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The purpose of this paper is to reveal how the prices, costs, and logistics develop in the case mill and how these variables correlate with profits, and finally to give suggestions for improvements.

A typical Finnish paper mill is selected for the basis of the case study. The complete data for the mill for the years 2001 to 2007 at a monthly level are used. The data are obtained from the mill's financial management system and transferred to Excel. Statistica 4.1 software is used to run the statistical correlation analyses. The results can be generalized with certain limitations to paper manufacturing located at a long distance from its customers.

This paper gives an important insight into the economics of the Finnish paper industry. From theory‐building point of view, the empirical process data show that the variation in production lines is minimal, but there are important variations in paper deliveries. A lot can be gained in the logistics processes. Larger volumes delivered in tons also tend to increase profits. From the mill to the consignees, fluctuations in the process and paper sales grow substantially, which indicates longer storage times.

The results of the case study are based on the data of a single large integrated paper mill in Finland covering the years 2001‐2007, so the results cannot be directly generalized to concern all Nordic paper mills. In May 2005, there was an industrial blackout, which considerably affected the production and deliveries of all Finnish paper mills in that year.

The competitive advantages of the Finnish paper industry are undermined by low paper prices and costly logistics. The mill managers should increasingly focus on overcapacity and cost issues and also deliver volumes, which all could contribute to higher profits.

In this paper, the Finnish paper industry is studied through a time series, economic geography, and statistical tools. This approach is a novel method and gives new insights into this research object. The mill's economic variables, such as paper prices, profits, and logistics and manufacturing costs, and the characteristics of these issues in a spatial context are studied.

Labor management cooperation, and the adoption of high-performance work systems (HPWS), are central topics in recent industrial relations research, with much emphasis given to “best-practice” success stories. This paper uses a case study analysis, relying on conventional, and oral history interviews, to explore why managers, union leaders, and workers in two Maine paper mills rejected the cooperation and the HPWS model. It explores how local history and culture, regional factors like the dramatic International Paper (IP) strike in Jay, Maine, instability in industry labor relations, management turnover, and instability in corporate governance contributed to these two mills’ rejection of Scott Paper Corporation's “Jointness” initiative during the period from 1988 to 1995. The study argues that intra-management divisions blocked cooperation on the management side, and that the Jay strike created a “movement culture” among Maine's paper workers, who developed a class-conscious critique of HPWS as a tactic in class warfare being perpetrated by paper corporations.

The subject area of the case is operations management and capacity planning. The case adopts different operation strategies to use the idle capacity.

The case study is suitable for discussion in masters level classes. The case explains the situation of a company which is fighting for its survival. The case reveals the alternative operations strategies it applies to maximize its capacity utilization and reduce its costs.

The case describes a paper producing company which is earning low margins. The company’s capacity remains unused during the off-seasons. The company then plans to share its capacity with another dying industry. Both the companies plan to cooperate and share resources. However, there are other attractive alternatives too and the dilemma situations leave the gap for continuous discussions.

The case aims at providing potential alternatives to the students and initiating healthy discussions. The students will be able to understand the capacity utilization dilemmas and applicability of the operations strategy concept in practice.

Teaching notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.

CSS 9: Operations and Logistics.

The purpose of this study is to reveal the usability of waste paper sludge on the production of composite materials and the printability of their surfaces were investigated.

First, composite plates were produced by using dried and milled waste sludge together with polyester resin and epoxy. Screen printing using water, solvent and UV-based inks were carried out.

It was determined that UV and solvent-based inks in both resin groups were permanently attached to the surface of composite plates produced using paper mill waste sludge, while it was found that the adhesion was not achieved sufficiently in cardboard factory waste sludge.

The unique aspect of this study is obtained the composite plates from paper mill and cardboard mill waste sludge and improved the printability of them.

This paper aims to contribute to the understanding of the social aspects of corporate social responsibility (CSR) by studying a case of organizational downsizing.

The paper uses a theoretical framework consisting of stakeholder theory and legitimacy theory together with the concept of social contract. Textual analysis methods are used to analyse and interpret the empirical data, which consist of mass media articles.

The main finding is that key stakeholders, especially employees and their representatives and the multinational corporation (MNC) itself perceive social aspects of CSR differently. The economic dimension dominates the social aspect in the corporate representatives' argumentation. Accounting information is used as a rhetorical tool to legitimise the downsizing actions rather than for purposes of accountability and transparent informative content.

The research is based on a detailed analysis of a specific context. This may limit the wider applicability of the findings. Even so, it adds insights to the academic literature on the varying conceptions of the social responsibilities of corporations, perceived not only by the firm itself, but also by different stakeholders.

The paper contributes to the literature on CSR by investigating understandings of corporate social responsibility in a case where the economic and social responsibilities of a firm are publicly debated. The study also links the theoretical debate on corporate social responsibility to a context with a complex range of political and social factors affecting the construction of the social and economic responsibilities of a firm.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the status of gross and net working capital and their association with sales of Andhra Pradesh Paper Mills Ltd, with reference to the Indian paper industry over a decade, from 1999 to 2008.

The research is mainly based on secondary financial data obtained from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE). It focused on the size, character, and annual growth rates of gross and net working capital of the company. In addition, it analyzed the growth trends of gross and net working capital of the company in relation to sales. With the help of the Karl Pearson's correlation model, the inter‐relationship between sales and working capital has been identified. Then the strength and significance of such a relationship has been tested with the use of other statistical tools such as coefficient of determination and Student's t‐test.

The major findings of the research showed that while there was an increase in sales positively, strongly, and significantly associated with an increase in gross working capital for both the company and the industry, its association with net working capital was negative, poorly related, weak, and insignificant for the company under study.

There is a dearth of studies in the world literature that discuss the relationship that exists between sales and working capital in India's paper industry, in general and Andhra Pradesh Paper Mills Ltd in particular, and therefore this research is expected to add significant value to exploring the said linkage.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the performance of paper mill plant, which is a very key factor in improving its production. A number of safety challenges can be successfully fixed for a paper mill to continue to make further improvements in reliability, safety and economics. Many incidents in the paper mill plants are frequently caused by human error and equipment failure. Many of the incidents are generally based on poor managerial strategies. These types of errors could have been prevented if safety instructions had been correctly followed and supported in the maintenance system.

A paper mill plant mainly consists four sections namely the head box, wire part, press part and dryer. All these four parts are connected in series configuration. The authors have developed a mathematical model for the plant in which power supply is in standby mode. The designed system can fail in five ways, i.e. by the failure of head box failure, wire part failure, press part failure, dryer failure and power (electricity) failure. So to make proper functioning of paper machine and no interruption in power supply, the authors have considered that power supply is in standby mode.

Using the supplementary variable technique, the Laplace transformations and Markov process theory, the reliability indices of the paper mill plant model are determined.

In the present paper, the authors have developed a mathematical model based on a paper plant machine.

A control chart is a widely used Six Sigma DMAIC process measure and control phase tool. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the body of knowledge on applying statistical process control (SPC) methods in a pulp mill production organization and the special issues that need to be considered in this context.

The method for obtaining the results was action research, where the researcher actively participated in implementing changes in organization. Procedures to detect and further handle the deviations in a pulp mill organization were created and implemented. A cause and effect diagram used in finding causes and storing the accumulated knowledge was modified to make it applicable to this environment.

Factors for successful SPC implementation were found to be in line with earlier findings in other industries. SPC can act as a means of organizational learning in the pulp and paper industry. Specific problems in the pulp and paper industry concerning the use of SPC were the autocorrelation of data, excessive measurement variation, and limited process knowledge. The effectiveness of SPC in a pulp mill was shown both in the decreasing amount of deviations and in the positive opinions of the employees.

Findings are generated from a single case, so general applicability is limited.

This case study can be used as a benchmark by other practitioners in the industry.

This article provides new knowledge in the context of implementing SPC in a pulp and paper manufacturing organization.

There is a large body of knowledge on logistics and production control, including just‐in‐time (JIT) logistics. However, the applications specific to paper industry logistics are scarce and somewhat conflicting. Examines the potential contribution of alternative logistics systems in the paper industry and the scope for efficiency gains through the application of JIT logistics systems. Multiple case studies are used, with simulation for alternative business scenarios. The results indicate considerable scope for improvements in paper industry logistics, with many of the benefits deriving from JIT applications.

Productivity improvement is key to sustainability performance improvements of organizations. In a real-world scenario, the nature of inputs and outputs is likely to be imprecise and vague, leading to complexity in comparing firms' efficiency measurements. Implementation of fuzzy-logic based measurement systems is a method for dealing with such cases. This paper presents a fuzzy weight objective function to solve Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) CCR model for measuring paper mills' performance in India for 15 years.

An integrated methodology is proposed to solve DEA models having fuzzy weights. The fuzzy DEA methodology is an extended version of the DEA approach that researchers have used for performance measurement purposes in imprecise and vague scenarios. The ecological performance of the paper industry is evaluated, considering some desirable and undesirable outputs. The effect of non-discretionary input on the performance of a paper mill is also analyzed.

Analysis suggests that the productivity of the paper industry is improving consistently throughout the period. The comparative evaluation of methods suggests that a diverse cluster of DMUs and integration of DEA with the fuzzy logic increases the diversity in the efficiency score while DEA-DE imitates the results of CCR DEA.

Proposed a fuzzy DEA-based analytical framework for measuring the paper industry's ecological performance in an imprecise and vague scenario. The model is tested on data from the paper industry in a developing country context and comparative performance analysis using DEA, fuzzy DEA and DE algorithm is done.