Getting Specific

I can remember buying my first load that had a problem when it arrived at the mill. The weather was kind of bad in Oregon, and we were shipping the load to California. When the load arrived, the mill called and said there was a problem.

I said, "Well, what is it?"

They said, "Well, it’s covered in snow."

Of course, I wasn’t expecting to hear that I had a snow-covered load. But they said the receiving dock had a great time—they had a snowball fight. At the time it was 90 degrees in California. I was surprised the snow survived.

My first response was to say that we didn’t charge extra for the snow. The mill got a nice chuckle out of that and said there was still the moisture deduction coming. And I began to negotiate what that deduction would be and tried to plead my case again based on the entertainment value we supplied. Needless to say, I got the full moisture deduction.

There have been many years since of trying to get the specifics right.

Secondary Fiber Inc. does use the Internet. We have continued to try to promote that and to provide ways to teach and train using the Internet.

INDIVIDUAL NEEDS

The main issue that our customers have always wanted to communicate was an understanding of their mill-specific grades. It could be groundwood levels or pressure-sensitive adhesives, which is a big issue now in office pack because of legislation like HIPAA (Heath Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) that requires those documents to be destroyed. Certainly ink tolerance and types of inks [also vary by mill].

Qualifying samples have turned out to be one of the easiest ways to maintain a good relationship with a customer. Typically, a one- or two-pound sample is what’s required for their lab tests.

We like to provide digital photos and have always tried to insist that digital photos not only establish quality of paper, but they also establish the bale integrity. If the mill buyer has an opportunity to see how nicely they stack in someone’s warehouse, they believe that they’ll stack in theirs. Safety is always a big issue for the mills.

The supporting documentation is also important. They certainly want to know who the generators are. We do supply tags to our accounts. We like the mills knowing they came from us and the suppliers that generated them. They also need to know other information like pickup addresses.

The mills typically try to coordinate the transportation logistics themselves. Certainly, they also need the contact person at the account, phone and fax numbers. It’s important that they be able to get on the phone and contact somebody if there’s an emergency, a truck is delayed or additional loads are required.

Certainly accounting information for payables is always important to get correct: a contact person, established terms, etc.

LINES OF COMMUNICATION

The suppliers have their own particular needs. They want to understand that the material they’re generating is actually mill-specific—they have a grade the mill wants.

And it’s not just the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries Paper Stock Inustries (PSI) chapter standards that we’ve discovered mill customers need, they may have some special requirements, like something less than a groundwood content in a PSI standard. They’re also concerned about things like ultra violets and things like pressure-sensitive adhesives—that has been in the last nine months probably the No. 1 quality issue that we have faced on grades that we ship.

I really enjoy having a library of digital photos to send to our customers. When they’re able to see loose and baled forms of raw materials, it answers a lot of questions.

Supporting documentation, again, is important for suppliers. They certainly want to understand they have a legitimate purchase order [and] what the pricing is. They’re going to need manifests [and] release numbers so there is no confusion on who shipped a load, who needs to be paid and what the weight requirements are on a shipment. You don’t like to charge people back, so you try to make these requirements known and clear from the very beginning.

I notice that I have received recently a number of mills’ requirements to certify we’ve actually trained accounts on how to load a truck. They don’t want to receive a load that is dangerous for their employees to unload.

Communicating what customers are expecting and what suppliers need to know in order to get the specifics right is really important. The accounting information is absolutely important. Suppliers want to be paid for loads they shipped. They like to be paid in a timely manner, so they do need to understand who to talk to in the receivables department and to establish net terms, etc.

We are always concerned about safety. Our mill customers, the suppliers, and unfortunately, a lot of us here do know about tragedies that have happened in the industry. Safety [and] loading diagrams are always important. A supplier certainly needs to understand those documents, they don’t want a load received at the mill, to do everything right on processing, do everything right on testing, meet the customer specs and then have a miscommunication on how to load a truck. Such documents can easily be transmitted across the Internet.

We do a lot of teaching over the Internet. Recently, I taught a class to some government agencies. We enjoy sending information that people understand. I’m going to use a grade of office pack as an example. If we’re buying PSI grade 37, sorted office pack, it may not be the total mill requirement in that published specification. A particular mill may want zero plastic windowed envelopes. That’s a pretty tall order on an office pack grade. They may want a lesser content of groundwood then a PSI standard. They may also ask for a minimum quality of white ledger. We certainly have mills that will take 100 percent colored, but some can’t. So communicating what that spec is is critical. I don’t like to have loads rejected because we didn’t communicate our mill customers’ needs.

There are also requirements on office pack for shredded content. If anyone here is exporting, you know a typical question is, "Does your office pack have shredded material?" The moment you say 100 percent, they say, "Maximum 20." We try to communicate that in a category called "additional mill requirements." It’s easy to transmit. Within minutes it’s on your computer [and] you see what the customer is asking for. A picture is worth a thousand words in many cases.

A customer will always want to know that a supplier has been visited or has received samples so that they can do lab evaluation. On the other side of the table, a generator/supplier really likes the physical visit to go over the grades that it generates, the equipment it has, the type of bales it produces, the cleanliness of the material that it can ship a product that won’t have any rejections or downgrades. Digital photos work wonderfully for the customers—they absolutely love having them. Even in conversations I had about putting this session together, a couple of our customers agreed that they were going to start their own digital photo libraries. Digital photos are very easy to take and to send … so it’s an easy way to get that information and very fast to get that to a customer.

A PICTURE OF SUCCESS

I’ll emphasize relationship issues between suppliers and customers because it’s very important.

[One could refer to this as] "Suppliers are from Venus, and mills are from Mars." Now I probably owe Dr. Gray [an apology] for butchering the title of his book, but it really is about relationships and communication.

I used some examples earlier on different grades where it may not simply be the PSI standards being applied; a customer may have some additional needs that they would like as part of their purchase order.

The mill specs and documents need to be with the suppliers. To parties must sit down and explain the difference between what the supplier currently does and what it may have to do in order to seek a new order.

Certainly a customer wants to know that he bought a load of material, which is where purchase orders come in. You don’t want to send a load that he wasn’t expecting to receive.

A supplier certainly has to have purchase order numbers to track the load that it is shipping to a mill so it can in fact be paid for it. They do have to be legitimate numbers; you don’t want to make them up, because no one will recognize them six months from now when you’re still trying to resolve a payables or receivables issue.

Trial load evaluations are very important. The customers will go through the extra effort to qualify these loads, and suppliers need to understand that it takes a little time to get the initial trial loads set up and done.

Once a transaction is done by specifications that are established by mill customers [and] agreed to by suppliers, then it pretty much goes on autopilot afterward. But it does take a little time to make sure all the information has been communicated, that in fact you can guarantee the quality of the material you’re shipping, and your load will be evaluated with a positive outcome instead of a negative one.