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Staying In Shape
Incremental upgrades over the last decade ready eastern white pine mill for future growth.
By Jennifer McCary
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EAST BALDWIN, Me.
Shortly after Win Smith Jr. joined the family business in 1993, Limington Lumber Co. embarked on a program of steady, incremental process improvement resulting in an overall yield increase of roughly 15% and nearly 100% increase in production, now at 15-16MMBF annually. Production has been holding at that level for the last two to three years, which Smith notes is a volume that works well for them.
“One of the things that is important to me as we make each upgrade is to get that upgrade fully integrated into our production flow and really have good control of those systems before moving on,” states the company president, who assumed the position when his father, Win Smith Sr., retired in 2004. “We’ve seen the danger when companies grow too fast. They have a difficult time gaining control of the systems, which result in inefficiencies and much greater overhead.”
Founded in 1961 on a leased site in Limington, the company moved to its present site in 1967 when the elder Smith purchased a former box plant and built a new sawmill. The 100% eastern white pine sawmill is ideally located in the Saco River Valley—a region stretching from the lower elevations of the White Mountains to the East Coast and renown for its quality eastern white pine timber.
Product mix is predominantly 4⁄4 surfaced boards and about 40% is patterned lumber. Last year the company added some 5⁄4 selects to the mix in response to a demand that wasn’t being fully met. Markets include wholesalers and concentration yards east of the Mississippi River and in Canada. About 12-14% is exported to Canada, but that volume goes up and down as exchange rates change.
Limington Lumber’s single-shift sawmill and planer mill operate on a 40-hour work week, which represents a slight curtailment from normal operations. “By and large the eastern white pine industry and sawmills, in particular, have been pretty resilient during this downturn,” states Smith.
Weighing in on the economy and his outlook for the industry, the businessman observes, “In the long run, some of the negative things that are happening today will help us and make us a stronger industry. I think realistically, we’ve got another year before we start to see a turnaround. At that point, I think the industry will be poised for an extended period of slow to steady growth. We still have a lot of faith in the U.S. economy. A lot of demographics are very much in our favor long term, even though there has been a tremendous contraction in new home starts. That’s going to have to come back and eastern white pine will have a very important niche in the marketplace as it begins to come back.”
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PROJECTS
The company’s first major upgrade in 1999 reworked mill flow starting at the back of the sawmill. Working with Northeast Mill Services, New Hampton, NH, they installed an Industries PHL grading line with Lucidyne grade mark reader, PHL trimmer and 36 bin sorter with Autolog controls, and PHL automatic stacker. That project accomplished several goals. It eliminated hand stacking, which was an area father and son realized would be increasingly hard to staff with the proper manpower. By increasing grading and stacking capacity, it eliminated a production bottleneck and brought the entire process into a heated facility.
The company purchased its first three USNR/Irvington-Moore kilns in 1995 in response to several furniture manufacturers’ need for lumber with a moisture content of 8%, rather than the 12% achieved by air drying in the yard. Those kilns have swing-out reheating center coils, which ensure a more consistent heat throughout the kiln charge. Two USNR/Irvington-Moore package kilns were added in ’97.
“As we were incorporating more kilns on the site, it became more important to do an accurate job of sticking and preparing lumber for the dry kilns,” he emphasizes. Four additional USNR/Irvington-Moore package kilns have since been added, two in 2000 and two in 2004, bringing total charge capacity to 360MBF. All nine units have updated USNR/Kiln Boss controls.
Next, installation of an Autolog optimized PHL four-saw edger eliminated a physically demanding, manual operation and improved operator decisions from roughly 75% accuracy with a manual edger to nearly 100% accuracy.
In 2004, optimization was updated to Lewis Controls 3-D scanners and controls at the existing Forano/USNR headrig. That system is much quicker and does a better job of positioning the log, giving the company another boost in yield improvements and production volumes.
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PLANER MILL
All of the mill’s production goes through the planer mill so the next area needing attention after the sawmill was the planer mill. This project included new machinery throughout and added production space for a new Verville four-station bagging system for planer shavings.
Although the company’s older model planer was still doing a good job, Smith knew it was time to move forward with the latest technology to remain competitive in the future. A Weinig WACO Maxi 10-knife molder, installed in 2004, operates at 6,800 RPM and achieves the desired number of hits per inch to produce a superior finish on the boards. In addition, it can produce specialized patterns, allowing opportunities to penetrate markets previously unavailable.
Based on a good experience in the sawmill, management selected Industries PHL as the vendor for a new two station grading line and trimmer, again with Autolog controls. Machinery Services built the unscrambler and a stacking system.
At that time, the company also invested in a grinding room and added a knife grinding technician at the planer mill, giving them better quality control of the knife stock. All knife patterns are produced in-house. Equipment includes Weinig Rondomat 960 and 980 grinders.
The latest upgrade in 2006 was a well-timed cost containment move to get away from using two oil fired Cleaver-Brooks boilers that consumed 5-6,000 gallons of oil per week. Thermal Systems, Scarborough, Me., handled the turnkey project installing a new 250 HP Hurst wood-fired boiler, which supplies steam for drying lumber and heating the planer mill, most of the sawmill and the bagger building in the winter. Modifications bringing an existing 75 HP Industrial wood-fired boiler—used to heat a USNR/Irvington-Moore 180MBF predryer—on line with the Hurst system adds extra horsepower capacity during the winter. Both oil fired boilers were kept on line as backup in the event something were to happen to the wood-fired boilers.
“Right now we’re at a point where our production capacities are pretty well balanced from the sawmill, to the kilns, to the planer mill,” states Smith. The next area to be addressed is the debarker line in the sawmill. He has begun the preliminary research on ring debarkers, but notes that it is not critical, so they will wait to see how the market does.
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OPERATION
Southern Maine timberlands are so fragmented that it isn’t feasible for the mill to own enough timberland to really offer any sizable amount of their log supply. Thus, the company relies primarily on gatewood. “Our focus has been to align ourselves with quality operators who have good reputations and long standing relationships with landowners in that area,” states Smith. “We try to work in partnership with them.”
When bid tracts are available they cruise the timber and work with selected contractors to quote a stumpage price on the pine, so they know they have a market for that product before entering their bid. He has a core group of about 10 loggers who regularly supply the mill. The majority of his suppliers have completed their Certified Logging Professionals (CLP) training and some are certified as Master Loggers, which ensures that proper, sustainable silvicultural practices are used.
The company carries an inventory of roughly 1MMBF of logs during the summer and stores this wood under water to prevent staining. Two scalers on the yard use a SCI Vocollect voice scaling system to input log data, which is more accurate and can be used in any kind of weather. It is also safer because the scaler doesn’t have to look away to write or enter the numbers on a keypad. Logs are unloaded by a Prentice loader and a Volvo L70E front-end loader feeds the mill deck.
Logs pass through a Rens metal detector and are debarked by an HMC rosserhead debarker. This is critically important in southern Maine because much of the raw material is harvested from former farm and pasture lands where metal contaminants are fairly common. Cants are produced at a Forano/USNR 6 ft. bandmill with a Cleereman carriage and Lewis Controls. The bandmill is the original unit built on site when the mill was built in 1967 and the carriage was installed in 1995. Saws are 15 gauge double cut bands supplied by Oleson Saws. Kerf size ranges from .130 -.135 in the winter to .140 in the summer.
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Side boards transfer to the PHL optimized edger which can cut up to three boards per pass. Cants enter an Esterer sash gang saw equipped with 15 saws and capable of handling up to a 12 x 17 in. cant. Saw filer Rick Westleigh notes the sash gang does a good job with minimal saw deviation, uses less electricity and is significantly less expensive than the popular arbor gangs. Kerf size in the winter is .125 in.
Boards from the edger and sash gang pass through an unscrambler to enter the PHL grading station. Lucidyne grade mark reader reads the grade and Autolog controls take over to set the 16 ft. PHL trim saws and sorter. Bins unload to a PHL automatic stacker and lumber packs are transported to the kiln staging area by either a Caterpillar R80 or a Manitou 12,000 lb. forklift. In the summer, lumber packs are dipped to prevent sap stain if they are not loaded into kilns within 36 hours. Target moisture content is 12%.
Dried lumber is stored at the predryer for processing at the planer mill. “Our goal is to be able to offer our customers product that is as fresh and bright as possible,” Smith says. “We try to stay away from storing lumber, especially patterned lumber, to minimize handling.”
Sawmill filing room is equipped with Wright Machines Talon CNC grinder, Armstrong grinder for the sash gang and Reform chipper knife grinder.
The company’s stable 40-man workforce is headed by team of key managers which includes Jim Henderson, operations; Lonnie Kollander, sawmill supervisor; Eugene Parker, planer mill supervisor; Olin Thomas, safety and maintenance; Brian Ward, quality control; and Gretchen Terrio, office manager.
Employees attained a significant milestone in 2006 when Limington Lumber was among the first New England sawmills to receive OSHA’s SHARP designation for its safety program. The company has a safety committee which does monthly safety inspections, and safety seminars are provided throughout the year. The mill is a charter member of the self-insured Forest Products Group Trust, formed in 1991. That organization’s loss control officer visits the mill on a quarterly basis.
“That group has been critical to improving the safety culture at the mill,” observes Smith. “They are continually improving the standards, which forces us to be pro-active.” The owner asserts a good safety program does more than just improve safety, it also boosts morale and productivity.
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