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Kruger Products invests nearly $10M in training for new tissue plant

Kruger Products L.P. is investing $9.9 million to establish a customized training program for future employees of its tissue plant in Sherbrooke, Quebec.

The company made the announcement on June 25.

In collaboration with the Industrial Training Centre of Excellence in Windsor, Quebec, almost 200,000 hours of training, or the equivalent of 30 weeks of paid training per employee, will be issued to 180 new hires, who will be working in a highly automated environment where technology will be ubiquitous.

The new training program has received support from the Quebec Ministry of Labour, Employment and Social Solidarity, which is reimbursing up to 50 per cent of eligible costs, through the MFOR program.

“The new program is specifically tailored to the needs of our new plant; it offers a wide range of specialized training to enable both university graduates and applicants with little or no pulp and paper experience to build a career at Kruger Products,” says Nadia Lamothe, human resources manager, operations at Kruger Products, in a statement.

The first cohort of new employees started a few weeks ago with theoretical and practical training in fields as diverse as operations, mechanical and electrical maintenance, engineering, logistics, procurement, management, supervision and administration.

Their practical training will begin with the startup of the first production equipment in July 2020 and will continue until July 2022.

The new plant represents a $575-million investment and will include a through-air-dry (TAD) tissue machine, which uses less fibre to produce a plush, soft and absorbent ultra-premium tissue.

The Sherbrooke complex will also include converting lines.

In addition, a large number of local suppliers are involved in this enormous construction site that represents one million person-hours of work, or the equivalent of about 10 per cent of person-hours worked annually in Quebec’s industrial construction sector.