Idaho-Adding $4 million worth of machinery is paying off for Boise Paper Solutions' Burley plant. "We justified those expenditures on a 10 percent productivity improvement," said Doug Pasley, general manager. "We're exceeding that." The upgraded corrugator, which is a combination of about five machines, operates at a higher speed, increases productivity, enhances product quality and reduces waste, Pasley said. The machine takes three rolls of paper and combines them into corrugated board, which are turned into boxes - about 37,000 boxes per hour. Two big gears grind together to make corrugated layers for the more than 1 billion square feet of corrugated board each year. The machinery forms the basis for boxes made at the factory, providing jobs for 138 people on three eight-hour shifts, said Doug Newton, production manager. Five rail cars of paper come into the factory each day. The rolls of paper weigh 5,000 pounds each, Newton said. While the paper is brought in from all over the world, the finished products also go out to customers all over the world. The corrugator consumes 7,200 tons a month, which is close to 190 rolls a day, he said. Waste cardboard is vacuumed into tubes and sucked to the top of the building, where it is baled into bundles and then recycled. "Everything we do is recyclable," Newton said. Typical corrugation speed for the machine is about 900 feet per minute. "It's running 530 feet a minute now," he said while giving a tour of the factory recently. "It's running slow." In order to install the new machinery the plant was shut down for just one weekend last fall. "It didn't disrupt work at all," Newton said. "We were able to install the new machinery without any down time or layoffs." People in the packaging industry would be impressed with how quickly the new machine was installed. The plant was operating seven days a week at the time. To cover for the interruption of production, crews made enough boxes ahead of time to cover the down weekend. "Our customer deliveries are every day," Newton said. "We can't miss them."