Archives

As the ball drops in Times Square on New Years Day, the trees in South America grow ever taller, and are much better and more productive than that dropping ball (which mainly yields a great deal of traffic). Interesting things are happening in South America, and I do suspect capital projects for 2024 will be affected, and hopefully started for the upcoming year. Why is that?

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.

UPM and UPM-Kymmene Cultural Foundation are involved in the Lux Helsinki light festival, taking place from January 3rd to 7th, 2024. The festival transforms familiar buildings and spaces into unique urban art installations, illuminating the city during its darkest period of the year.

A call around 12:30 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 2, of a fire at the Georgia Pacific MDF plant in Mount Jewett brought volunteer fire departments from three counties in response.

A sheen that was discovered in the Spokane River last week was caused by an equipment failure at the Inland Empire Paper Company, the Department of Ecology says.

At 2:30 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 3, employees at ST Paper's Duluth plant were informed of a likely pending sale of the facility to Sofidel, a privately-held Italian multinational company that ranks as the world's seventh-largest manufacturer of tissue paper.

Four hundred workers are affected by the production shutdown which takes effect immediately.