TWM’s Country Reports – allied with the industry-leading Tissue World Miami conference and tradeshow 22-24 April – present a comprehensive analysis of the state-of-the-nation’s present and future challenges.
The new imperatives are clear: driven by the harsher economics of rising costs – one estimate puts new tissue machine investments 50% higher than six years ago; smarter mills, faster decisions, relentless focus on efficiency, ageing machinery swept away, a more digital, flexible future, and data-driven manufacturing projected to be fully integrated by mid-2030. Producers with modern assets are consistently outperforming those relying on older machines.
This dynamic is driving targeted, high-impact investments, reflecting a more pragmatic investment environment with M&A activity set to increase.
Key issues for the US are slowing growth, a significant decline in population growth, technology limiting tonnage growth, and import volumes far outstripping exports. Volume growth is not the rich seam it was. Value growth contains the inherent danger of turning off consumers when times are harder. Private label is a major driver shaking up traditional manufacturing. There are examples of ever-more efficient products proving to be so efficient that return sales are less frequent. Increasing costs and labour-reducing digitalisation is behind the move towards smaller more localised manufacturing.
Volume and quality demand remains high, but underlying this steady progress TWM’s reports examine old and new structural challenges growing in significance: “The logic behind capital investment, manufacturing technology choices and sustainability priorities is evolving.”
The new battleground in Australia’s emerging tissue wars
Given Australia’s highly developed mixed economy, world ranked 15th by GDP, it is perhaps surprising that only now has its tissue industry become … to use the description in ExitIssues … a battleground. Once a predictable and tidy contest between two main players, now three dominant manufacturers are engaged in a “fierce tri-cornered contest shaped by global players, nimble local disruptors, sharp-edged import economics and relentless capacity reshuffling.”
The stakes are higher than ever, with local capacity standing at 252,000tpy.
Technology takes on the BANI challenges
It’s fitting in the US edition that American Jamais Cascio’s theory should be met head-on … in Paper Machine: Technical Theme. Leading tissue company executives set out their responses to the idea that we are in a world of chaos … Brittle, Anxious, Nonlinear or Incomprehensible. As Cascio puts it: “It isn’t simple instability, it’s a reality that seems to actively resist efforts to understand what is going on.”
There’s little resistance in the tissue industry, as the contributors emphasise the importance of trust, long-term partnerships, and the transformation to ‘more flexible, resilient, and insight-driven operations.’
