Georgia-Pacific Corp.’s board of directors has authorized the corporation’s management team to finalize planning for the strategic separation of Georgia-Pacific’s consumer products and packaging business from its building products and distribution businesses. The company’s board intends to consider for approval the finalized separation plan at its next regular meeting in May.

Startup of Hubert Moore Lumber Co. Inc.’s reconstructed sawmill in early fall 2000 happened to coincide with the beginning of a market downturn that may or may not have bottomed out (though some analysts are sensing the beginnings of an upturn). Had father and son, Stan and Tim Moore, had the option, they would have chosen better timing to bring a $5.7 million sawmill rebuild and modernization on-line.

During the past two years, renovations at Boise’s small log mill within the company’s sprawling central Washington forest products manufacturing complex here have given the facility a competitive boost, increasing both recovery and production in a region where log supplies are at a premium thanks to national forest timber sale reductions and little private land.

When late Roseburg Forest Products founder Ken Ford decided to enter a new market or strengthen the company’s position in a current one, he was never one to do the job half-heartedly, as evidenced by RFP’s particleboard and plywood “mega-plants” at Dillard and Riddle, Ore., respectively.

Value Management, also called Value Analysis or Value Engineering, is a structured, systematic, team-based effort to identify and analyze functions to improve a product, process, system or service. Measurable improvements in quality, performance and cost are the outcomes. This paper briefly introduces Value Management and highlights some of its features and benefits, and lists reasons that some companies tolerate or don’t recognize and correct low value situations.

As restrictions on use of CCA-treated lumber become a reality in the U.S., foreign operations aren’t standing still. Alternatives are being formulated. Bitus AB, one of the larger wood treatment facilities in Sweden, is investing in technologies, both “Royal-impregnation” and heat-treatment of wood.

The Canadian softwood lumber imports issue, to state the obvious, is red hot. Once the U.S. Commerce Dept. made its final ruling in March, the International Trade Commission immediately began holding hearings. ITC will make its final ruling in early May, which is the final ruling that really matters. Canada was so angered by the Commerce decision that it started throwing tomatoes. No kidding.