Shire Oak Mills Company - Quality and Environmental, Health and Safety Improvement - Coursework Example

The paper “Shire Oak Mills Company - Quality and Environmental, Health and Safety Improvement” is an outstanding example of the coursework on management. The manufacturing and processing industry that Shire Oak paper mills fall has a good return on investment (ROI) since it handles products that are on constant demand in the market. However, the Asian pulp and paper sector faces stiff competition from mature companies in the EU, North America, and Brazil. Paper is directly obtained from wood sourced from large forests while others use cotton and rag. The sector is highly regulated with many governments taking center stage in guarding its forests from wanton destruction. The supply of wood is critical as opposed to other raw materials (Bellman, 2012). The processes in paper production are; timber, de-barker, chipping machine, chemical pulping, mechanical pulping, hydra pulper, blend chest, waste paper, de-inking, refining, screening and cleaning, papermaking machine, conversion, and printing. Globally, the production of paper, pulp, and paper products slightly dropped in 2005 but steadily rose from 2006 to 2012 dropping in 2013 by 2%.

The sector has more than 33,000 firms in Europe and Asia alone employing more than 3million people. The turnovers are about $460billion with a value-added of $120billion. Pulp production represents 5% of value-added and 2% of employment. Pulp and paper are among the top 20 in the country’s commodity sectors with Indonesia leading in Asia. The sector has been facing challenges of emissions and rainforest destruction (Nanko, Button & Hillman, 2005). There have been efforts to cut emissions through technological change hence reducing energy use by a quarter and carbon dioxide by half in 2050 (Clark, 2005). Paper and pulp consumes a lot of energy and is the global fifth-biggest industrial user. The industry’s carbon emissions are up at 700m tonnes in 2011 worldwide. The greatest challenge is the bleach dumping into freshwater bodies since pulp mills are under-regulated.