One-On-One With Valpak's David Fox

Q. What's been the biggest obstacle in putting into service new equipment and processes?

Not surprisingly, there's more than one. The first was getting the equipment stabilized, which took longer than we expected. That was one of the biggest, if not the biggest obstacle we experienced. We bought what I would say are 'off the shelf components', which we then configured in a unique way. So, when you look at the equipment we have here on the floor, there are elements of a press common in the marketplace but, again, configured and integrated in unique ways. In fact, for most areas of the plant this holds true. Bearing this in mind, as we started to bring the plant up, whether it was the equipment or level of integration, it just took longer than we thought.