In the Boreal area, raw material costs account for over 2\/3 of manufacturing costs in sawmills and the plywood industry. Stumpage prices from this sector account for approximately 70% of the sales revenues of forest owners. Thus it is important for both forest owners and the chemical forest industry that the use of sawmill raw material is as effective as possible, thereby enhancing the competiveness of the region\u2019s fibre wood supply to pulp mills as well.<\/p>\n
Sawmills have started to introduce X-ray technology scanning, bucking and sawing patterns, which combine on-line production, stock management and sawn timber sales forecasts with precise inner quality and geometric scanning of the logs. In this case, the sawing of each log is individually designed and optimized, but sawing is nevertheless carried out as an efficient log class cutting. At its best, even the exact orientation of the log into the saw line is based on information given by X-ray scanning.<\/p>\n
This is particularly profitable with pine because its geometric shape and the quality of branches vary along the stem and X-ray scanning provides exact information about the internal structure. Spruce does not get the same value increase, as the branches show less variation than pine. X-ray scanning also permits a better length cut of spruce stems and can also determine log strength. The latter feature allows for pre-determining which logs are strong enough for timber sold for construction usage, and which should be positioned towards less demanding end uses. By such optimization, the total value yield is of course improved.<\/p>\n
X-ray scanning thus helps the sawmill industry in its objectives to increase profitability without having to reduce the wood price paid to forest owners. The same applies to the manufacture of plywood and LVL, and also when birch is used as raw material. Other benefits are less working capital tied up in stocks and improved customer service through more efficient production planning.<\/p>\n
Today\u2019s Cut-To-Length (CTL) method of harvesting is used by most harvesters and makes use of value matrices assembled in processors along with well-trained machine operators. The different material classes (saw logs, plywood logs, small logs, fiberwood and energy batches) can be identified already in the forest.<\/p>\n
The desired length and size of the saw logs are transmitted to the harvester on-line. Decades of experience and a very experienced operating model as well as bucking in harvesting, is a practical solution. The CTL method without X-ray scanning, or correct observation of internal wood quality, is not optimal.<\/p>\n
Compared to the conventional CTL method and 3D measuring of log logs in the sawmill, X-ray scanning provides about 5\u20137 % higher value yield and the exact location of the branches. Knowing and working with the unique orientation and geometry of each log adds another 3\u20134 % value yield. Most of the gains are generated through reduction of the lowest quality grades.<\/p>\n
In the future better utilization of X-ray scanning will have two different development alternatives.<\/p>\n
Installing an X-ray scanner to the cutting head of the harvester would be an optimal solution, but problematic from a technical and radiation point of view.
\nDeveloping a whole-stem station model, which would require major changes in current practices and therefore be most suitable in cases where large forest areas are controlled by a single owner or procurement organization.<\/p>\n
Whole-stem station models have been and are today mainly used outside the boreal region but have not been utilized optimally. Two things that can change the traditional viewpoint, i.e. the superiority of the CTL method, are X-ray scanning and the ability to use on-line information from the sawmill in decision making while sorting and cutting the stems.<\/p>\n
The whole-stem station should be logistically placed by largest log user (sawmill). Stem sorting and length cutting should take place on the basis of X-ray scanning directly connected to the sawmill’s needs, thus enhancing stem value by more than 10% (in the case of pine). The sorting of fractions from the stems would be optimized for sawmills and fiber-making industries as well as for energy purposes.<\/p>\n
As the streams of pulpwood and energy wood could be combined with the same end-user fractions from sawmills, and the efficient machinery and facilities already in use at the saw could be used, productivity gains would be achieved and logistical costs minimized.<\/p>\n
Partner introduction \u2013 Antti Kivimaa<\/p>\n
Antti KivimaaAntti Kivimaa is an experienced business leader and advisor with a profound knowledge of Finnish industry and internationalization processes. He has held many general management and board positions in private and listed companies during a career spanning over 40 years across forest and other key industries.<\/p>\n
Antti has been the CEO of Ruukki Group and Janton, and held senior advisory positions at governmental research institution VTT. Antti\u2019s expertise has been sought after and he has served on numerous boards. He has also guided a number of Finnish companies through public listing processes, as well as raised funding for major international industrial projects, the latest of which was a EUR 200 million pulp and sawmill project in Russia.<\/p>\n
Antti holds an M.Sc (Eng.) from Helsinki University of Technology and a B.Sc from Helsinki School of Economics. (Antti is a shareholder of NC Partnering Ltd.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Increase of profitability without having to reduce the wood price paid to forest owners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","nova_meta_subtitle":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5572],"tags":[],"supplier":[],"class_list":["post-51726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bio-based"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/58"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51726"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51726\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51726"},{"taxonomy":"supplier","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/supplier?post=51726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}