Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
Certainly (Operator instructions) The first question comes from the line of Steven Nissen of Mindful Capital
Steven Nissen- Mindful Capital
Thank you very much guys. Stuart congratulates a decent job in a very challenging economy, so keep up the good work. A couple of things Tom, regarding the operational proven initiatives, what are you guys planning on doing, or what have your been doing in terms of looking at mainly fashion in TPN Six Sigma to overall and throughput throughout your plan and improve overall efficiency? What benefits are you going to be seeing?
Tom Howatt
Let me talk first broadly, our company has had a long history of being a strong operator in our industry and so, continuous improvement and whatever manner one chooses to implement that is really a part of our culture and has been for many, many years. I believe 2007 represents a seventh consecutive year of operating efficiency improvement across our corporation and, the specific tools we might use, whether Six Sigma or some other approach really tend to be specific to the needs of the respective businesses. Where we have technical problem solving issues as it relates to high performance grades and specialty, you might see a Six Sigma approach with respect to broader cost reduction opportunity, you might see a lean approach being used and sorry to tell you it somewhat differs necessarily from one business to the other but it tends to be a continuous and intense cultural approach within the corporation.
Steven Nissen- Mindful Capital
With the economic pressures facing coming(Inaudible)yourself, how are you guys measuring yourselves in terms of how you are doing on return on invested capital, are you looking at RONA, are you looking at OE. How are you looking to measure yourself and your plans to make sure you are keeping up with all your competition?
Tom Howatt
Well the financial stake in the ground that we have used for some time is return on capital employed and our target of course is to earn a premium to cost on capital and that has been our target for some time with the more difficult performance over the last several years in specialty in Printing and Writing. We have of course not been able to achieve that but nonetheless the target for these businesses.
Steven Nissen - Mindful Capital
Do you have a number you are trying to achieve for 2008?
- To read the full transcript on Seeking Alpha, click here »
