By:
Jim Thompson, Executive Editor
The most efficient linerboard mill I know uses one third the production labor per ton of production of its contemporary competitors. This is due to higher levels of automation, particularly in the materials handling areas. Its cost of maintenance labor is about the same as its contemporaries. However, for all mills, continued automation of specific tasks will eventually bring maintenance labor costs down, too. In society as a whole, automation is about to make dramatic changes to labor needs--not that this has not been going on since the beginning of the industrial revolution. Now, however, it is about to become very serious.
