Business Management - Operations

Many small-business owners, including owners of graphic firms, think they want to retire early. I find that many, if not most, of these people have not really thought it through. There are two very important questions that must answered:

After the first batch of stock yielded 1.5 million kits, we reordered the same stock and undertook exactly the same production process. But when the shells arrived at the lasers for imaging, they started twisting and misfeeding. Production plummeted by 40 percent.

Resolute Forest Products announced that its paper mill in Dolbeau-Mistassini (Québec) is to resume operations. Production of soft nip calendered (SNC and SCB) commercial printing paper will resume as soon as the recall of employees is completed. The restart of the mill will provide direct employment for approximately 135 workers.

If you agree that we sometimes need to find a way to reignite the flame within us that can get a little low or burn out, it may be time to attend an industry event. If you haven’t taken some time away from your business recently, I suggest you do so this fall.

Shutting down the Sartell, MI, paper mill will cost Verso Paper Corp. more than the entire company is worth, Verso revealed yesterday. The Memorial Day fire and explosion at the mill...will result in shutdown costs of approximately $114 million, Verso stated in its quarterly earnings report to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The company’s stock, beaten down by concern about the company’s long-term viability, was worth just over $75 million at the end of the day.

Verso has $117.7 million available for future borrowing, down from $160 million three months ago, which will keep it solvent for at least 12 months,

The ABL Facility is a pre-condition for Catalyst to exit from creditor protection and would provide for the refinancing of existing credit facilities to fund the company operations on exit from creditor protection and for general corporate purposes thereafter.

Ripon Printers is a company on the move, bolstered by the digital and commercial printing assets it acquired from Sells Printing—including a 10-color Heidelberg sheetfed offset press and two Xerox iGen4 digital presses. Customer "delight" and education have become significant forces in the way Ripon Printers has conducted business in the past 10 years.

It's difficult to believe that Michael Meredith has been at the helm for just 10 years, yet The Printing Express has experienced incredible growth. The company now employs 24 people and sales, which stood at roughly $300,000 in 2002, hit nearly $4 million in 2011. The company is on target to post revenues of $6 million to $7 million this year.

Catalyst Paper announced the permanent closure of its Snowflake recycle mill located in northeastern Arizona as of Sept. 30, 2012. Snowflake generated negative EBITDA since 2009. “The decision to close Snowflake is an extraordinarily difficult one given the exceptional effort that employees, unions and public officials have given to address the unique challenges at this mill,” said President and CEO Kevin J. Clarke.

Too often, when a job is completed—printed, finished, mailed and billed—we tend to think “it’s over.” How can a job or project be over unless we measure the results or, in some fashion, determine if the solution we provided the customer yielded the expected outcome?