In my column last week, our survey had three questions. The first was, "Have you seen a successful capital project by the parameters described in the column?"

Eighty percent answered "Yes," and the remaining 25 percent said "No."

Then we asked, "Can you describe it? If you can not name the company or the location, that is fine, just give us a general idea of what it was."

Responses:

Conversion of a paper machine from making brown bag paper to production of uncoated free sheet. Project was well planned, executed on time and UNDER budget, and started up with only a few minor problems that were quickly resolved.

Rather modest but at Mead Research in the 80s there was an experienced engineering team who had worked together installing pilot equipment. A lost was serious pilot - diameters of 5 or 6 meter machines - 1 meter calender rolls, 6 foot dryer can etc. I was the technical manager so the nominal head and probably the dispensable scapegoat if one was needed - but I knew my part and they were experts at theirs. Union Camp did things well too - the prep for a rebuild in Frankton was thorough. more than 30 years ago of course.

I was on the supplier side of the lime kiln upgrade (conversion of the kiln from oil to natural gas) at Sappi Skowhegan and the project was a solid success in all of the parameters mentioned. The owner's team was well rounded and included members of all of the necessary groups: Engineering, operations, maintenance, E/I, QA/QC, hell, they even had their construction contractor participate in most of the meetings! Their detailed planning and review of all aspects of the project were quite time consuming but their attention to detail paid off during construction as there were no surprises and the execution of the job went without a hitch. Start-up was right on schedule and guaranteed production/energy consumption was realized less than a week after start-up. Kudos to all involved!

Several paper machine additions. CPI, Wis

This week's quiz can be found here.