The Paper Industry plays a very prominent role in the world economy. The Industry is largely based on a raw material that is derived from forest crops with harvest rotations that can approach 100 years in length. The sheer volume of timber required for the industry's production processes is staggering. Since timber is their largest single production cost, paper firms historically have devoted enormous amounts of capital to the ownership and management of secure timber resources.

Especially since the end of World War II, the Paper Industry has experienced a massive wave of technological change that has transformed its basic operating and process management and control systems. Where earlier production processes relied on the craft knowledge of skilled operators and superintendents, newer production processes incorporate sophisticated sensors, information systems, and software-based process controls. This shift, which began in the 1970s, has had far-reaching effects on the industry's fundamental operations. Today, new paper machines are nearly 40 feet wide, hundreds of feet long, and over two stories high. The Industry's capital-intensive pulping and papermaking facilities, which can cost up to 1.5 billion dollars, are designed as high tech computer-based operating systems with paper machines that run at speeds exceeding 60 miles per hour with production outputs of up to 500,000 tons per year.

This significant technological advancement in the Paper Industry has required investments of hundreds of billions of dollars. In fact, the annual capital investment in the US Paper Industry has ranged from 8 to 15 billion dollars per year over the last two decades.⁴ This has required firms to develop and manage increasingly complex relationships with external and internal suppliers of ever more complex production equipment (including software controls). Automated process control systems also have introduced far-reaching changes into the types of skills needed by production crews, requiring firms to make substantial investments in the training of hourly workers and supervisors, growing numbers of process engineers, and new organizational systems for operations management.