A new era for the sawmill: less waste, more consistent quality, better results

It is about recovery rate and quality

An important benefit produced by a Finnos log scanner is the improvement in recovery rate. Another equally important benefit is the internal quality of the log, measured by X-ray scanning. With the scanner, the sawmill knows exactly which raw material should be used for which end product and what quality is being delivered to the customer at any given time.

There is demand for all quality grades and end products, but with the information produced by the scanner, good raw material is not wasted on the wrong end products or on applications where a lower quality is sufficient for the end customer.

Why a Finnos scanner is better than old scanners

The comparison takes into account the sawmill's starting point compared with the old scanner. Sometimes sawmills may even still be in a situation where no scanners are in use at all. In the Nordic countries the basis for payment to the timber seller is log reception measurement. For this reason alone, introducing a modern and accurate log scanner improves the sawmill's profitability, because as a result of scanning the sawmill pays exactly the right amount for the wood received. Logs have typically been sorted by diameter measured over bark. The Finnos scanner uses X-ray, which means that an accurate under-bark diameter can be measured from a log with its bark on, instead of using traditional bark tables. Example 1: If the log diameter is 100 mm, then for all logs with a diameter below this, the outermost so-called side boards will be too waney with a setup intended for a 100 mm log. As a result, the excess wane is trimmed off in board grading and waste is created. Example 2: If the diameter is too large for the setup, for example 102 mm, the log does yield all the boards that were wanted according to the setup, but the extra two millimetres become waste in the form of sawdust. The extra wood is chipped and ends up as sawdust in the sawing process. This too wastes raw material. The importance of the log scanner's scanning accuracy and deviation is highlighted precisely at these stages. If the scanner is inaccurate, the greater the deviation, the more the amount of waste grows with volume. So far we have only talked about volumes and, through them, about improving recovery rate. Another factor of at least equal importance in a modern X-ray log scanner is the internal quality of the log. In other words, sorting is done not only on the basis of an accurate under-bark diameter and shape defects, but also on the basis of internal quality. Log properties that affect quality include knots, their number, size and type, density, the thickness of the annual rings and so on. The Finnos scanner measures a total of more than 120 different wood properties, which sawmills use in sorting according to their needs. As a result, the sawmill is able to use raw material of exactly the right quality for a specific end product, such as sound-knot grades and the like.

How quickly does the new investment pay for itself? 

Finnos studies the superiority of its scanners carefully by comparing old scanners and the results after the installation of new scanners. The efficiency indicator of a sawmill is recovery rate, which describes how efficiently the sawmill converts raw material into end product. The payback period is calculated from the improvement in recovery rate, in other words from the fact that more end product is produced. In a sawmill's production volume, 2 % growth is a lot of money. The payback also includes the correctness of log reception measurement. The sawmill pays the forest owner neither too much nor too little. A cubic metre of logs typically yields less than 50 % end product, that is, sawn timber. As a simplified working figure, let us use a recovery rate of 50 %, which expressed the Finnish way is a log-to-timber ratio of 2. If this is improved by 2 %, the new recovery rate becomes 50 % x 1.02 = 51 %, or expressed the Finnish way, 1.96. Given a sawmill's production volume, this means thousands of cubic metres more sawn timber per year. The payback can thus be calculated, for example, from the price per cubic metre. On volume alone, a scanner easily brings a 2 % improvement, and closer to 5 % is achievable through quality factors. With the new Finnos scanners the typical recovery rate improvement is 2 to 5 %. In occasional cases the improvement has been as much as 10 %, but in those cases the starting level was low. Depending on the sawmill's volume, the investment has been paid back in as little as a few months.

Finnos guarantees that the sawmill's recovery rate will improve

Finnos has managed to deliver the promised recovery rate improvement every single time. Here the Finnos track record is 100 %. In Finland, more than 70 % of all the logs at sawmills are now scanned with Finnos X-ray scanners. Sawmills buy new scanners for their next sawmills, because all customers have concretely seen the improvement in recovery rate. In Finnos's view, a scanner proven to work and the 24/7 service that is so essentially linked to it are the most important reasons why customer satisfaction is so high.