March 2021: What do you really need?
By Jim Thompson
What we think we need and what we really need are two different things.
I know one mill that operated with one house crane for over twenty years. They finally got a second one, but it was devilishly hard to justify.
Most of the workers in that mill had never worked in another, so they didn't know the difference.
I know another company where the tending aisle is not quite wide enough to pull press rolls straight out. They have to be turned slightly going in and coming out. But that saved a couple of feet in building width for the length of the building--a lot of money. They put more money in a generously wide drive aisle where maintenance works much more than they do than operations does on the tending aisle.
The question is this--what do we think we have to have that we really don't? You just might be surprised how much money you can save if you challenge the norms a bit.
Jim Thompson
jim.thompson@ipulpmedia.com