Staying Sharp Means Harnessing New Technology

Article by Dan Shell, Senior Editor, Timber Processing December 2015

Published a quarter-century ago this month in Timber Processing, then Stimson Lumber general manager of sawmill operations Bob Schutte in Forest Grove, Ore. authored a major report on the benefits of quality saw filing and boosting lumber recovery based on savings in log costs at a mill cutting 250MBF per shift, two shifts daily with recovery rate of 1.5

He found that at a log cost of $350/MBF, a 2% recovery increase translated into $581,000 in log savings, and a 6% increase meant a log cost savings of $1.68 million annually.

Schutte, who’s now CEO of Winn Lumber in Winnfield, La., detailed results of the Stimson mill’s thin-kerf sawing program, a big part of which involved switching to Stellite saw tips. Though Schutte’s filing room was operating in the dawn of the digital era in saw filing, several of his suggestions are timeless and apply to any mill:

• Don’t neglect the basics with machine center alignment. Drive home the point that all machines must be “parallel and perpendicular” or maximum results won’t be possible. Neglecting machine center basics is a recipe for failure.
• To get the biggest benefit, start with machines that cut the widest faces and longest sawlines.
• Managers who switch to Stellite to run saws longer and save on filing costs are missing the point: The big payoff is the increased recovery possible when running thinner-kerf, more accurate saws, even if they must be changed more often.
• Develop a quality control program that truly measures sawing performance at every machine center. Management should also view saw filing as a pro-active tool in producing higher quality lumber with increased recovery instead of having primarily a maintenance role.

Of course Schutte’s saw filing advice still applies 25 years later, yet what sawmill managers and head filers have now are much better tools to ensure machine alignment, put up sharper, more consistent saws and monitor everything with a mountain of digital data that’s easily available to filing room personnel and supervisors and managers.

Yet while machinery and technology have made incredible leaps the past quarter-century, concerns remain about finding a new generation of qualified filing room personnel to take advantage of the advances.

The filing room vendor update on page 32 concludes with several thoughts on how suppliers are investing in equipment and technology that allows fewer filers to do more work and developing operator interfaces and machine features that make filing room activities more appealing to employees who are “more comfortable with a smart phone than a dressing stick,” according to one company rep.

From all indications suppliers are stepping up on the issue, along with mills starting to realize up and coming filers must be formally developed instead of just found. It’s all part of staying sharp and taking advantage of the best filing room equipment and tools that have ever been available, with more advances on the horizon.