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Writer for Nip Impressions
Thursday, March 14, 2024 1:00 pm
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.
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Thursday, March 7, 2024 1:00 pm
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).
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Thursday, February 29, 2024 1:00 pm
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.
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Thursday, February 22, 2024 1:00 pm
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.
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Thursday, February 15, 2024 1:00 pm
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.
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Thursday, February 8, 2024 1:00 pm
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.
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Thursday, February 1, 2024 1:00 pm
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?
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Thursday, January 25, 2024 1:00 pm
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.
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Thursday, January 18, 2024 1:00 pm
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.
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Thursday, January 11, 2024 1:00 pm
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.
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Thursday, January 4, 2024 1:00 pm
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.
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Thursday, December 28, 2023 1:00 pm
I am speaking about the capital projects sector for 2024 and going forward a bit.
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Thursday, December 21, 2023 1:00 pm
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...
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Thursday, December 14, 2023 1:00 pm
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.
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Thursday, December 7, 2023 1:00 pm
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.
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Thursday, November 30, 2023 1:00 pm
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.
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Thursday, November 23, 2023 1:00 pm
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.
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Thursday, November 16, 2023 1:00 pm
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.
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Thursday, November 9, 2023 1:00 pm
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.
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Thursday, November 2, 2023 1:00 pm
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.
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Thursday, October 26, 2023 1:00 pm
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.
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Thursday, October 19, 2023 1:00 pm
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.
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Thursday, October 12, 2023 1:00 pm
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.
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Thursday, September 28, 2023 1:00 pm
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.
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Thursday, September 28, 2023 1:00 pm
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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Thursday, September 21, 2023 1:00 pm
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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Thursday, September 14, 2023 1:00 pm
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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Thursday, September 7, 2023 1:00 pm
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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Thursday, August 31, 2023 1:00 pm
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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Thursday, August 24, 2023 1:00 pm
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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Thursday, August 24, 2023 1:00 pm
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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Thursday, August 10, 2023 1:00 pm
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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Thursday, August 3, 2023 1:00 pm
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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Thursday, July 27, 2023 1:00 pm
How clean is clean? What are we willing to pay for things to be incrementally cleaner?
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Thursday, July 20, 2023 1:00 pm
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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Thursday, July 13, 2023 1:00 pm
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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Thursday, July 6, 2023 1:00 pm
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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Thursday, June 29, 2023 1:00 pm
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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Thursday, June 22, 2023 1:00 pm
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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Thursday, June 15, 2023 1:00 pm
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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Thursday, June 8, 2023 1:00 pm
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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Thursday, June 1, 2023 1:00 pm
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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Thursday, May 25, 2023 1:00 pm
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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Thursday, May 18, 2023 1:00 pm
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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Thursday, May 11, 2023 1:00 pm
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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Thursday, May 4, 2023 1:00 pm
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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Thursday, April 27, 2023 1:00 pm
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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Thursday, April 20, 2023 1:00 pm
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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Thursday, April 13, 2023 1:00 pm
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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Thursday, April 6, 2023 1:00 pm
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.
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Thursday, March 30, 2023 1:00 pm
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.
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Thursday, March 23, 2023 1:00 pm
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.
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Thursday, March 16, 2023 1:00 pm
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.
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Thursday, March 9, 2023 1:00 pm
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.
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Thursday, March 2, 2023 1:00 pm
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.
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Thursday, February 23, 2023 1:00 pm
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.
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Thursday, February 16, 2023 1:00 pm
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.
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Thursday, February 9, 2023 1:00 pm
A lot of money leaks out of a company through the travel budget. It does not need to be this way.
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Thursday, February 2, 2023 4:00 pm
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.
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Thursday, January 26, 2023 4:00 pm
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.
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Thursday, January 19, 2023 4:00 pm
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.
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Thursday, January 12, 2023 4:00 pm
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.
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Thursday, January 5, 2023 4:00 pm
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.
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Thursday, December 29, 2022 4:00 pm
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...
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Thursday, December 22, 2022 4:00 pm
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.
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Thursday, December 15, 2022 4:00 pm
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.
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Thursday, December 8, 2022 4:00 pm
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.
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Thursday, December 1, 2022 4:00 pm
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.
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Wednesday, November 23, 2022 4:00 pm
So, what have we learned from this series of columns?
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Thursday, November 17, 2022 1:01 pm
Discerning when to be innovative or not is just as important as the art of innovation itself.
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Thursday, November 10, 2022 1:01 pm
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.
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Thursday, November 3, 2022 1:01 pm
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.
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Thursday, October 27, 2022 1:01 pm
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.
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Wednesday, October 26, 2022 9:57 pm
We had an opportunity to gather on the evening of 6 October 2022 and award the Capital Arguments Project Manager of the Year Award to Todd Brooks of NORPAC in Longview, Washington. Todd came in on budget on a tough project that was done entirely during the Covid Era. Todd learned the meaning of Force Majeure and still pulled it in on budget. Great job, Todd!
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Sunday, October 23, 2022 9:57 pm
I am just from the SAP Conference in Madrid and I have to tell you my head is still spinning. One cannot understand the rapid advancement being made in business and process software unless one listens to the users.
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Thursday, October 20, 2022 1:01 pm
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.
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Thursday, October 13, 2022 1:01 pm
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.
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Thursday, October 6, 2022 1:01 pm
The modern phone is a miracle device. The downside is that it may expose us in multifaceted ways that are not flattering.
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Thursday, September 29, 2022 1:01 pm
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.
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Thursday, September 22, 2022 1:01 pm
Hidden Costs
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Thursday, September 15, 2022 1:01 pm
Nothing is free
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Thursday, September 8, 2022 1:01 pm
Spinning the Invoice Printer
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Thursday, September 1, 2022 1:01 pm
So, you want to be a consultant
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Thursday, August 25, 2022 1:01 pm
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.
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Thursday, August 18, 2022 3:16 pm
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."
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Thursday, August 11, 2022 3:16 pm
After a brief recess, the Great Mother called us together again. "What is on the docket for today?"
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Thursday, August 4, 2022 3:16 pm
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...
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Thursday, July 28, 2022 3:16 pm
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.
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Thursday, July 21, 2022 3:16 pm
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.
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Thursday, July 14, 2022 3:16 pm
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.
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Thursday, July 7, 2022 3:16 pm
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.
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Thursday, June 30, 2022 3:16 pm
A little regulation is probably good, but a lot of regulation chokes business to death.
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Thursday, June 23, 2022 3:16 pm
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.
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Wednesday, June 15, 2022 3:16 pm
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.
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Thursday, June 9, 2022 1:01 pm
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.
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Thursday, June 2, 2022 1:01 pm
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.
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Thursday, May 26, 2022 1:01 pm
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.
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Thursday, May 19, 2022 1:01 pm
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.
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Thursday, May 12, 2022 1:01 pm
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.
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Thursday, May 5, 2022 1:01 pm
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.
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