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Opening paragraph
Mike Garfield, the new plant manager of the West Coast Division of Universal Pulp and Paper, had just received a disturbing telephone call from his superior located at the companys head office. The head office staff had received several complaints from customers supplied by the West Coast Division.
Closing paragraph
With demand for newsprint expected to increase from three million tons of paper this year to 3,680,000 tons next year, Mike knew the current complaints might be a sign of worse days ahead. As plant manager, Mike knew he was ultimately responsible for the efficiency and profitability of his plant. With this in mind, he set out to prepare his report to his superior at head office.
The Complaints
Opening paragraph
Mike Garfield, the new plant manager of the West Coast Division of Universal Pulp and Paper, had just received a disturbing telephone call from his superior located at the companys head office. The head office staff had received several complaints from customers supplied by the West Coast Division.
The West Coast Division was a manufacturing operation involved in the processing of cut timer (wood) and the production of various paper products. The West Coast Division was a fully integrated operation, in that it produced and processed all of the wood pulp (raw material) it required for its manufacture of paper products.
The Consumer
(second subheading and topic sentences)
Although an endless number and variety of paper products were sold at the retail level, the West Coast Division plant supplied companies that produced or used paper products for two basic purposes:
1. Approximately 95 per cent of the plants production was newsprint, used primarily in the production of daily newspapers. 2. The remaining five per cent of the plants production was used for specialty writing paper products.
End consumers of these [specialty] paper products tended to buy infrequently and in small quantities. Mike Garfield recalled that, although the West Coast Division plant was originally designed primarily for the production of high volume, low-to-medium quality newsprint;
The production process was quite complex at the West Coast plant, but could be simplified into three key components: wood processing, pulp production, and paper production.
Wood Processing. The entire production process began with the receipt of wood logs. Once de-barked, the logs were moved to a chipper machine. The entire wood processing component of the production process could provide 730 tons of wood chips per hour.
Pulp Production. Pulp, the key raw material for the production of paper, was produced using a complicated chemical process known as the Kraft process. Upon leaving the digesters, the digested chips entered a machine known as a blow tank. The pulp production facilities were capable of converting as much as eight million tons of wood chips into about four million tons of paper per year.
Paper Production. The two papermaking machines in the West Coast plant were extremely large and involved an investment of about $500 million each. A paper-making machine had a wet end (where the diluted wood fibre pulp entered the process), and a dry end (where the completed paper was wound onto very large rolls or logs of paper).
The paper-making process was highly complex, and required the monitoring of many variables such as temperature, chemical content, and machine speed. Mike Garfield recalled a report prepared by the director of computer services indicating that a computer program was available that could enhance the present system so that all 75 measurements could be computer-controlled.
If machine capacity was at the root of the complaints, Mike knew that a report recently prepared by the production engineers would be most helpful.
The Complaints
(fourth subheading and topic sentences)
To better understand the source and cause of the recent complaints, Mike held a meeting with the chief production supervisor, Charlie Robertson. Its not my fault! Its those idiots in sales and marketing that keep sending me those stupid, small fancy orders
Closing paragraph
With demand for newsprint expected to increase from three million tons of paper this year to 3,680,000 tons next year, Mike knew the current complaints might be a sign of worse days ahead. As plant manager, Mike knew he was ultimately responsible for the efficiency and profitability of his plant. With this in mind, he set out to prepare his report to his superior at head office.