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Displaying Articles 26 - 50 of 307
Week of 2 October 2023: Quality--easier to receive than give?
Week of 2 October 2023: Quality--easier to receive than give?

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.

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Week of 25 September 2023: What to do if you are quietly cut
Week of 25 September 2023: What to do if you are quietly cut

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.

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Week of 18 September 2023: Where does DEI fit into your hiring and promotion practices?
Week of 18 September 2023: Where does DEI fit into your hiring and promotion practices?

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?

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Week of 11 September 2023: Smurfit and CCA Redux?
Week of 11 September 2023: Smurfit and CCA Redux?

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.

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Week of 4 September 2023: Present at Work
Week of 4 September 2023: Present at Work

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.

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Week of 28 August 2023: Pulp Rats, Week 4
Week of 28 August 2023: Pulp Rats, Week 4

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."

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Week of 21 August 2023: Pulp Rats, Week 3
Week of 21 August 2023: Pulp Rats, Week 3

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."

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Week of 14 August 2023: Pulp Rats, Week 2
Week of 14 August 2023: Pulp Rats, Week 2

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.

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Week of 7 August 2023: It is August, time for Pulp Rats
Week of 7 August 2023: It is August, time for Pulp Rats

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."

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Week of 31 July 2023: Too much?
Week of 31 July 2023: Too much?

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

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Week of 24 July 2023: A new third party
Week of 24 July 2023: A new third party

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.

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Week of 17 July 2023: Reasonable people all want the same thing
Week of 17 July 2023: Reasonable people all want the same thing

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.

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Week of 10 July 2023: Corruption and Hysteria
Week of 10 July 2023: Corruption and Hysteria

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.

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Week of 3 July 2023: Another year...what has changed?
Week of 3 July 2023: Another year...what has changed?

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.

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Week of 26 June 2023: Let's talk about Purchasing, Part 4
Week of 26 June 2023: Let's talk about Purchasing, Part 4

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.

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Week of 19 June 2023: Let's talk about Purchasing, Part 3
Week of 19 June 2023: Let's talk about Purchasing, Part 3

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.

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Week of 12 June 2023: Let's talk about Purchasing, Part 2
Week of 12 June 2023: Let's talk about Purchasing, Part 2

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.

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Week of 5 June 2023: Let's talk about Purchasing
Week of 5 June 2023: Let's talk about Purchasing

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.

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Week of 29 May 2023: 'til we meet again
Week of 29 May 2023: 'til we meet again

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.

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Week of 22 May 2023: Absolute Energy Improvements to Implement now
Week of 22 May 2023: Absolute Energy Improvements to Implement now

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.

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Week of 15 May 2023: Where are we going with electricity?
Week of 15 May 2023: Where are we going with electricity?

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.

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Week of 8 May 2023: Energy Independence
Week of 8 May 2023: Energy Independence

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

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Week of 1 May 2023: What can we say about energy that we have not said before?
Week of 1 May 2023: What can we say about energy that we have not said before?

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.

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Week of 24 April 2023: Finally, this safety month...your health
Week of 24 April 2023: Finally, this safety month...your health

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.

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Week of 17 April 2023: Implant this in your mind now
Week of 17 April 2023: Implant this in your mind now

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.

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Displaying Articles 26 - 50 of 307

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