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Of course, it is hard to say, but I will say this: "I would be leasing all my transportation equipment if I were you, and, further, I would be signing leases with relatively painless exit clauses."
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A category of business where I see little movement towards autonomous vehicles but where I think there is lots of opportunity is in maintenance and related activities.
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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