Domtar Pulp Technical Services Team Helps Customers Improve Production

 

When it comes to making and selling pulp, our relationship with our customers doesn’t end when our products leave our shipping docks. Our Pulp Technical Services team ensures we help our customers before, after and between shipments.

Being a successful pulp producer means developing and maintaining long-term relationships with customers across the globe. We want to serve as partners invested in their success by understanding their needs and responding with products and services that help them succeed.

Our Pulp Technical Services team oversees customer relationships and serves as their main point. We’re always there to answer questions, provide recommendations and identify opportunities for improvement.

"We represent our customers’ interests from a product’s introduction to its qualification and beyond," says David Lloyd, a pulp technical director who works on the team. "We are their main contact and the main interface between them, our sales teams and our mill staff."

The three members of our Pulp Technical Services team serve customers based on location and pulp grade.

•Pulp Technical Director Rick Hardee leads the group and provides technical support for fluff pulp customers who order from the Ashdown and Plymouth mills for Europe, North America, Central/South America, the Middle East and Africa.

•Lloyd is based in Kamloops, British Columbia, Canada. He serves specialty pulp, tissue/towel and reinforced fiber customers in North American and Asia. 

•Jack Hsieh (pronounced "Shay") is pulp technical director for China and Southeast Asia. He works with hygiene producers in the region. His background in hygiene production uniquely qualifies him to help customers set up their equipment to best process our pulp.

One of the team’s most important roles is helping to develop and market key pulp grades, like fiber cement.

"Twenty years ago, there wasn’t really a market for fiber cement products," says Lloyd. "Today, it’s a substantial part of the Kamloops Mill’s business."

Our fiber cement customers receive pulp from the Kamloops Mill in bales. They process and refine the pulp fibers to ensure they bond together when converted into the liquid solution used to form the fiber cement boards.

During a recent visit, one customer noted opportunities to improve the way the pulp fiber is refined to enhance board quality. Lloyd and the team took samples back to the mill, where they worked with engineers to replicate the procedure in our labs and make a recommendation on how the customer could modify their process.

Hardee says that example is representative of the value the Pulp Technical Services team adds not just for our customers, but also for our mill employees. "We try to be the voice of the mill with our customers and the voice of the customer with our mills," he says. "We connect the mill and customer."

The Pulp Technical Services team is always available to help customers run trials, fine-tune their machines and maximize production efficiency. We work hard to provide customers peace of mind and to let them know they’re not on their own after they take delivery of our pulp.

"The Pulp Technical Services team is an asset to Domtar," says Lewis Fix, vice president of pulp sales and marketing. "It is allowing customers to see us as a proactive market leader that can provide real value as a long-term partner and strategic advisor."