Simsboro Still Gets It Done For Roseburg

Article by Jessica Johnson, Senior Editor, Panel World

SIMSBORO, Louisiana – If you want to see a plant that can survive, you’re looking at it. Nestled off I-20, in a town so small the state of Louisiana calls it a village (the 2021 population estimate was 791) there runs a particle-board plant—first built by Willamette in 1971, assumed by Weyerhaeuser in 2001 as part of the Weyerhaeuser purchase of Willamette, then Flakeboard purchased it in ’06 (installing a melamine lamination line in 2009), and then sold to current owner Roseburg in 2011 as the Oregon-based company expanded east. Since then, Roseburg has continued to run the operation, called Simsboro Composites, with consistency and upkeep.

Current Plant Manager Cody Clark says production capacity is holding steady at 240-260MMSF, but could jump to 300MMSF with a few equipment changes that the team is currently looking at. “Not major changes,” he adds. “But definitely some investments if we choose to go that route.”

Perhaps the most important investment of all has been the emphasis on safety. Clark and Safety Professional Klay Koonce point to the operation’s 0.0 DART rate for the past 18 months. DART was developed by OSHA to provide a better idea of the impact of an employee situation. DART stands for Days Away, Restricted, or Transferred.

Koonce, who has worked at the Simsboro faciliy for a decade, says that it is easy for companies and facilities to say they put safety as a priority. At Roseburg, it is a value. “You can tell that on the floor, seeing improvements, that we are really putting safety as a top value. That goes a long way, a company that is willing to take care of you, and make sure you go home safe to your family at the end of the day. That is not a bad place to be,” Koonce says.

Clark agrees that by really pushing the value of safety, and not just giving it lip-service, has also improved the mill’s run rate—hitting production numbers that haven’t been see, ever. “Safe mills are mills that run well,” he says. “We are exceeding plans for production, having just sat a new weekly record.” Weekly targets aren’t the only thing being exceeded. One day, three different machine centers produced more than 1MMSF. Safe and happy Team Members work with pride, and that translates to increased performance.

“Any mill can get lucky in one week, but the way we’ve been running the last several months is astonishing,” Clark adds.

The key for Koonce is that he and the safety committee have been intentional with their behavior-based safety conversations and changes. He admits it has taken a while to get where they are now, but the mindset of Team Members has definitely changes. Safety meetings went from just grabbing pizza and talking, to tackling problems head on: Walking the floor as a committee and identifying potholes to repair; ladders that need to be replaced; adding machine guarding; housekeeping; fall protection; fire protection systems and more.