Saiccor - The First 50 Years 5.8 MB - Sappi

The First Fifty Years
Manager� He was promoted to Senior Production Manager on 1
January 1994 and Plant Manager on 1 July 1996� Unfortunately Andy
left Saiccor in June 2001� He was a very capable and experienced
plant manager�
The Saiccor Review was the second significant event to occur in
1985� Dr Geoff Turner, a director of Courtaulds and a previous CEO
of Courtaulds Acetate, was due to retire in 1985 but was asked by
Chris Hogg to stay on to conduct a business review of Saiccor, entitled
the Saiccor Review� Geoff visited Saiccor a few times early in 1985
for in-depth discussions with management� He was appointed to the
Saiccor Board in March and then formed a team to prepare the Review�
The team comprised Andrew Carr, Andy Hopkins (an experienced
Courtaulds chemist), Marcello Malpiedi, Patrick Shanley (a
Courtaulds accountant) and Geoff Turner �
The Review was completed at the end of September and Turner
wrote the following note after the presentation:
The interim report (Saiccor Review) was presented to the Saiccor Board
on 23�10�85 (at the Royal Hotel, Durban)� In addition to the Board and
the working party, S Stone, B A Townsend, and D Campbell were present�
The main contention that Saiccor with its actual and potential
strengths should, and will probably have to limit its penetration of its
present declining market and take active steps to broaden the market
available was accepted�
The action programme set out was agreed in principle�
The Review found that ‘Saiccor is a very competitive pulp producer
(the world’s lowest cost producer), and has good future prospects
subject to political factors�’ However, the market available to Saiccor
was declining by 3,2 per cent per annum, hence it was necessary to
improve Saiccor’s quality to sell more of its existing product, and
also to make higher alpha pulp (where, for the main end use – cellulose
acetate – a soft low density reeled pulp is also required)� But, even if
all this were done ‘we shall still run out of space (in the market), in
ten years,’ which led to the final conclusion ‘To sell pulp for parts of
the much bigger paper pulp market�’
Only Sipco Huismans strongly objected to Saiccor making paper
pulp, on the basis that Saiccor would make the poorest of paper pulps,
even if a furnish other than Eucalyptus were used�
The action programme agreed in principle by the Board was:
To improve quality – Saiccor’s pulp was considered poorer than that
of its competitors because of high trash levels (spots, ash, calcium
and silica) and because of the variability of all quality parameters
(Marcello’s hobby-horse)� It was believed the cause of the problem
was that all plants were operating above design capacity� Although
the team did not have any solutions, the action plan was that
investigations should be undertaken to find solutions�
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