The impetus to go paperless came to Minnesota Corrugated's representatives when they attended Amtech's Users Conference last September. "We did this to get positive returns, especially in customer service," explains Halbach. Krebsbach agrees, "We wanted to increase our productivity, not prove that we were more technologically proficient than other converters. "
     The transformation began several years back when the company was generating online factory tickets from personal computers. Recently print miniatures have been scanned into electronic file format; the electronic files thus created are attached to every item manufactured by Minnesota Corrugated.
     In January 2001, the converter put in computers at every machine center in the plant, some on individual machines, some linked to several machines. This enabled Minnesota Corrugated to initiate shop floor data collection. This eliminates the factory ticket, since all the job information, such as number of pieces and machine to be utilized, is now online.
     With this development, online scheduling was now possible. Job schedules are now sent electronically to the machines, so that an operator on the second shift, for example, can log onto his machine, click a tab, and see the jobs to be run and the order in which they are to be run. This is refreshed automatically as jobs are done and as the schedule changes.