Value for Money
by Patricia Pulliam Phillips, Jack J. Phillips, Gina Paone, Cyndi Huff Gaudet, Kyle McLeod
Chapter 15Optimize Results: Use Black Box Thinking to Increase Funding
Many industries have been decimated in the United States as the manufacturing facilities have moved offshore. Manufacturing industries such as tires, textiles, and steel have relocated to India, China, and other countries. The pulp and paper manufacturing sector has experienced this offshoring, and it’s a somewhat perplexing situation. The United States has an ample supply of timber available to facilitate manufacturing of pulp and paper to be used in a variety of different products, construction materials, and consumer products. But the cost of producing paper in US paper mills became so high that it was cheaper for some organizations to cut down the trees, ship the lumber to China and have the pulp processed there. The finished product is then shipped back to the United States directly from China.
The industry pointed to many factors causing this problem, but one critical factor was the talent available to run the paper mills. The organizations needed a large number of capable and skilled plant operators, which was simply not available in these local areas. Recognizing this need, Alabama Southern College joined forces with a group of community colleges to form a National Pulp and Paper Technology Consortium with the objective of training skilled paper operators for these plants. Funding was received from the National Science Foundation to create these programs to supply skilled employees to this industry. ...