but not so much about the return flights--there will be a lot of deadheading going on. Can this wasted transportation resource be put to good use?

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Orora Group chief executive Nigel Garrard has called for a new "One Australia" approach to energy policy and for an end to political bickering over the issue as his company looks at spending up to $30 million to secure its energy supply in the troubled South Australian market.

John Fery worked for Boise Cascade for nearly 40 years and served as CEO from 1972 through 1994.

WestRock is leaving its longtime Norcross campus for one near Sandy Springs, the company announced Thursday.

While last week I was talking about long distance transportation of pulp by pipelines, let's look at what should be done locally, given the current state of technology...

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This is transportation month at Paperitalo Publications. This week, we discuss trucks and pipelines...

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Mondi said Peter Oswald will replace David Hathorn as group chief executive officer in May.

There are a number of actions by mill owners that drive up the costs of capital projects. We'll wrap up this month by touching on these...

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Construction projects are complicated, even the little ones. I can guarantee you that you can watch a five-million-dollar project all day long for its entire duration and you won't know half of what happened, not half the interactions that occurred over its duration. There is one contemporary and one post completion test you can do...

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In addition to the fantasyland I referenced last week, there are other issues in capital projects that are landmines...

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Verso Corporation announced that B. Christopher DiSantis will become the chief executive officer and a director of Verso effective as of February 1, 2017.

Glatfelter announced the promotion of David Dickerhoof to Vice President of Sales & Marketing for Specialty Papers, effective immediately.

Having been in the industry for over forty years and having written my fair share of expert witness reports, I can tell you that major capital projects (over, say, USD 5 million) are more likely to end up in court than not. This does not have to be. OK, Jim, you say this does not have to be, then why does it happen? There are two or three conditions that cause construction court cases. They come up repeatedly...

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If you have been doing capital projects for only a few years, I think some surprises are just around the corner. Here is my assessment of where we are headed, assuming some natural or human-caused cataclysmic event does not occur...

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Whether you are the CEO, Mill Manger, Energy Czar or a Project Engineer, your job today is more demanding than ever as we deal with energy, the environment and public perception...

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Fortress Paper Ltd. announced that it has entered into an agreement with Chadwick Wasilenkoff for his continued role as Executive Chairman of the Company on a full-time basis.

Glatfelter announced that Senior Vice President of Human Resources & Administration, William T. Yanavitch II, will retire from the company, effective March 31, 2017.

For many years, I have been telling the faithful readers of this column that energy is a political issue. Now the proof is in...

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Louisiana-Pacific named new heads of its oriented strand board, siding and engineered wood products businesses Thursday.

These two ideas have been around for a very long time, but I am amazed at how many people don't use them, not just in replacement scenarios, but in new installations. The first one I want to mention is regenerative drives. The other application is VFD (variable frequency drives) on pumps...

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We are headed for a crisis. We have a combination of operators who have little physical understanding of the systems they operate, some of them have an attitude, and, on top of that, the hardware and software that serve as their crutches is obsolete. We want to do something about this...

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Tiede Appointed Chief Operating Officer; Arthur, Coker and Fuller Promoted to Senior VP of Company's Global Businesses

This week, we talk about some tricks you can use to unplug an innovation log jam...

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I thought I would spend some time this week talking about some of the innovations I have witnessed over the years...

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Kimberly-Clark Corporation announced that Michael D. Hsu, currently group president North American Consumer Products, has been named to the role of president and chief operating officer (COO) and will join K-C's board of directors, effective January 1, 2017.

I concluded several years ago, that while people like me may be naturally wired to be innovative, creativity can be taught. It boils down to several steps or realizations. I don't think I have shared these in such a wide audience before. So, here goes...

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The secret to innovation is to carve out the risk of innovation and allocate it to investors who have the attitude to handle it...

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Louisiana-Pacific Corporation announced that the Board of Directors has appointed Executive Vice President Brad Southern to the newly created position of chief operating officer.

Time and again, I have seen people conduct themselves in an exemplary manner throughout their careers, only to find themselves departing their places of employment in an untimely fashion. Once I went to work in a paper mill where this had happened en masse just before I arrived. The place was a mess. Whole departments had been eliminated and it looked as if the people had just left for a fire drill...

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In the vein of what we discussed last week, let's continue. An area where I think many fall down, especially if they are not used to being in this particular venue, is customer relations. When in doubt, defer to your customer...

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Quality comes in many shapes and forms. I want to talk about some of them this week...

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CFO Carol L. Roberts and SVP William Hoel to Retire in Early 2017, Glenn Landau to become Chief Financial Officer

The Board of Directors of Deltic Timber Corporation has announced the retirement of Ray C. Dillon as the company's President and CEO.

Quality must not be an attribute that employees think can be turned on or off, dependent on time, place and resources. Apply the same quality everywhere all the time. Your business will thank you for it.

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Once in my career, a boss told me we were building too much quality into our products. He said we should provide only the quality the customer expects. That might be true if "extra" quality costs extra expense which you cannot recover. There is another way to look at this...

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*All else being equal and if you always behave in a legal, moral and ethical manner and you understand that the invoice printer is the most important machine in any enterprise. These are a given and you should already know them by now, if you have been following me for any length of time. After forty-six and one half years of observing modern business life, I think it does indeed boil down to two things, at least in large corporations...

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KapStone Paper and Packaging Corporation announced that effective January 1, 2017, Roger Stone is stepping down as KapStone's Chief Executive Officer.

A recent study, done by Australian Bond University and the University of San Diego, of US CEOs in the supply chain industry found that 21 percent had "clinically significant levels of psychopathic traits" (psychopath: a person suffering from chronic mental disorder with abnormal or violent social behavior). Based on my 46 years in industry, I think they have nailed it, perhaps even gotten the number a bit low. So, this column is for the other 79% of you...

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Catalyst Paper Corporation announced that Frank De Costanzo, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, is leaving the company to pursue a CFO position with another organization.

Some, not all, young people in the industry often want to know what it takes to get into management. The answer is simple to state, a bit more difficult to execute. It is this: perform beyond expectations and become known for it. However, before we go further into this (likely next week), let's discuss some matters that you can use to test yourself to determine if you have the disposition to be a manager...

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Every facility in our industry has two types of assets--hard and soft. By hard I mean buildings, machinery, process control systems and so forth. By soft I mean people. When a facility produces products for a vibrant market (defined as steady or growing, not declining), which are more important to its success--the hard assets or the soft assets?

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As Corruption Month 2016 comes to a close, Pulp Rats Vel and Hae relate their experiences to Great Grandmother and the rest of the council...

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Louisiana is home to a significant portion of the North American pulp and paper industry, both mills and suppliers. When I think back to the business I have done over the decades in Louisiana, the volume is staggering (I received my first project in Louisiana in 1979 in Bogalusa). Right now several of our clients call Louisiana home as well as do many of our friends.

"I did not relate this story to the council, but I wanted to share it with you readers of Mr. Jim's column. It happened in a place where I lived and it is a bit complicated, for I do not understand all the things the Big Things do. Apparently, from the best I can gather, the Big Things make paper products for something called money. They hand other Big Things products they make and these Big Things give them this money in return. Why, I don't understand, but that is the way things seem to work..." Fos the Pulp Rat continues his tale.

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How many times have you seen a less than honest performer running out the back door as the investigators are coming in the front door? It happens quite often. Fos the Pulp Rat continues his tale...

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When the rats know we have to follow the rules, there is no excuse for us humans, is there?

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If you are a new reader, a bit of explanation is in order. In the trade journal business, at least in the northern hemisphere, August is the lightest readership month of the year. So, last year we tried something different to perk up August. We labeled it "Corruption Month" and let Fos, a pulp rat, write the stories. This was a huge hit. So, Fos is back again with more tales from the dark side of the pulp and paper industry and beyond...

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What is the impact of your mill on the world as a whole? The truth is we don't know--no one knows because there are simply bits of science yet to be discovered. It is likely, however, that the impact is not as great as environmental NGOs say it is and not as little as your CEO may concede...

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Today the number of regulations with which a business or even a homeowner must comply has reached an incalculable quantity. It is as if one were reading the Book of Leviticus and attempting to understand how one properly prepares for the Jewish Sabbath--times ten million. The regulators, bureaucrats and their contractors see it to be their sacred duty to write just one more regulation. This leaves us with an impossible task--how to comply with all the regulations and the new ones constantly being foisted upon us...

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Last week I gave you my definition of regulations: "Regulations are imposed by those who have artificially gained power on those who own assets." I would like to spend this column discussing those who have artificially gained power. There are three groups that come to mind when I think of those who have artificially gained power. They are environmental NGOs, lawyers and governments. Let's take these one at a time...

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This is environment/regulations month here at Paperitalo Publications. Issues surrounding the environment and regulations necessarily, unless you subscribe to conspiracy theories, involve the mitigation of risks. I'll tell a story on myself to set the stage....

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As we wrap up procurement month, I want to talk to you about performance-based contracts. These are very different from most other contracts. They can be complicated to write, but if awarded to a competent bidder, can bring guaranteed results...

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We talked last week about what is not in a contract and the premise that in the eyes of the law in most places, if money has exchanged hands you have a contract. This week I wanted to take a higher level look at what one might want to include in a contract. And, we'll further simplify it by focusing on a contract that is of the "time and material" variety...

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It is true that if you want something in a contract, you must put it in the contract. It is also true that there are things not in a contract that are implied. A basic principle in the laws in the United States at least is this: if you accept money to do a task, there is a contract. It may be a verbal contract, but it is indeed a contract. Unfortunately, such contracts, if they involve a substantial claim by one party against another, will be sorted out the expensive way--in court. Here's an example...

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It is procurement month at Paperitalo Publications. The mill-related troublesome issues that can be attributed to the purchasing department are myriad and legion. This is not to say that there are not great purchasing agents, but this is a focal point of interaction with outsiders. It can lead to grand levels of loss through misunderstanding, incompetence and fraud. I want to discuss two issues today, two issues that are critical even before one arrives at the content of purchasing documents...

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As we wrap up energy month, let's look at some completely kooky ideas for saving energy. The naysayers will have their negative comments, but keep in mind what looks kooky now may be the greatest thing in just a few years. After all, if a mere two hundred years ago had you tried to speculate on humankind's harnessing and use of electricity coming in just a couple of centuries, you would have been labeled a complete nut-job. So, here we go...

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The easiest energy savings follow the same philosophy as the easiest safety improvements. If it does not exist, it cannot hurt you or consume energy. Your first reaction will be this: we don't operate anything we don't need in order to run our facility. Really? I'll bet I could find all sorts of things to turn off or modify in your facility...

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Energy projects have to be looked at from many angles, particularly if they are a significant investment as compared to the depreciated value of the assets they serve. Don't develop a cost overhang situation that will sink the mill if you guessed wrong (and you can count on guessing wrong). This is why you have to develop several scenarios...

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If a mill is thinking about adding to their energy generation sources, that is by adding another boiler to their fleet--it is time to pause and take a deep breath. It is one thing if you are changing fuels, quite another if you are just adding to your total steam generation capacity...

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As we start Energy Trends month here at Paperitalo Publications, I want to make sure those of you with a few less years of experience than I have understand that energy is probably the most concomitant political and scientific subject you will ever face...

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If adding things makes a site more hazardous, taking them away should reduce the hazards. The problem is, that over time, we get used to the hazards around us and pay no attention to them until we encounter them in an accident-causing situation...

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Last week's column was titled, "Does Senior Management cause Safety Issues?" This week, I want to report on two incidents of which I have direct knowledge where safety missteps by plant managers got them fired...

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There are times when the demands of management, which I'll admit include demands to conduct all work in a safe manner, sometimes force us to forget safety and push on to achieve the business operational objectives. Further, there is often a fine line when one is ascertaining how to proceed. Nearly everything we do has a dangerous component to it...

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It is Safety Month at Paperitalo Publications. Let's start off by understanding two things: (1) serious, sometimes fatal accidents occur in our mills today, this is not something that happens in the past or somewhere else and (2) what we tell our fellow employees, through words, deeds and actions is extremely important to conducting operations in a safe manner.

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No matter the department, people who love their jobs and care for the assets are the best inside-the-fence chance your mill has at succeeding.
This goes double for maintenance.

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We humans have a propensity for collecting things; it is in our nature. There is an entire industry that has developed in the last three or four decades to cater to this mental disorder--the self-storage industry. You drive by self-storage units all the time--how many of them do you think hold contents whose value equals just one year's rental on the unit? Just because we are in the corporate world does not mean we do not make poor decisions about keeping junk.

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In decades past, in the United States, engineering students came off the farm. It was often a first step up for farm family children to go to engineering school. I was a classic example. I left the farm and became a mechanical engineer. Today, entry level personnel, even if they are trained engineers, often do not have the practical background we used to have...

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You will never know if a mill is well maintained if you follow the mill's "tour route"--you know, the route they keep clean and in great shape for executives, board members and customers. Didn't know that mills have "tour routes"? Have I got some hot property in Florida for you! In a mill that is in really bad shape, you won't have to go to the places I am going to tell you about, for they, that is those in charge, will never let you get there. Thus, the first clue you are in a poorly maintained mill is if you run into resistance to a full blown tour...

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Over my career, the best operating mills and companies I have seen have had very open communications. In these systems, there is a culture encouraging communications between departments and between mills. Conversely, the worst I have seen have been those with a fortress mentality, both internally to a site, between departments and externally to the site, between mills. The worst I have ever seen was in a company making grades in declining markets. The mills saw each other as every bit as big a competitor as the mills actually belonging to competitors...

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In some cases, I have seen mills go to great lengths to negotiate strong contracts for their long-haul freight, only to ignore what was happening on their own property, perhaps because of the location of their mills. You can't do much about the location of your mill, if you happen to have arrived after the grand opening. But you might be able to do something about the shuffling of trucks, containers and rail cars about your site...

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Railroads could advance a lot further in serving their customers--in our case, pulp and paper mills and their customers...

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When the Allies invaded France in June of 1944, they knew they would have to conquer transportation problems if they were to be successful in reaching their objective. Starting on 24 August 1944 and running until 16 November 1944, the Red Ball Express operated 5,958 vehicles and moved 12,500 tons of freight each and every day from the coast of France to the front lines.

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Where will we see automation next? Driverless trucks. They are less than five years away, folks. You can take it to the bank. The question is, will you be ready for them in your mill?

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Failure takes many forms--the budget was too low, the schedule was wrong, training was poor, markets were not as predicted and on and on and on. However, I have never seen a project fail badly if it had a good design basis...

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I once worked for a company that was proud of its capital projects and how the completion of such projects added to the assets of the company. The next company I worked for was proud of its return on investment (ROI) and had a philosophy of investing as little as possible in capital projects, for such investments drove down the ROI. This seems like a conundrum, but there are always other details that need to be explained to understand such matters...

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Capital projects consist of three elements--money, time, and space. Getting two out of three right is not too hard. Getting all three correct is like bowling a perfect game.

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A new year, and it is capital projects month on the Paperitalo Editorial Calendar. In my nearly forty-six years in this industry, I have seen capital projects from all sides. I have seen so many projects, from the truly frightful to shining examples, that I could write a book. In fact, I did. ... I want to start this month's columns with a slightly different slant. I want to begin by talking about the relationship between suppliers and owners.

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As we wrap up power and energy month here at Paperitalo Publications, remember this: unless energy prices change rapidly and drastically (either up or down), the actual practices of energy consumption in your mill are likely driven by your mill's culture more than any other parameter. Of course, this is true of nearly everything that happens in your mill, but it bears noting in particular as we look at energy consumption.

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Here in the pulp and paper industry, we have a difficult problem explaining our energy needs to the public. The scale of our facilities, the energy needs, just do not compute for the individual who is not regularly exposed to the scale of the business. This works to our detriment when the population puts pressure on the politicians. What to do about this?

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If you want to wring unpredictability out of your energy budget, you will push conservation no matter the price of your energy sources. Energy that you don't have to purchase (at any price) reflects energy costs that cannot destabilize your energy budget. It is as simple as that.

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Where can we use the force of gravity to eliminate energy costs?

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In fact, most of the time, that is exactly what large companies do. Earlier in this series I talked about the inertia of large companies and the inability for them to innovate. So, they do the next best thing--they buy it...

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The problem is, good innovation often looks like fiction on the surface. So, challenge innovation--challenge what will make it work. If it is in contracts, challenge the legality. If it is in products, challenge the science. And if it is in services, challenge the psychology that will cause people to behave in the manner that will result in the outcome predicted...

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In our own industry, we are known for inertia. We are not known for innovation, in fact, innovation is almost discouraged. We are known for politics. If I took off my socks right now, I don't have enough digits on my hands and feet to count all the bad managers I know in positions of power in our industry. Politics wins...

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Innovation has its problems, both from the practitioner and the manager perspectives...

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You probably have heard it said many times, "Quality is an attitude." This is correct. Quality, safety and housekeeping all go together...

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Don't let your photo screen you out of a great opportunity...

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If you look around, you'll find dimensions are everything. Don't casually dismiss them when you think about quality...

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Over the years, I have seen many attempts to obtain an advantage in markets by selling product based on quality. I have also seen many shenanigans as people try to short cut quality...

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I am often told by managers, "I can't get (fill in the blank) to do what I want done." Sometimes this statement highlights a training deficit. Sometimes it highlights a personality deficit. Sometimes it is a motivational issue. However, most often it is something else--these managers have not bothered to put themselves in the subordinates' shoes and look at the world from their point of view...

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During your career, you will (and I have) run into many professional phonies.  Sales people are near the top, but you’ll find internal candidates in your business, too.  These are people who feint interest in your personal life to gain some sort of favored intention with you...

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For all of us, how we perceive ourselves and how the viewing public, i.e., anyone looking at us, perceives us is often quite different.  I suspect I am not even telling you something you don’t know, but it is something you forget daily...

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Words inspire and are a call to action.  However, at some point action must be taken...

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Resting on the same old curricula, slightly updated, is not going to suffice to prepare leaders for our industry in the mid 21st century.  And face it—the graduates of today will likely be running the industry in 2045-2060.   We need more specialized paths to create a crop of graduates that will be out in front of the roar of technology marching on... 

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Sometimes it is called, “drinking your own bathwater.”  In general, it is about thinking you are great, important and all knowing.  It always blows up. 

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Recent events seem to suggest we can, in real time, watch a retail brand being destroyed right now... 

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The curse of all businesses is killing problems and killing them dead.

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Over the years, it has been interesting to watch the fear level of employees... 

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I have seen many a good mill killed by poor maintenance...

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We have covered some other acronyms in this column before.  LOC stands for Lean, Orderly and Clean. LME stands for Legal, Moral and Ethical. This week, we want to introduce a third and state (hopefully) that if you follow all three acronyms, life will be good indeed. MAT stands for Maintained, Accountable and Trained...

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I believe strongly that it is our dealing with the little things, like earplugs, that sets the tone for dealing with the big ones...

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Effective managers understand being effective.  Big surprise, eh?  More importantly, being effective does not necessarily mean wiping your to do list clean as fast as possible, especially when it comes to managing other people, superiors or subordinates. 

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Taking a condition, the foul in basketball, and using it as an offensive weapon sends a very wrong message to society. That message is this: If you can’t make it a legitimate way, in this case by making baskets, it is OK to cheat, up to a point, to gain an advantage. In my lifetime, I have seen this played out over and over again in business. Can’t make it legitimately? Cheat. 

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