Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions)
The first question comes from the line of Steven Nisa(ph) of Mindful Capital
Steven Nisa - Mindful Capital
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 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 Nisa - Mindful Capital
With the economic pressures, how are you guys measuring yourselves in terms of how you are doing on return on invested capital, are you looking at RONA, 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 Nisa - Mindful Capital
Do you have a number you are trying to achieve for 2008?
Tom Howatt
Well, as supposed to necessarily giving guidance for 2008, what I would tell you is that our long-term objective is to achieve a 13% ROCE broadly for the corporation.
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