HALSEY — Nearly 500 employees at the Georgia-Pacific mill at Halsey are participating in an operations excellence program called “rapid transformation,” that when completed in a few months, could result in staff reductions. The company hopes to see greater efficiency and productivity through improved work methods at the mill.

About 100 employees are salaried and 400 are hourly production workers. The average annual salary is about $50,000 plus benefits. Employees are currently in a “training phase” that will include forming cross-functional teams assigned to evaluate each work process in the plant.

Rodney Bond, the plant’s vice president of manufacturing, said the process will take several months. Rapid transformation has been widely used by Georgia-

Pacific’s parent company, Koch Industries, Inc., of Wichita, Kan.

The rapid transformation process has already been implemented at other Georgia-Pacific mills in Oregon, including one near Toledo that employs 480 people and the Wauna Mill near Clatskanie, which employs 900. Staff reductions are often the end result of the process, which is intended to keep companies competitive in a global marketplace.

“We don’t know at this time if there will be layoffs, but there will be some changes,” Bond said.

Bond came to the Halsey mill a couple months ago from a similar Georgia-Pacific mill in Arkansas. That mill is also implementing rapid transformation at the same time.

“It’s basically a structured way of looking at how we operate the mill to determine where we can increase efficiencies and reduce waste,” Bond said. “It’s partly benchmarking with other Georgia-Pacific plants and also comparing ourselves on the world market.”

Robert Burns, a company spokesman based in Atlanta, Ga., said Georgia-Pacific is a wholly owned, independently operated subsidiary of Koch Industries, Inc. Georgia-Pacific employs 55,000 people at more than 300 locations in North America, South America and Europe.

Its consumer brands include Quilted Northern, Angel Soft, Brawny, Sparkle, Soft ‘n Gentle, Mardi Gras, So-Dri and Vanity Fair, as well as the Dixie brand of disposable cups, plates and cutlery.

“Georgia-Pacific owns the Halsey Mill and it is the Georgia-Pacific leadership that has made the decision to implement the operations excellence process through rapid transformation,” Burns said. “Koch Industries has utilized the same work processes in some of its other facilities.”

Burns said that as more and more of the company’s mills on the West Coast work together, “they will develop support for greater efficiencies.”

The process was expected to reduce employment at the Wauna Mill by 150 nn 25 to 30 salaried positions and 90 to 100 hourly workers.

Koch Industries purchased Georgia-Pacific in December 2005. A privately-owned diversified company, Koch Industries has revenues of more than $60 billion. It traditionally reinvests up to 90 percent of its earnings into ways of keeping its companies competitive on a long-term basis.

According to its Web site: “Koch Industries, Inc. and its sister company, Koch Holdings, LLC, own a diverse group of companies engaged in trading, operations and investment worldwide. These companies have a presence in nearly 60 countries in traditional industries such as trading, petroleum, chemicals, energy, fibers and polymers, minerals, fertilizers, forest and consumer products, chemical technology equipment, ranching, securities and finances, as well as other investments.”

Alex Paul can be reached at alex.paul@lee.net or 812-6076