Email Jim at jim.thompson@ipulpmedia.com

One of the worst statements I have ever heard is, "We have already tried that before." Give it its due, though, it is right out there to hit you in the face.

More subtle and more dangerous is "innovation optimism." When you think of an idea, it is formed perfectly in your brain. It has no flaws in its execution, it runs forever on zero energy, and it cost nothing.

The devil is in the details, and they sneak up on you while you are basking in your perfect idea, perfect solution. Pretty soon, you have spent some money on it, either yours or the company's--makes no difference. Then you run into some problems and spend some more money on it.

Combine this with a boss who has the power of the pen, thinks you are an innovative genius, and will slide anything you do into the maintenance budget. Now you have the potential for real waste in the making.

I have told this story before, but it is worth repeating. I was in charge of all the departments except production in a certain three machine clay coated recycled board facility. The place was ancient, and we could get no capital. One machine had a reel and sheeter in line. It was a good flying knife sheeter. One of the other machines had a reel and sheeter in line, but unlike the first, had a fixed bed knife sheeter which caused us all sorts of problems with the customers. The third machine only had a reel.

Most days, I would wander around a lot, looking at machinery and process systems, trying to find way to make them better with no money.

One day, I am down in the basement, and it hits me--if we built some carts to carry full reels, we could download them to the basement, put them on the carts and pull them with a tow motor over to the machine with the good sheeter. That way, when that paper machine was winding rolls, its idle sheeter could be used by the other two machines. All we had to do was build an unwind stand in the basement and a slot in the floor to bring the sheet up to the sheeter off the new basement cart/unwind stand. Except. There was a motor control center for that sheeter directly under it that would need to be moved.

No problem! We'll move it! And we did.

The whole thing worked pretty well. We called it the underground railroad. The current mill manager was sent down the hall to fix the carton plant. I got promoted to mill manager. He and I were good friends then and we are good friends now. In fact, we have a standing phone call at 9 am on Saturday mornings. We first met each other in the summer of 1977 at another mil.

I soon left for greener pastures. The former mill manager became the Executive VP for the site. And he got two of those old machines making what three had made when I got there within another year. Then he took the third, and the underground railroad, to the scrap heap. That was the real savings. Innovate with care.

Be safe and we will talk next week.

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