KapStone Implements Cost Management Systems at Two Mills

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KapStone Paper and Packaging Corp., Northbrook, Ill., USA, together with MAJIQ Inc., Redmond, Wash., and Enterprise Performance Solutions Inc. (EPS), Atlanta, Ga., has implemented the EPS ELIXIR Product Cost Management system at its mills in Charleston, S.C., and Roanoke Rapids, N.C., to obtain more accurate, timely, complete, and consistent grade costing data and to consolidate to a central, harmonized costing system to better manage profitability decisions. The new, integrated system eliminates reliance on offline tools and increases cost transparency between the company's mills.

At the two KapStone mills, ELIXIR Product Cost Management provides centralized recipe and grade specifications management, standard and actual costing, cost forecasting, and support for cost-to-serve reporting with respect to products, customers, and markets. With these advanced capabilities, KapStone anticipates increased accuracy and timeliness in cost management processes, improved decision support, and efficiency gains in managing recipes and price lists, and enhanced profitability forecasting.

The Product Cost Management system is closely integrated with the ELIXIR sales order processing and manufacturing execution system delivered by MAJIQ. Through interfaces within ELIXIR, gross and net production statistics are available for actual costing. Additionally, block schedule snapshots from the ELIXIR system are used for advanced short-term cost forecasting.

"The ELIXIR system has made the grade costing process much more efficient and we have eliminated our reliance on offline and inconsistent spreadsheet tools." said Christophe Deslandes, CIO of KapStone. "The close integration between the new costing system and ELIXIR has significantly reduced the manual components in the costing process while improving its accuracy and consistency."