Todd Varner Shares Insights on Staying Competitive
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Mills and other papermaking professionals have long known TAPPI’s PaperCon as a key resource for the latest technical knowledge needed to stay competitive in today’s ever-changing market. Its comprehensive program is developed by working professionals who have extensive industry experience and understanding to ensure the conference addresses the most critical issues affecting the industry today.
TAPPI caught up with Todd Varner, Process Engineering Department Manager at Jacobs and Papermakers Planning Committee member, to get his insight on how mills can stay competitive in today’s environment and how PaperCon 2019 can help them.
TAPPI: What do you feel are the
most critical issues facing the industry today? What issues specifically affect
mills and what resources are available to help those mills?
VARNER: How to right size
everything—how to match production with demand and how to forecast that demand
two, three, four, or even 10 years down the road. At Jacobs, we help paper
mills take the assets they have today and convert them, maintain them, and
improve them. Yet I think a lot of companies are afraid to look too far into
the future when developing their market strategy because things are changing so
much. How far can one forecast is really a problem for many executives in the
paper industry.
What do mills need to do today
to remain competitive in the future?
First of all, they
need to optimize the assets they have and not accept the status quo of "we did
this yesterday" or "that is the way we have always done it." Secondly, they
need to understand their niche and their strengths and build on that strength.
They also need to understand their weaknesses. Is their weakness cost of production,
or is their weakness reliability? Are these just impacts they live with? Mills
need to improve the overall productivity of their system. Each mill needs to
understand that.
Energy is another concern. Some paper mills waste energy
because energy is so cheap—but that’s another area mills can start to hone in.
PaperCon usually features a track on energy improvement, and there is one
planned for 2019 too.
What are some key industry trends and issues that will be
addressed at PaperCon?
One thing we’re focusing on this year is paper machine
conversions. How do you take the assets you have today and project those into
the future? What markets will need more products? How do you marry the
equipment you have, the fiber source you have, and the people you have with
where the markets are going? How far down can you project that? Everything is
changing. We’re using less print materials but more packaging materials, for
instance—we can see that trend.
In the Papermaking Conversions track, we are focusing on how to take those same resources—equipment, facilities, and the people and their talent—and convert and manage them to a new product. How do you best meet the demands of tomorrow with the equipment you have today?
Read Todd Varner’s entire interview
Learn more about PaperCon 2019
