Posted on April 01, 2016

Per my first article in this blog series, I walked you through my experience in the lumber industry and how the time I’ve spent in the Sawmill and Planer mills has provided me with insight on a few areas I believe have not yet been used to the full extent in many operations.

We first looked at the people and the important role each individual brings to an operation’s success.

This article will now take us through the operations side of the business and the opportunities behind Optimizing and Reporting.

Optimizers and Reports:

Optimizers are used in the operations to add consistency and speed to extracting solutions form the products passing through them. Whether it’s a raw log or a finished piece of lumber, the Optimizer makes solutions faster and more consistently than any human could ever. There is a wealth of information collected every second of every day and having the knowledge and ability to extract the useful information for your operation is priceless. Having people who understand and can manipulate the parameters the optimizer is using, is a sure way to extract the most value from the investment in this equipment.

Optimizer Utilization:

Installing an optimizer can be overwhelming at times. Using one post installation can be just as overwhelming. Most Vendors will train and educate customers as to the basic needs of the system, like cleaning, preventative maintenance, etc. Usually a large manual is provided as reference to the use of the system and how to keep it operating effectively.

But what happens after the dust settles and you now own and have 100% control over a new Optimizer? It can be left to run and it will generally be reliable and accurate for many years to come.

The opportunity exists in utilizing the optimizer on an ongoing basis, to extract value and efficiency from your changing fiber. When we say this, we immediately think of the Planer Optimizers but with new technology in the Sawmills, this opportunity exists a lot further back in the process. You can tune the Sawmill Trimmer Optimizer to recognize the minimum length allowed by the Planer Optimizer and rather than send a short 16’ board to the Planer to be made a 14’, you can trim it in the sawmill and put the fiber into much more valuable green chips without incurring drying and handling costs to create a low value trim block.

There are dozens of opportunities in this regard, using the thought process that when you remove the low grade, low value fiber from your process, you make room for more high grade/value products. Testing, analysis and understanding the impacts/ benefits of these decisions is a necessity to be effective and the Optimizer is the tool to do all this for you, with the proper people at the helm.

Configuring optimizer alarms to be effective:

An alarm that is “always going off” will eventually lose its effectiveness in the eyes of the employees seeing it and if there is a true issue, it may go unnoticed for a lengthy time as a result.

Alarms should be set up to indicate a problem when it is a problem and the employees should be educated on what they mean so they understand the importance of reacting to them in a timely manner. Not much affects an Optimizer’s performance more than blocked cameras, lasers or photo cells that go unnoticed for several minutes or even hours of operation.

Displaying information:

Reader boards, LED displays, etc. are great tools that can keep employees in the Mill informed of the current performance. The key here is to educate employees and supervisors about the information being displayed so that they recognize when an issue is being presented. Also, displaying key indicators should be kept simple and only relevant information displayed. Production displays are NOT the place for safety slogans or Happy Birthdays.

Reports:

Most Optimizers can have reports configured for the needs of each operation. Printing dozens of pages from each optimizer will almost guarantee nobody is going to look at them. Many Mills still print pages of information and file them away for future needs. Most optimizers store and back up many months or even years of data and in a secure enough manner that this is no longer required. Fine tuning reports and prioritizing the information can be done at the installation of the optimizer and changed as needed through the respective Vendor.

Reports should tell you in a few seconds, what the shift performance was for the day or at any other interval, and utilizing screen displays over printing them minimizes paper waste. Summarizing the shift information needs to be as simple as possible in its presentation to the employees, busy Managers and Stakeholders. It is also key and beneficial that these reports are user friendly and familiar to them, as they can represent several different Vendor Optimizers.

Keeping everyone informed gives them ownership and appreciation of their individual performance as it relates to what is reported to others.

Data gathering systems (DGS) are the next level in real time reporting but again, keeping it simple will keep it effective and useful. Having a shift performance summary screen with key indicators will allow for quick verification of shift performance for Supervisors, Managers and even Stakeholders hundreds of kilometers away from the Mill. Having the fine details available for selection to the right people will allow for more in depth analysis of the information which can capture opportunities and minimize issues in the mill all at the same time.

PLC’s:

The next level in Mill Management, PLC’s, working in harmony with Optimizers, can give you information beyond that of the Optimizer.

Feed speeds, current draws, photo cell activations can all be seen by the PLC. A good PLC programmer can display any of this information in a user friendly manner for Supervisors to access. At the Vendor level, this information can be set up to appear in reports and displays and even have toggle on/off functions added to your interface screens if desired. The options are limitless. Adding sensors for heat, fluid flow, air/ hydraulic pressures can help identify potential issues around maintenance or machine set up.

Capitalize on opportunities in your operation today and come back for more tips of the trade in next month’s blog post.

Robert - Process Expert