Industry Developments

U.S. Green Building Council is looking at the involvement of additional certification bodies in the LEED Green Building Rating System for the use of certified wood. Currently, only wood products certified by the Forest Stewardship Council are eligible for LEED points.

“It was clear that the increasing internationalization of the wood supply chain, the changing ownership structure of American forests, and the increasing diversity of wood certification programs globally demanded a more holistic, transparent approach,” according to a USGBC statement.

Less Sawdust by Jennifer McCary

Last fall, Thompson Hardwoods significantly improved yield and production throughput with the startup of a Salem 6 ft. vertical linebar resaw along with a three-saw edger downstream of a circle saw headrig. Owner Steve Johnson reports hourly throughput increased from 5,500 BF to as much as 10MBF.

Previously, it took a two shift schedule to achieve weekly sales needs. The mill ran two shifts until March of this year when Johnson cut back to a single shift 10-hour day, alternately operating five and six days a week due to low log inventory during the end of the winter season. “Only then did we realize that we could achieve on one shift what we had been doing on two shifts prior to the linebar resaw installation,” states Johnson. Another benefit they’ve realized is an increase in yield due to a wider average board width produced by the vertical bandmill.

Truly Thinkerf

Buchanan Lumber has been successfully producing hardwood products in Alabama for more than 40 years, becoming, in the process, a firm with an international reputation for innovation. In its early years, the company experienced steady growth. By the early 1980s, the Buchanan holdings included six sawmills producing 70MMBF of lumber annually. The late 1990s and the early 2000s were, however, years of challenge for both the firm specifically and the industry generally. Today mill manager and owner Dick Buchanan says his company is learning that, in the early years of the 21st century at least, “bigger is not necessarily better.” To address the very real opportunities of the future industry, he has instituted a series of successful changes to both production philosophy and equipment in the company he manages, Buchanan Lumber Mobile.

Equipment & Supplier News

Baxley Equipment reports that its serial number one Hi-Tech trimmer optimizer, installed at Hood Industries at Waynesboro, Miss. in 1991, has recently upgraded to the Dynavision B800 system after running flawlessly for almost 17 years.

Baxley and Dynavision have been working to find solutions to out-of-production components and incompatibilities with new components in order to keep old systems running.

Meanwhile, in place of just trying to improve the yield, which is already nearly 100% of theoretical, Baxley reports its new family of optimizers scans for defects as well as an improved level of dimensional accuracy to allow value (grade) determinations to be made.

Hard News In The Making

Weyerhaeuser Co. is selling its Trus Joist Commercial Div. to Atlas Holdings. The transaction includes manufacturing plants in Chino, Calif.; Hillsboro, Ore.; Delaware, Ohio and Stayton, Ore., and 13 sales and engineering offices. About 428 employees concentrated in the Northwest, Southwest and East serve the business.

A Weyerhaeuser official says the move enables Weyerhaeuser to focus on core strategies in the residential structural frame market. The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter.

Better With Age by Rich Donnell

The company has also undergone changes to its management team in recent years. Family owned, McDonough Mfg. is led by Sue Tietz, President/ CEO; her son Matt Tietz, Vice President; Peter McCarty, Sales Manager; Paul Uhlig, senior engineer; and Paul Peplinski, plant manager.

Matt Tietz says the company maintains a long-term vision, emphasizes long-term relationships with its customers, and is committed to honesty and ethics.

New Products & Technologies

DynaVision chroma+scan 3300 sensor from LMI Technologies, Inc. integrates high-density 3D differential profiles and true color vision to detect various board defects earlier in the production process. By combining these two technologies into a single sensor, the 3300 sensor increases the value of each cutting decision at the edger and trimmer instead of the planer as was done in the past. This assures improved productivity and assures that the highest level of value is extracted from each board produced. Among benefits are easy detection of such wood defects as cracks, stains, knots and pitch pockets from the boards.

Industry Developments

GradExpert can classify up to 220 boards per minute with a margin of error almost non-existent, with “mindset” obviously inconsequential to its performance.

Overall, the GradExpert is designed as a complete and unique unit, boasting the industry’s fastest and most accurate grading, and integrating easily into any production line. Already 25 units have been sold and are in operation “without any grader” in southern yellow pine and SPF stud mills and random sawmills.

That Canadian Lumber Thing Again by David Abbott

It should come as no surprise that the U.S.-Canada softwood lumber dispute—one of the most enduring international trade disputes of modern history—is, two years after being settled in its most recent incarnation, still not quite settled. The dispute has sparked up a half dozen times in the past 25 years. But this time the case in court isn’t between the U.S. and Canada. Three groups—the Forest Stewardship Council-US (FSC-US), Conservation Northwest and the Center for Biological Diversity—filed suit September 11 in U.S. District Court in Seattle and in the U.S. Court of International Trade in New York, naming the U.S. Trade Representative, the Dept. of Commerce and the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection as defendants. At issue is how a portion of the $1 billion returned to the U.S. as part of the 2006 lumber agreement was disbursed. The groups allege that the Bush Administration illegally distributed these funds to timber industry groups without going through Congress first. (Canad