Now in its seventh year, Dust Safety Week’s landing page is the year-round hub for forest products manufacturers – pellet plants, sawmills and pulp and paper operations – to learn best practices and find the latest information to keep their operations and operators safe.

Follow along all week as we will highlight feature stories, columns and research reports both from our archives as well as brand-new stories from contributors across Canada.

Find the landing page here, and stay tuned to our websites and social media (#DustSafetyWeek) for more information as we approach Dust Safety Week 2023!

Thank you to our generous sponsors for making Dust Safety Week possible: Biomass Engineering & Equipment, Fagus GreCon, Rembe, Fike and Nilfisk.

Here’s a snapshot of our takeaways from the featured articles, videos and columns.

1) Past, present and future: Our main coverage this week was from the BC Saw Filers Association annual convention that took place in Kamloops on the weekend. From the sector’s rich history, to current issues afflicting the trade and recruiting future sawfilers, a lot to was covered at the two-day event.

2) Products and technologies: We shared advancements from the convention and trade show, and we are working on videos to showcase in the coming days – hence keep an eye on our landing page here for these video spotlights!

3) Increasing sawmill circular blade life: William Shaffer highlights the benefits of edge prep geometry when applied to the cutting edges of the teeth of wood-cutting circular sawblades. He also introduces us to the edge prep process Engineered Micro-Geometry.

4) Don’t expect, inspect!: This is a phrase that every sawfiler would find useful. Dave Purinton writes about maintaining good control of the variables one can control to help prevent even a few unscheduled saw changes.

5) Saw Filing 101: CFI saw filing columnist Paul Smith writes about one of the biggest breakthroughs in our time for sawmill and lumber production and manufacturing: knives and their applications for chipping. As a bonus, Paul writes a second column where he discusses a world of chaos involving supply chain and other disruptions and advises mills to better have plenty of supplies on-hand and on-order.

CFI’s File Week landing page is a year-round hub for both sawfilers and other stakeholders to learn best practices and find the latest information on advancements in saw filing technology. Find the landing page here, or anytime on our website’s MENU tab, under Explore.

See you next year for File Week 2024!

Thanks again to our generous sponsors: BID Group and Petro-Canada Lubricants.

]]> https://www.woodbusiness.ca/welcome-to-file-week-2023-lets-talk-about-saw-filing/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=welcome-to-file-week-2023-lets-talk-about-saw-filing Mon, 29 May 2023 12:00:39 +0000 https://www.woodbusiness.ca/?p=98611 …]]> Canadian Forest Industries’ annual week-long focus on saw filing innovations and accomplishments, starts today!

Welcome to File Week 2023, where we highlight what’s new in the wonderful world of saw filing.

Keeping up with the latest on the filing room – from industry challenges to the newest in automation technology – is important for not just sawfilers, but everyone in the mill.

We’re posting cutting edge content both from our archives as well as brand-new stories and product news from the BC Saw Filers Association convention that took place on May 26 and 27 in Kamloops, B.C.

We are highlighting:

• stories from the filing room
• technical articles on saw filing automation
• equipment spotlights on the latest saw filing gear
• columns from Paul Smith
• coverage from the BC Saw Filers convention, and more!

CFI’s File Week landing page is a year-round hub for both sawfilers and other stakeholders to learn best practices and find the latest information on advancements in saw filing technology.

Thank you to our 2023 sponsors for making this week possible: BID Group and Petro-Canada Lubricants.

Find the landing page here and enjoy File Week 2023!

]]> CFI Staff https://www.woodbusiness.ca/optisaw-2023-cutting-edge-of-saw-milling-tech-and-processes/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=optisaw-2023-cutting-edge-of-saw-milling-tech-and-processes Fri, 17 Mar 2023 21:17:33 +0000 https://www.woodbusiness.ca/?p=98758 …]]> The global pandemic, economic crunch, and  inflation have forever altered the already transitioning forest industy. In this ever-changing environment and the pressure to do more with less, what’s a sawmiller to do?

Researchers and innovative manufacturers offered valuable insight into the cutting edge of sawmilling technologies and processes, and shared strategies to optimize production and boost mill’s profits at OptiSaw – the sawmilling optimization and automation forum – in Quebec City on March 17. 

Sawmill of the future

The BID Group opened the event with a peek into the sawmill of the future powered by a combination of cutting-edge technologies and an inspired workforce. The company is leading the way in several areas related to Industry 4.0: IIoT, augmented reality, robotics, artificial intelligence, and designing the next generation of sawmills. 

BID’s Diego Braido dos Santos, David Dubé, and Sylvain Dionne showed the crowd of 50 delegates and exhibitors some of BID’s innovative technologies, including AI and robotics and their individual impact on operations such as monitoring and optimizing process flow in sawmills and planer mills.

Smart eyes: reinforcing scanners with AI

The next presenter, Finnos Oy’s Jyri Smagin walked the audience through the sawmill’s different scanners at various locations, showing how the latest technology enables the scanners to connect with each other via fingerprint technology. Smagin demonstrated how applying AI optimization to the whole raw material flow linked by fingerprint can detect defects, and increase fibre recovery and yield significantly.

Energy transition

Experts agree, the energy transition in the industrial sector must be achieved by 2050. Incentives are available to initiate the transition, offered by energy suppliers or governments, but where can one start a project? Martin Tremblay of IDÉA Contrôle, an internationally recognized energy management equipment manufacturer, shared their efficient and effective tools to simplify the energy transition, which can reduce sawmill emissions and costs.

Jedi, Big Data and IoT

The next speaker, Tim Melburn of Arrow Speed Controls, a self-described Jedi-level asset performance engineer, helped attendees visualize the invisible by showing how to increase productivity with cutting-edge technologies.

Optimizing machine productivity and maintaining a competitive edge can become increasingly difficult in a global economy, but Big Data and IoT technologies offer a wide variety of potential improvements from production efficiency to predicting machine failures to managing employees. 

“Have you ever wondered how to get the most out of your equipment while ensuring they run at optimal performance? Having the right KPIs and a solid preventative maintenance plan will provide incredible cost savings,” Melburn said.

Cutting downtime in halF

The first of two case studies presented at OptiSaw was a planer safety pilot project, given by UBSafe’s Ian Rood. 

UBSafe performed a functional safety system upgrade to a Stetson Ross planer at Conifex Fort St. James in B.C. To utilize the safeguarding system for minor servicing tasks, such as clearing jams, the WorkSafeBC approval process under regulation 10.10 for control system isolation device (CSID) use as an alternative control measure to lockout was triggered. Rood detailed the results of the project – a safe, compliant, efficient system that was measured to reduce jam clearing-related downtime by 50 per cent.

Sawmill simulation

FPInnovations’ Mohammed  Khachan provided an overview of the new software platform OptiTek, including drying and planing simulation, profit evaluation and flow analysis. Khachan said the platform allows stakeholders in the sawmill ecosystem to validate, analyze, and measure the impact on key performance indicators of new technologies and processes. His two-part presentation included an introduction of AI into the simulation process and its interest in estimating the value of stems supply from the forest to the mill.

Optimizing value chain

Maximizing a mill’s efficiency with unique CT technology and the power of prediction and optimization were the focus of the next speaker, Microtec’s Patrick Freeman, who went into thorough detail to describe the Microtec AI platform. Utilizing these tools, along with the innovative SMART Link solution, companies are able to streamline and optimize each stage of your value chain to drive maximum value, said the CTO, who described himself as the ‘chief nerd’ in a room full of nerds. 

Case study on drying

Secovac founder Pierre Gilbert was the final speaker,  and presented the second case study and “the most important presentation of the day,” he joked. Gilbert shared results of the installation of the EchoStop system, Secovac’s latest technological breakthrough in the field of  drying control, at Clermond Hamel’s sawmill in Quebec.

EchoStop was designed to measure wood moisture without contact for continuous kilns. It has optimized the sawmill’s operations, eliminated the down grade caused by overdrying, increased production and reduced the energy required.

The project totalling $20 million started in 2019 and includes the automation and optimization of the Chibougamou plant using artificial intelligence and Industry 4.0 technologies. The initiative has already created more than 50 new jobs, according to a statement by the Quebec Ministry of Economy, Innovation and Energy.

The funding consists of a $5 million loan from Investissement Québec, and $2.5 million from the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry, under the Programme Innovation Bois.

The Chibougamau facility in Northern Quebec has one of the largest sawmills and largest engineered wood manufacturing plants in the province.

Click here to read the full news release in French.

The two-day class includes a manufacturing facility tour, equipment operation best practice training, hands-on demonstrations and plenty of networking opportunities allowing machine owners to learn from each other as well. This year the education focused on ‘how to properly feed your machine’, ‘how to perform preventative maintenance’ and ‘how to troubleshoot’. The hands-on demonstrations showed attendees how to install the main rotor bearings and how to adjust the sheave and tension the drive belt on a Rotochopper grinder.

“After attending Rotochopper University I feel very confident in my knowledge of operating and maintaining our equipment,” shared one event attendee. Another attendee commented, “They go over a wide scope of topics, but also personalize the information they’re going over for the class attendees and the equipment we operate”.

Rotochopper hosted 60 students during the two-day event from various companies across the globe. Rotochopper customer service manager and event instructor, Adam Asmus, shared the following thoughts, “Rotochopper University continues to be an event that we find has a great benefit to our customers. The attendees can connect with our service team, our company and each other in ways that will benefit their operation for years to come. As an instructor for the event, I was thoroughly impressed with group of attendees this year and enjoyed the time we were able to spend with them”.

Rotochopper continues to focus on and invest in ensuring the owners and operators of Rotochopper equipment are trained and supported through this course. Their world class factory direct support team provides attendees the foundation for optimal operation and positive operational outcomes.

“Factory-direct service and keeping our customers happy are at the core of Rotochopper’s value proposition. Rotochopper University is one of the ways our team brings these values to life. It was great to see so many Rotochopper customers together not only building a connection with us, but also each other. I know Doug Meyer and our service team work extremely hard on an agenda that helps customers minimize downtime and decrease maintenance costs. It was a great two weeks, and we look forward to hosting more Rotochopper Universities in the future,” said Chad Angeli, Rotochopper vice-president of customer experience.

The system can be deployed at all stages of the process and uses Artificial Intelligence to analyze images from the cameras that constantly watch production and identify objects of interest, leading to an increase in productivity.

BID’s Smart Vision will better serve its customers by providing the following benefits and technologies to sawmill and planer mill operations:

• Identification of production anomalies that normally require mechanical and/or human intervention
• Reduction of major production stoppages and equipment breakdowns
• Alerts when a problem occurs so that action can be taken automatically or manually
• Continuous management and monitoring of one or more stages of the wood transformation process
• Ongoing measurement of quality control and optimization of equipment maintenance

“We are proud of our team and the hard work that was put into our new Smart Vision, a technology that will allow our customers to easily optimize their production flow and get the most out of their mill. Artificial Intelligence is changing the face of our industry and BID is leading the revolution by relentlessly pushing the limits” said Simon Potvin, president of Wood Processing.

BID’s Smart Vision is only the beginning, a series of applications is to be developed, in addition to the ones just launched.

“I was delighted to be able to announce, on behalf of Bill Caine Jr. of Commonwealth Plywood, the reopening of the sawmill in Rapides-des-Joachims. I have always been told that it is not an easy task to have a mill reopen once it’s been closed, and this one in particular was closed for the past ten years,” said Jane Toller, warden of the Pontiac County, in a published message to her constituents.

Toller added that she has been informed that the hiring process for employees will begin shortly as the equipment is fully operational and some last-minute tests for certain electrical components are currently underway.

“It is my hope that there will be other mills to reopen in the future. Forestry built the Pontiac and it is our goal to ensure that we continue to be a strong player in the industry. It is gratifying after five years of working with Commonwealth Plywood to see our dream of growing the forestry industry in the Pontiac come true. I believe this news will send a signal to the rest of Quebec that the Pontiac is resourceful and that we are back in business,” Toller said.

Commonwealth Plywood harvests, transforms and distributes forestry and related products. The company operates 10 production facilities in Quebec and one in the United States. Their production is destined to both domestic and international markets. Commonwealth also operates 23 distribution centres in five Canadian provinces and in the U.S.

What started as a small logging operation in 1939 by Russian immigrant brothers Koozma, Peter and Sam Kalesnikoff became a custom sawmill, and by late 1960s, the company added dry kiln and planing capacities. Peter’s son, Pete Jr., joined the workforce and mentored his own son, Ken, who then got involved in the family business. The Kalesnikoffs innovated again and in 1999 built a remanufacturing plant that produced lineal pattern products such as moulding, siding and interior paneling.

Now a fourth generation-run family venture, Kalesnikoff remains a family-operated firm with Ken as president and CEO, his 36-year-old son, Chris, as chief operating officer, and daughter Krystle, 40, as chief financial officer.

In August, Canadian Forest Industries joined Chris and his team for a tour of Kalesnikoff’s woodlands in the Kootenay Range, and its mass timber and sawmill facilities in Thrums, B.C., next to the majestic Kootenay River.

Value-added investment

In 2014, Chris began looking to expand the business into mass timber, even travelling to Europe to learn more about cross-laminated timber (CLT), where it was developed in the 1990s. He visited mass timber facilities and equipment manufacturers to get a better understanding of the process, before going all in.

“CLT has been used across Europe for the past two decades and we have to give credit to the companies there for how open they are in sharing their knowledge,” Chris says.

Construction on the $36-million mass timber facility began in 2019 and it came online in the summer of 2020. Now the plant produces mass timber panels that come in up to 60-foot lengths and glulam beams that have been transformed into residential, commercial and industrial spaces, as well as educational institutions all over the U.S. and Canada.

“We love seeing our mass timber turn into places where the next generation of children will grow,” Chris shouts amid the rhythmic humming of the two production lines running in three shifts. Kalesnikoff employs 250 people at both their sawmill and mass timber facility.

“To be able to run three shifts in under three years is a great feat. In 2019 when we broke ground, we had designed and hoped to expand the facility to support our customers and growing mass timber market. We are beyond excited to be achieving this milestone less than three years after producing our first products,” Chris proudly tells CFI.

The 110,000 square-foot building houses both the glulam and CLT product lines. Denmark-based Kallesoe Machinery was the main equipment supplier, providing presses, as well as the CLT and glulam systems that move the mass timber through the operation. Most of the other suppliers are from Europe, which have been at the forefront of mass timber technology.

In Canada and the U.S., adoption has been slowed down by code restrictions and a negative public perception, but it is gradually changing.

“People are continuing to warm up to mass timber construction. In the early years, developers were nervous to use mass timber with questions and concerns about fire, construction costs, installation strategies, and more,” Chris explains. “But as more CLT buildings are completed in North America, the public is becoming more comfortable with the product and more aware of its benefits.”

Across North America, the interest in mass timber is fuelled by the increase in the maximum allowable height for wood buildings in the U.S. to 18 storeys, while Canada allows mass timber structures up to 12 storeys high.

The future looks bright, as according to the B.C. government, the growing mass timber sector will support more than 4,000 jobs in manufacturing, technology, forestry, design, and engineering, and bring new jobs to communities throughout the province.

Growth and expansion

In fact, people are confident enough about adopting mass timber that construction on the expansion of Kalesnikoff’s mass timber plant is ongoing. In August, the company started the installation of glulam timber trusses and CLT walls, creating the structure for the new 20,000 square feet extension of the existing mass timber facility.

Chris proudly shows CFI the ongoing work on the expansion.

The trusses involve some structural teamwork, with steel giving a hand in tension to complete a span of over 76 feet, explains Leigh Schmidt, design technician at Kalesnikoff. When complete, the expansion will be an excellent example of the potential that mass timber holds for industrial, long-span applications.

Currently, the state-of-the-art facility is able to produce 50,000 cubic metres of finished product a year, with the capacity to expand upon that. Chris says about 25 per cent of the products stay in B.C., while the rest are sold in other parts of Canada and the U.S.

Chris Kalesnikoff leads the fourth-generation family-owned business as COO.

The process and integration

Kalesnikoff says it is able to offer stability to its customers because it is North America’s most advanced, fully integrated multi-species mass timber company – from planting the seedlings, to processing lumber in their sawmill, to the mass timber they produce.

“It is important to be price competitive while having a reliable supply. We address that by being fully integrated,” Chris says as he leads the way through the factory’s manufacturing floor, while explaining the production process.

The sawmill team grades the timber and kiln-dries it to precise specifications before transporting it to the world-class mass timber facility less than 10 km away from the sawmill.

The timber is then re-scanned and artificial intelligence is deployed to grade each board for geometric tolerance, visual appearance, moisture content and strength. Any defects are then removed with an automated crosscut saw before the timber moves to the horizontal finger joint line, where it is assembled into long lamellas up to 60 feet in length. The lamellas are sorted and stored in curing trays until they are required downstream in the pressing lines, where they will be manufactured into cross-laminated timber panels or glulam beams.

The press lines can produce panels up to 60 feet long, 11.5 feet wide and 14 inches thick. The facility is able to cure up to four metres of CLTs at a time in as little as eight minutes, and can complete an entire 60-foot panel in 35 minutes. Panels are then transferred directly into a CNC machine for final fabrication and then finish-sanded on both faces.

The glulam beams from Douglas-fir, spruce and hemlock follow a similar process: stacking, gluing and pressing long-length lamellas together. Kalesnikoff can cure up to six-metre segments in four to six minutes per cycle. The high-frequency technology allows for faster curing times and more consistent adhesion compared to traditional cold press methods. Beams travel automatically to a cross-cut saw where they are trimmed to final length, then move through the four-sided beam planer for milling to finish size. Exiting the planer, beams travel through a grading station to be inspected before moving to the finishing area, then to the CNC machine for full fabrication to the x, y, and z axis.

Inspiring sector

Like the rest of the country, the B.C. forest industry is facing the challenge of labour shortage. Luckily for Kalesnikoff, the West Kootenays is a sought-after destination, not to mention the popularity of the mass timber sector among young people.

“We’re in the exciting segment of the industry – mass timber is cool – CLT attracts highly-sought people from other industries,” Chris explains, adding that the cultural and lifestyle changes that prompted city exodus during the pandemic benefitted the company’s hiring process. In fact, at the height of the pandemic, Kalesnikoff created and filled almost 100 jobs that included highly skilled positions. Presently, the average age of employees at Kalesnikoff is between 30 to 40.

To secure the industry’s future, it is important to inspire and encourage young people, says Chris, who along with his sister Krystle, was a past recipient of CFI’s Top 10 Under 40 award.

As for Kalesnikoff’s own future, Chris says the family business would very much welcome the next generation of Kalesnikoffs – each of the fifth generation would be a welcome addition to the family operation.

Quebec forests minister Pierre Dufour, Senneterre Mayor Nathalie-Ann Pelchat, and Resolute CEO Remi Lalonde were all in attendance for the ceremony.

The planer is part of a $36-million investment in the Senneterre facility aimed at optimizing fibre supply, improving efficiency and reducing production costs for Resolute’s Abitibi regional operations. The modernization includes installation of automated sorting bins.

The planer is expected to be operational at the end of the year.

The company says the investments will allow them to develop new markets focused on high-quality shelving products for big box stores.

The expansion project will break ground in Q4 and extend into next year.

“We are highly integrated and these advancements allow us to add efficiencies and realize economies of scale. The two projects create further synergistic effects on sales integration, allowing us to expand our product base. Additionally, we will need to focus on hiring more skilled workers to handle the increased capacity. We are excited to break ground!” John Langstroth, San Group’s senior vice-president, said in a news release.

The company’s Port Alberni mill expansion will see the installation of an Anthem Line – a fully automized system designed to develop edge glued panels extending to eight feet.

“Anthem line’s advanced manufacturing process not only helps improve San Group’s product portfolio, but also increases the company’s push to create downstream high value products for global export,” the company said.

The Acorn Forest Products expansion will see a new auto grader and dry kilns installed. The projects are expected to enhance the mill’s output capacity and reduce waste.

San Group purchased the mill from Interfor in Q2 of this year.

Editor’s note: Read our latest profile on the company, Reman redefined: Checking in on San Group’s Port Alberni operation.

As previously noted, the third-party investigation at the site encountered a light non-aqueous phase liquid (LNAPL) at a test hole located approximately 150 metres away from the lakeshore. Laboratory analysis indicates that this hydrocarbon contamination is consistent with a lubricating oil. This substance was found to be limited to the area around two adjacent test holes. Tolko is planning to have this area remediated in September along with one other small area under the supervision of a third-party environmental professional.

The report confirms that there are also a small number of isolated areas that exceed the applicable concentration standards for other contaminants. They are primarily hydrocarbon in nature, do not pose a risk to the surrounding environment, and will be further reviewed and addressed when the future use of the site is determined. Lastly, Tolko will continue to work with our third-party consultant to address a small number of data gaps that have been identified in the report through additional sampling.

These are typical results that one would expect for this type of site, which is large and complex with a long history of industrial activity. Tolko is committed to addressing these contaminants and appreciates the ongoing support and collaboration with the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Strategy.

The company says a decrease in market demand is spurring the change to their operating schedules, which will see a 15 per cent decrease in production capacity through the fourth quarter.

“Rising inflation and mortgage rates in Europe, which are expected to persist into the fall, is impacting demand for lumber and as a result we are reducing production capacity. We are committed to continuing to meet the needs of our customers,” Canfor president and CEO Don Kayne said.

The company says it will continue to assess the market and adjust operating schedules accordingly.

Canfor has a 70 per cent interest in Sweden’s Vida Group.

“The Waldo investment is an exciting strategic growth opportunity, and it will position the mill among the lowest cost producers in the U.S. South,” said Eric Cremers, president and CEO. “We expect to achieve additional EBITDDA of $25 to $30 million per year and an IRR of approximately 22 per cent in our base case, which is based on a relatively conservative lumber price assumption. The project reflects our belief that housing fundamentals will remain strong.”

PotlatchDeltic owns three sawmills and nearly 950,000 acres of timberlands in Arkansas. The expansion is expected to create 55 new indirect jobs.

“The investment in the Waldo lumber mill will further strengthen PotlatchDeltic’s important role in the forest products industry in Arkansas,” Governor Asa Hutchinson said. “By modernizing and expanding the mill, the company will support the community and position the mill and its team members for success well into the future.”

The Waldo investment includes upgrades to the log yard and planer, a new saw line, and a new continuous dry kiln. The existing mill will continue to operate during the project and completion is expected by the end of 2024. PotlatchDeltic has contracted with BID Group to design, build, and equip the expansion and modernization.

Learn more: www.potlatchdeltic.com.

At J.D. Irving’s (JDI) Veneer Sawmill in Saint-Léonard, N.B., one such challenge was the tie line where the mill sorts 19 of its largest hardwood products, including rail ties and pallet components.

Mill staff would either hand pile smaller product or operate a vacuum system to lift the heavier ties and sort them in 20 odd bins before a forklift carries them off to their next destination. The job was labour-intensive and repetitive, which carries a high ergonomic risk.

Today, the mill has two permanent, tough-as-nails labourers filling that job – Buckdjeuve (Jackalope, in English) and Tie-Rex. These are the names mill staff have affectionately given the new articulating robots working on the Veneer Sawmill tie line.

Rather ionically, the robots are an investment JDI made specifically for its people. A job that was once the most difficult is now among the most sought after: robot operator.

Jody Gallant, business improvement manager with JDI’s hardwood and pine division, led the charge to install the robots at Veneer. He makes it clear to all staff that the robots are there to perform the roles that are toughest to fill.

“I’ve worked in the sawmills for quite a number of years, specifically in the Doaktown mill, and there are a lot of good workers and the last thing we want to do is demotivate people,” Gallant says. “We know the labour market is changing and we know we have less people applying. So let’s make the hard jobs go away and focus on the value-added jobs and jobs that people enjoy doing, that they get up and are excited to come to work for.”

JDI has invested in robots to perform labour-intensive tasks that are difficult to recruit for.

Robotic ride

The robots are indeed a treat to watch. It’s more like peeking in on an auto assembly line than a sawmill. A vision system watching the tie line tell the robots which items are located where. As products are conveyed down, the robots travel on their own parallel tracks, identifying an item, scooping it up, rotating 180 degrees, and depositing it in its bin.

Supplied by Yaskawa, the robots were a central component of a $1-million in-house lumber handling modernization project at the hardwood mill that also involved a new Samuel strapping machine.

Susan Coulombe, JDI’s general manager of hardwood and pine within their sawmills division, says the bulk of the budget was not spent on the robots, but rather the lumber handling configuration needed to allow the robots to function correctly. That configuration is key to the robots’ success.

“The one theme through every project we’ve done with robotics is that the robot will do exactly what you tell it to do – that part is the easiest. Making sure the piece is where it’s supposed to be is the biggest challenge. If you tell the robot the piece is going to be at position 140, it needs to be at position 140. The robot is not going to go, ‘oh, you mean 130?’” Coulombe says.

This tie-line project is the latest iteration of JDI’s robot journey. That journey began with their Doaktown, N.B., sawmill where they installed a robot on the paint line in 2016. Two years later, they put a higher-speed robot on Doaktown’s resaw system. In 2020, as part of a planer upgrade in JDI’s pine mill in Dixfield, Maine, an articulating robot was installed to stack two-foot blocks.

“We always learn things and we’re always pushing ourselves. After we had success on that scale, we had a look around and thought, where’s the next opportunity for this. This application in Veneer was ideal,” Coulombe says.

Each of the robotic projects have been managed in-house by the JDI team, from designing to spec’ing equipment, building and start-up. “When you’ve got that many people with a stake it in, it’s hard to fail,” Gallant says.

Robot supplier Yaskawa used a 3D model of Veneer Sawmill’s tie line to provide sample cycle times. During start-up, the robots were found to be capable of double their required speed.

Weighty undertaking

Veneer’s project was unique in its scale. The ties can be up to 300 pounds and 12-feet long. The length specifically presented leverage challenges and required large robots capable of handling more than 800 pounds, Gallant says. Speed was less of a concern.

“There’s about one tie per log, roughly. The mill consumes about 1,500 logs per shift, so the maximum rate we produce these ties is around two and a half blocks a minute. So, the rate is not that high,” he says.

Yaskawa was able to 3D model the line to do sample cycle times. Each robot was estimated to pile two blocks a minute, giving an overall of four blocks a minute. During start-up, the robots were each able to surpass four per minute – double what was required.

“Robots have a long history in the automotive industry. It’s really not the robots that are cutting edge, it’s more the application,” Gallant says.

He sees two reasons why sawmills have been slow to adopt robots. The first is a perception of high costs, despite costs coming down significantly in the past several years. The second is programming language. Robots typically are programmed using a language that requires specialized training. Yaskawa’s robots are programmed with the same language used in the sawmill’s PLCs.

“That really reduces the learning curve. Our in-house instrumentation department had, I think, two hours of training and now they’re maintaining the robots,” Gallant says.

After the initial expense, upkeep costs for the robots are minimal, involving regular inspections and cleaning.

“If you follow their design recommendations, they expect a 25-year lifecycle for these robots with minimal maintenance. It’s a pretty easy investment – there aren’t big rebuilds after a few years. But it all depends on how well you take care of it.”

Modern mill

Veneer Sawmill employs around 75 staff on two shifts. The 40 million-bdft mill batch runs three species – maple, soft maple and birch.

Twelve-foot logs are treated first to Nicholson debarkers before running through one of two Cleereman carriages. The mill runs a PHL merry-go-round resaw and bull edger before a Comact TrimExpert scanner at the trimmer. About 80 per cent of Veneer’s product is sold green rough, but the other 20 per cent is sent to J.D. Irving’s drying operation in Clair, N.B., about an hour’s drive east of the mill.

The hardwood mill has more than 200 products, most of which are handled by a PHL 60-bin drop sorter and PHL stacker, but the tie line has always been a manual process.

The robots started up piling the tie line full-time in February. Phase 2 will be underway shortly to adding stickering capabilities.

Coulombe says the return on investment for the Veneer project is close to three years, but the strategy behind it lies the workforce.

“With labour being our No. 1 challenge, we need to find ways to make our places of work attractive to people. It’s been a great team project,” she says.

More robots are likely in JDI’s future as the team gets familiar with their capabilities and what it takes to make them work. And both Gallant and Coulombe are expecting to see robots crop up in mills across Canada sooner rather than later.

“I think there is a preconceived notion that robots don’t belong in sawmills, and I think that’s slowly going away,” Gallant says. “There are tasks that are non-value added, that are repetitive, and it’s easy for robots to do.”

With his newest venture, GreenFirst Forest Products, the seasoned executive is hoping to keep batting 1,000. 

GreenFirst made waves as the new kid on the block in August last year with the acquisition of six Rayonier sawmills and a newsprint plant in Ontario and Quebec. The company purchased the idled Kenora Forest Products mill in Ontario the year before. With all acquisitions tallied, their total yearly lumber capacity sits at around 905 million bdft. According to Russ Taylor Global, the year-old company clocked in as the 25th largest lumber producer in the world as of December 2021. 

The company’s acquisitions included forest tenure amounting to approximately 3.6 million cubic metres, as well as a significant amount private forest land. 

Doman co-founded GreenFirst along with former Fairfax Financial Holdings president Paul Rivett. The two, as CEO and chairman of the board, respectively, are charting a course for the new Eastern Canada forestry company that emphasizes sustainability and stability.

Coastal roots

Born in Duncan, B.C., into a forestry family, Doman recalls life as a nine-year-old visiting sawmills in coastal B.C. with his father, Doman Industries’ formidable founder, Herb Doman. At 12-years-old he was dropped off at a company lumber yard to start earning the money he needed to buy a camera and a drum set. 

From sweeping up the yard and straightening lumber piles, Doman worked his way up to deliveries and eventually to serving customers. At around 20, he was promoted to sales at their head office and discovered a knack for buying and selling lumber. His aptitude led him to take charge of the company’s North American lumber trading division.  

“We ended up owning nine sawmills and producing nearly one billion board feet a year as well as pulp, northern bleach wood, softwood kraft, and dissolving pulp. I was involved in the sawmill operations, the pulp operations, and the sales,” Doman says.

Doman credits his jump into the executive world to two people: his father, who taught him operations, and Doman Industries’ CFO Jack Abercrombie. When his father suffered a stroke in 1995, Doman and Abercrombie ran the business for nearly 10 months. It was during that time Doman began to form his own business ideas, and his vision began to deviate from his father’s. 

Rick Doman co-founded GreenFirst along with former Fairfax Financial Holdings president Paul Rivett. Doman previously led Doman Industries and EACOM Timber Corperation. Photo courtesy GreenFirst Forest Products.

“I made the recommendation to sell our two pulp mills because it wasn’t our core business at the time, because it would reduce our debt. I’ll never forget that, because it did not go over well with my dad. He said, ‘I worked my whole life to build this company and we’re fully integrated. And I disagree with you.’”

The company’s debt continued to grow, and Doman began planning his departure. “It was a great company; my dad was a genius. Our operating costs at our sawmills were very low. The pulp side was challenging. But the timberlands and sawmills were functioning very well,” Doman says. But in 2001, his dad had another, more serious stroke and the company’s board asked Doman to step in as CEO. 

Doman, reluctantly, took the reins and began plans to restructure the company to address the debt, but the company’s board had different ideas. The company was eventually turned over to bondholders. Doman stepped aside in 2004 to focus on family, particularly his father’s failing health. In 2007, Herb passed away.

“The last conversation we had … he said, ‘I don’t want you to give up on the forest industry. I taught you a lot.’ I said, ‘OK dad. I’ll buy one sawmill, one day, but I don’t want to run a big company again.’ And he looked at me with a grin and said, ‘Son, it’s in you to continue to run bigger companies. I have that faith in you.’”

EACOM introduction

His father was right. Doman launched EACOM Timber Corporation in 2008, eventually purchasing Domtar’s eastern Canada sawmills. 

“I was so pleased with what we did with EACOM,” Doman says. He attributes much of that success to the co-operation and support of the Ontario and Quebec governments. Their willingness to work with forestry companies, he says, was a refreshing departure from his time in B.C. 

According to Doman, successive B.C. governments mishandled the mountain pine beetle situation in the province when they reduced stumpage rates in the B.C. Interior to incentivise harvesting there. “It was one of the reasons the company my dad founded was treated unfairly by the B.C. government; that’s the only way I can describe it,” Doman says.

In 2014, at the direction of the board, EACOM sold to a U.S. private equity group, Kelso & Company. Doman stayed on as CEO as part of the sale conditions, but stepped down shortly after. He was asked by Kelso & Company to become chairman and did so until 2015. 

From then until 2020, Doman was busy seeking out global forest opportunities for a large Canadian financial institution. In 2020, he launched his third major forestry company.

GreenFirst’s executives are prioritizing optimization of their lumber operations to increase their capacity up to one billion bdft a year. Photo courtesy GreenFirst Forest Products.

GreenFirst beginnings

GreenFirst’s origin story starts with Kenora Forest Products in northwestern Ontario. Doman and Rivett submitted a bid through a receivership for the idled mill’s assets, sight unseen, in 2020. The $11.5-million bid was successful. 

The 100 million-bdft Kenora mill has sat shuttered since September 2019. Its owners, Winnipeg-based Prendiville Industries, filed for bankruptcy shortly after closing the mill. 

Soon after the Kenora purchase, Doman and Rivett renamed their company from Itasca Capital to GreenFirst. The name, Doman says, embodies a message that they are poised to share loudly. 

“I think people understand this, but I like to be very clear about it. A healthy, sustainable forest absorbs carbon. A tree from seedling to maturity absorbs about one tonne of carbon, most of it in its earlier growth years. When a tree becomes diseased and susceptible to wildfires, it emits massive amounts of carbon,” Doman says. “Forests are agriculture. Instead of growing carrots seasonally, we’re growing trees over an 80-year period and they’re absorbing tremendous amounts of carbon during that time. If managed properly, they create tremendous amounts of jobs.

“Our goal is to lead by example, and we feel we’re in a region where we can manage stable and sustainable forests,” he says.  

In August, GreenFirst completed its acquisition of Rayonier Advanced Materials’ forest and paper product assets in Ontario and Quebec for US$234 million. The purchase includes sawmills in Chapleau, Cochrane, Hearst, and Kapuskasing in Ontario, and La Sarre and Béarn in Quebec, as well as a 205,000-MT paper mill in Kapuskasing. 

GreenFirst is currently working with a combined allowable annual cut (AAC) of about 3.6 million cubic-metres within FSC-certified crown forests. They expect the AAC to grow as the company works to restart the Kenora sawmill. 

GreenFirst’s acquisition of Rayonier Advanced Materials’ includes sawmills in Chapleau, Cochrane, Hearst, and Kapuskasing in Ontario, and La Sarre and Béarn in Quebec. Photo courtesy GreenFirst Forest Products.

The company’s private forest land is also an opportunity for them to showcase sustainable forest management. “One hundred years from now,” Doman says, “I’d like to make sure that these forests are still healthy and operating at a sustainable rate for future generations to also benefit.” 

Sustainability is also a term GreenFirst applies to its employees and their jobs. “We can’t control markets, but we can work on controlling costs. So, if we have productive, safe operations we can better offer that stable, sustainable employment,” Doman says. 

The seasoned executive acknowledges that forestry has a public image problem in Canada. But he hopes that GreenFirst and its team will help bring clarity to the conversation. 

“I’m really looking forward to working with governments and anyone who is interested to go through the science of forestry so we can build a healthy, sustainable future for not just current generations, but future generations. And, on top of that, we increase the number of trees out there,” he says. “We’re the solution.” 

Next steps

GreenFirst’s executives are prioritizing optimization of their lumber operations to increase their capacity up to one billion bdft a year. 

“We believe that the company can produce, just in those six mills, up to 850 million bdft plus or minus a bit, based on the AAC. We’re developing a capital expenditure plan to increase capacity at those mills, reduce operating costs, and improve recovery,” Doman says. 

Making that happen is GreenFirst’s newly appointed president Michel Lessard, former vice-president of forest operations at Rayonier.

The Kenora restart is also top of mind. Doman says discussions with the Ontario government continue. 

GreenFirst is making long-term plans in Eastern Canada despite the contracting industry. They have a 20-year agreement with Rayonier Advanced Materials to supply residuals to their pulp facility in Témiscaming, Que. The company is also diving into a three-year capital expenditure program focused on safe and productive operations, led by Lessard. 

“I feel that, for the future, having a strong AAC and having the integrated business is very important,” Doman says. “We’re very pleased with our sawmill acquisitions and our paper acquisitions. We feel like we’ve developed a strong eastern Canada forestry company.”

The mill is located on an approximately 30-acre leased site on the Fraser River in Delta, B.C. The mill was built in 1963 and was acquired by Interfor in 2001 from Primex Forest Products. The mill specializes in producing lumber squares for the traditional Japanese home market and most of the production is exported to Asia. The mill has a two-shift rated capacity of approximately 140 million board feet per year, but has been operating on a one-shift basis for many years. The mill produced 56 million board feet of lumber in 2021, representing approximately two per cent of Interfor’s total company-wide production in 2021.

San Group is a privately held, B.C. based forest products company, with primary and value-added lumber manufacturing operations in Port Alberni and Langley, B.C. The San Group intends to continue operating the mill.

With the acquisition of the mill, The San Group’s production capacity will exceed 500 million board feet, making the company the second largest sawmilling business on the B.C. Coast.

“Acorn’s complementary sawmilling technology, customer base and geographic footprint make it an excellent fit with our value-added business model, and the transaction strengthens our global wood products export base,” said San Group’s co-owner Kamal Sanghera. “We expect Acorn Forest Products Ltd. to be an industry leader in wood products manufacturing, enhancing our position of producing some of the world’s most carbon-conscious environmentally friendly wood products, and to be well-positioned for the transition towards higher levels of autonomy. The acquisition is also consistent with our go-forward strategy to diversify and accelerate investment in high-growth areas.”

Suki Sanghera, San Group’s co-owner, said: “This is a compelling transaction for all stakeholders. It will deliver significant and immediate value to San Group by connecting Acorn’s production capacity with our current facilities, and to provide current and new employees an opportunity to join a company whose philosophy is entered on increasing the longevity of our forests through value-added manufacturing. We have invested a great deal into the B.C. forestry sector, including the construction of a new mill and world leading 300,000 sq. ft. value-added plant in Port Alberni, and Acorn will seamlessly integrate within our ecosystem creating at scale one of Canada’s most efficient and largest value-added wood products companies.

“We have a great deal of respect for Interfor’s team and their culture of innovation and creativity. One of our first major deals in the lumber industry was with Mr. Sauder in the early 1990’s to acquire a remanufacturing plant. We are humbled to now have the opportunity to purchase Acorn, one of the B.C. Coastal region’s premier sawmilling facilities. We will strive to live up to his family’s name and their contribution to the B.C. forest industry by emulating his entrepreneurial spirit which allowed Interfor to become one of the world’s largest and environmentally conscious forestry companies. We are excited to welcome Acorn’s employees into our global San Group family and are confident that together we will be able to achieve improved results and move product faster through to the value-added wood products market.”

The completion of the transaction is subject to customary conditions and is expected to close in the second quarter of 2022.

The funding will help the company build a new state-of-the-art OSB plant. Wawa OSB is investing $181 million to build the OSB plant, which is the third OSB manufacturing facility in the province.

“This assistance is a key first step in financing our project to reopen the Wawa OSB mill,” said Yolaine Rousseau, executive vice-president, Wawa OSB Inc., in a press release. “The Cossette family is very excited about creating jobs in Northern Ontario and increasing our production capacity to better serve North American customers. I would like to reiterate our commitment to working with the various stakeholders, including the First Nations in the territory. Our team is proud and grateful to the Government of Ontario for recognizing the importance of this project to the province, and we will continue our discussions with the Government of Canada to obtain their support as well.”

The funding is provided through the Forest Sector Investment and Innovation Program, and is conditional on Wawa OSB completing several key project milestones including working with local Indigenous and municipal communities and Sustainable Forest License holders.

The 325-person sawmill has been the site of several multi-million-dollar investment projects over the past few years that have positioned the mill as one of the most advanced in the province. And big things are still to come, says plant manager Gary Ross.

“Lots of good things are coming for High Level,” Ross says in an interview with Canadian Forest Industries. “I can’t say enough about how the company has invested in this asset. And they continue to invest to get the most out of it. It’s really encouraging.”

One of the largest projects the mill has seen to date was the installation of a thermal energy plant to utilize the sawmill’s residuals. That, coupled with a new joint-venture pellet plant on-site, means the mill is adding value to 100 per cent of the fibre entering its gates.

Mighty mill

Located within the town of High Level – 730 kilometres north of Edmonton – the mill has been operating for around 45 years. Tolko bought the mill from Daishowa-Marubeni International (DMI) in 1999.

Today the sawmill has 325 hourly employees and is running three eight-hour shifts Monday to Friday with weekends shut down for maintenance and clean-up. The planer mill runs seven days a week less maintenance shutdowns.

Located within the town of High Level, the sawmill has been operating for around 45 years, more than half of that time as a Tolko mill. Photo courtesy Tolko Industries.

Last year, the three canter-line mill produced 460 mmbf, consuming 1.75 million cubic metres of 100 per cent cut-to-length spruce and pine. Around 95 per cent of that volume is spruce, with the average top size around seven inches.

“One of the unique characteristics about sawmilling in northern Alberta is that we actually have a very small harvest window. All of our logging activities take place starting in December and they are wrapped up by mid-March. Those 1.75 million cubic metres of logs all have to be harvested within that three-month period,” Ross says.

Even in that short window, there are often periods of downtime when temperatures drop so low that the logging equipment can’t run, he says.

To ensure enough volume is harvested during that time, Tolko runs several satellite yards storing full-tree logs that are processed for the mill as needed.

The 12- to 20-foot logs stored in the mill yard are handled first by four Sennebogen high-lift loader cranes. The handlers have large grapples and high-lift capability, which allows Tolko to stack logs up to nine-metres high.

“It’s a different experience when you’re out in the yard and you see a stack of logs nine-metres high that goes for almost a kilometre – that’s how far some of our rows are out there,” Ross says.

Last year, the mill consumed 1.75 million cubic metres of 100 per cent cut-to-length spruce and pine. Photo courtesy Tolko Industries.

The mill’s three canters are fed by three separate debarkers: a 30-inch Nicholson Cambio debarker and two A8 Nicholson debarkers for the smaller logs. Scanning is done using USNR’s MillExpert log optimizer system.

“We’re looking for both productivity and recovery. We try to optimize all three of those canter lines and it’s standardized across all three,” Ross says.

The canter lines – all USNR – operate as a small, medium, and large line. The small line runs with curve sawing through the gang. The medium line has quad arbour saws to pull sideboards off the logs and cants. And the large line runs a quad band system that pulls multiple sideboards off the large logs before sending them through a gang to break down further.

The mill has two USNR edger systems and two sorter lines that both have 60-bin sorting capacity.

“One of our challenges with Northern Alberta with that smaller log size is piece counts. We run a lot of pieces – 85 per cent of our production is coming from a three-inch to six-inch wide product,” Ross says.

Lumber drying happens at one of four kilns – two Wellons continuous dry kilns and two batch kilns – all of which run off thermal oil. A fifth gas-fired kiln is used as a back-up.

Finally, the pieces are planed, trimmed, and sorted in the planer mill. High Level operates two Stetson-Ross planers with Autolog auto graders fitted on the outfeed for consistent and accurate grade scanning and optimization. From there, they are trimmed, sorted, stacked and then wrapped for sale and shipment.

Tolko is eyeing a project to overhaul their debarking process, which would include separating their hog streams. Photo courtesy Tolko Industries.

Chuckegg Creek fire

In May of 2019, lightning sparked a wildfire northwest of High Level that burned more than 350,000 hectares, causing the evacuation of nearly 10,000 people from the town and surrounding communities.

The result for the mill was access to a significant amount of salvage fibre, and they quickly pivoted to take advantage of it, Ross says.

“Putting the mill on full shifting was really driven by that,” he says. “We did about a year and a half of 100 per cent fire-kill volume. We’ve since moved back to green fibre, but we’ve maintained the shifting at the mill.”

Ross says that as a result of High Level’s existing infrastructure, minimal recapitalization was required to manage this volume. “With the three canter-line mill, what’s in the forest doesn’t necessarily match perfectly with what our sawing capabilities are, so we did have to make some minor adjustments in order to continue to operate all three canter lines on three shifts.”

Nothing to waste

Tolko’s largest projects in High Level have been focused on optimization of the sawmill’s residuals. To make that happen, two massive infrastructure projects came online in the past few years: a wood pellet plant and a thermal energy plant.

The wood pellet plant is a 50-50 partnership with Drax (previously Pinnacle Renewable Energy). The 200,000 metric tonnes per-year facility came online in late 2020. (Read about that project here.)

The thermal energy plant – 100 per cent owned and operated by Tolko – was also recently commissioned. Construction began in 2018 and the plant was operational in September 2019, with full capacity reached in December 2020. It now provides 100 per cent of the energy used for producing pellets and drying lumber.

The High Level thermal energy plant now provides 100 per cent of the energy used on-site for producing pellets and drying lumber. Photo courtesy Tolko Industries.

“There’s a lot of pride in that we’re one of the few facilities that is getting to an almost zero balance with all of our residual management. When a log comes to site, we’re utilizing 100 per cent of that log.

“There’s really nothing leaving the site in a form that’s not adding some level of value to a final customer,” Ross says.

Wellons provided the turn-key solution for the thermal energy plant as well as the insulated piping that brings thermal oil to and from the pellet plant and kilns. Excess heat is addressed with a 50 million BTU heat dump. The plant has an electrostatic precipitator (ESP), which separates the fine particulate and removes it from the plant’s exhaust.

“We end up with a really clean exhaust coming out of that energy plant. It’s a very efficient system. With beehive burners we had a lot of ash issues. Ever since the energy plant has gone in, we’ve seen no issues with the ash, so it’s been very promising,” Ross says.

The thermal energy system was designed to match Tolko’s annual hog fuel production in the years before the mill’s ramp up to three shifts. Now that they’ve been consistently running at capacity, the excess hog is heading to the wood pellet facility, which can include up to 15 per cent hog fuel in its fibre mix.

Ross says a challenge they’ve encountered since running the pellet facility and thermal energy plant at full capacity is disruptions to rail service. If rail service is compromised, the pellet facility cannot produce pellets and therefore doesn’t require heat.

“The pellet facility is at the mercy of rail car supply, so they’ve had to shut down at times. We end up idling our thermal energy plant down, so instead of operating at 110 million BTU where we’re consuming all our hog fuel, we’ll drop it down to 60 or 70 million BTU. But the excess hog fuel becomes an issue,” Ross says. As well, changing the plant’s output takes a toll on the machinery.

To combat this, Tolko is adding a secondary heat dump that will allow them to keep the plant running at full scale.

The High Level sawmill is planning for a first-of-its-kind robotic packaging project. Photo courtesy Tolko Industries.

Capital program

Other site improvements over the past few years include two continuous dry kiln (CDK) conversions, as well as the conversion of their batch kilns to thermal oil. The first CDK came online at the same time as the thermal energy plant, to be used as an outlet for the thermal heat. The second came online in May 2020.

Condition-based monitoring has been an ongoing in-house project for many Tolko mills for a number of years, Ross says. Using a variety of scanners or cameras, a mill’s controls team will develop a monitoring solution specific to a machine centre. If a project is found to be successful, the team will share it with other divisions.

Unsurprisingly, the pandemic took its now-typical toll on the timeline for all of these recent projects, and Ross says they’re adjusting their expectations for future projects as well.

“We’ve got a fairly big list of capital projects that we’re taking on over the next couple of years here and we just know that what used to take six months to a year to deliver now takes 18 months to two years. We’re adjusting,” he says.

Those upcoming projects include a revamp of the mill’s dust collection process, as well as an upgrade to the sawmill’s large canter line. The canter line upgrade will see a new USNR gang installed as well as profilers added to streamline the breakdown process.

Ross says they are also eyeing a project to overhaul their debarking process, which would include separating their hog streams to provide optimal bark sizes for either the thermal energy plant or the pellet plant. Currently all of the bark goes through a Brunette Grizzly Mill hog to get to target size, but they’ve found the energy centre runs better off a larger piece size and the pellet plant benefits from smaller sizes.

A large, first-of-its-kind robotic packaging project is also coming up for High Level, which Ross says could revolutionize lumber packaging. Suffice to say, we will be checking in with the High Level team again soon!

Three years into his management role at the High Level sawmill, Ross certainly isn’t looking to slow down.

“I’m very excited to be a part of the High Level division,” he says. “It’s been a great experience. I’ve been up here three years already – time flies – but to see the growth of the division has been a wonderful experience. We’ve got great people up here and a bright future.”

“These record numbers are more great news for Saskatchewan’s economy and show we’re fully on track to achieve our goals of doubling forestry sector growth by 2030 and substantially increasing the value of our exports,” Saskatchewan’s Energy and Resources Minister Bronwyn Eyre said in a statement. “Forestry is currently the largest sector in our province’s north, supports nearly 8,000 jobs and relies heavily on Indigenous workers and businesses.”

The forest industry has been rapidly expanding in the province. In 2021, the government of Saskatchewan announced timber allocations worth nearly $1 billion in capital investments that will see over 2,600 new jobs created. The projects include construction of an OSB mill in Prince Albert, the expansion of Dunkley Lumber’s Carrot River sawmill, upgrades at the Big River sawmill and the reopening of the Prince Albert pulp mill.

Angelina joins West Fraser’s four other Texas lumber and OSB operations in Henderson, New Boston, Jefferson and Nacogdoches. Sean McLaren, West Fraser chief operating officer, said in a statement to CFI that the mill acquisition is another important step in their continued expansion of U.S. lumber operations.

“The acquisition of the Angelina lumber mill is an exciting opportunity for West Fraser and we look forward to welcoming the Angelina mill employees to the team,” McLaren said.

The COO said the company’s history operating and investing in East Texas means they know it’s a great place to do business. “We are excited to continue growing in this important region and having all our employees working together to support our growing Texas customer base and to continue supporting the communities in which we operate,” McLaren said. 

West Fraser expects to bring the sawmill up to full production capacity of approximately 305 million board feet within the next three to four years.

“I have been impressed with the remarkable work of the Angelina team in building and commissioning the mill in Lufkin, Texas,” McLaren said. “The Angelina mill is a new, modern facility, and West Fraser looks forward to supporting the team as they continue to ramp the mill up to full production capacity.”

In West Fraser’s news release announcing the acquisition, the company said it anticipates Angelina to be among the lowest cost operations in their lumber mill portfolio. The sawmill is strategically located near low-cost and abundant fibre as well as large and growing end-markets. Get a look inside the mill here.

With Angelina on board, West Fraser’s Canadian and U.S. lumber production capacity is a staggering seven billion board feet, with U.S. southern yellow pine lumber representing around 50 per cent of the company’s capacity.

The project went smoothly, and the team’s work safe record was impeccable. But what Quarles is most proud of is that the community he loves, that has seen other industry leave and take good jobs with it, now has another outlet. The icing on the cake is that the management structure of Angelina Forest Products is composed of local businessmen and landowners who had never built a sawmill before. “We talk about stewardship a lot, and having lived here my entire life, what a business like this brings to the county…To be a part of this project is very special to me,” Quarles reiterates.

Hired initially as the production manager, Quarles has since assumed the role of mill manager, and was one of the first to come onboard with the facility in September 2018 along with the mill’s maintenance manager.

[Editor’s note: Read about West Fraser’s acquisition and comment from chief operating officer, Sean McLaren, here.]

Project timeline

Leaning heavily on the staff’s collective experience with Mid-South Engineering at other facilities for other projects, AFP selected Mid-South as the project engineer, while the internal AFP team managed the project themselves. For the greenfield facility, the management team, all of whom were lumber manufacturing veterans, was able to go with vendors they had prior knowledge of and experience with. From the equipment choices to rolling stock to Mid-South as the engineering firm, everyone had worked with someone else along the way.

The timeline was tight and aggressive, just under one year from field to facility, but doable. It was about a year from first bringing on staff and contractors to the commissioning of equipment, Quarles says, accomplished in part because of the vendors. The largest construction contractor on site, responsible for both mechanical and electrical portions of large areas of the mill, was PCE Constructors out of Louisiana. Timberline Erectors, Inc. handled the construction of the sorters, while USNR provided a turnkey solution for both continuous dry kilns.

Angelina Forest Product’s production in summer 2021 was 270 MMBF in 2×4 to 2×12, 8- to 20-foot lengths. Photo courtesy Hatton Brown.

Quarles says while weather was a concern, and a setback early on in the process, once the foundation work was able to be completed, the long days didn’t exactly cease but things started clicking into place a little more regularly. “We had our challenges,” he adds. “Seven days a week working 12 to 16 hour days, but we got through it.” In the end, the plant was commissioned in early fall of 2019.

Of those startup issues, Quarles says a lot were on the controls side of things, a challenge but not an insurmountable one. The team pushed through together and was able to partner with vendors that Quarles says were not only very talented but helped get the issues resolved and bring production to an efficiency he’s pleased with. It was a group effort with a large amount of attention to detail, he says. That attention to detail is evident in the mill’s safe work history, and the team-building the veteran management team led throughout startup.

“We were very fortunate to have some experienced folks join our team,” Quarles notes, “and a portion of our team was new to sawmilling. But we have great folks out there working every day toward our goals; that’s been a huge positive.”

AFP reports a low turnover rate compared to the industry average, even through a greenfield startup—which ran on a “supershift” basis for six weeks before the staff of about 153 transitioned to a two-shift schedule. “Two was always the plan,” Quarles says. But the supershift was necessary to get them started and acclimated to the machines, and the machines acclimated to full production.

“Our processes continue to grow and evolve through process improvement,” he says. “As we’ve learned some of the demands of the equipment our asset care activities must adjust.” Newer mills demand electrical and controls attention and precision alignments are critical to success. Flexibility is the key in adjusting to the right schedule of reliability centered asset care activities, he explains.

Each of these critical changes have pushed AFP’s reliability and quality to be better than before, Quarles notes, but there is still opportunity for growth. To rise to the need to the newer, more electrical focused equipment, Quarles and the staff lean on technology previously not necessarily thought of for sawmills, like infrared cameras, vibration analysis and ultrasonic tools to make sure the assets are operating at their full potential. But, these changes don’t mean it is time for AFP to rest on its laurels. Quarles emphasizes, “Over the last year there have been tremendous strides and improvement: If you look at where we’ve been, last December was a strong month for us in terms of volume, and then through the first half of this year we have sustained that. But, there is still room for process improvement.”

Quarles might sound like a broken record to some, but he says the mill’s biggest opportunities are in improvements to reliability and efficiency.

Thanks to an incredibly favourable location to the massive markets of Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, Austin and New Braunfels, and a strong timber basket in east Texas, he has nothing to complain about: “That’s why our continued focus is going to be on getting stronger and having better throughput mill-wide.”

Angelina Forest Products has 120-130 trucks per day bringing wood through its gates. Photo courtesy Hatton Brown.

Mill flow

A procurement manager, aided by a procurement tech, oversee all needed southern yellow pine timber from a 121-kilometre radius of Lufkin. AFP purchases standing timber, gatewood and has agreements with land management companies to keep the 120-130 trucks per day moving through the gates.

Once brought onto the wood yard, a Fulghum single bite crane with a Mack grapple unloads trucks, and approximately 20,000 tons are able to be stored on the yard. Once ready for processing, logs are fed on a Timber Automation log infeed system, where they are debarked using a dual ring Valon Kone ring debarker then pass MDI metal detection. From there, logs travel to the Timber Automation merchandizing line, which positions the log and makes the programmed bucks. Three sort decks feed the primary breakdown.

The primary breakdown at AFP is a USNR quad arbor sawbox with vertical shape saw and gang. The log comes to the USNR infeed positioning rolls, and then two sides are chipped then downstream chippers chip the profiles along the edges of the cant and the quad arbor sawbox removes the sideboards. The cant runs through the gang configuration that removes profiled top and bottom boards and creates the remaining 2-inch pieces. A USNR three saw board edger takes sideboards or any reman material from the trimmer. Then it is to a USNR double unscrambler, USNR lug loading and trim system, and 55-bay sorter. A MoCo stick placing stacker prepares packs for the kilns.

AFP is a dimension mill, focusing heavily on narrow production. With flexibility thanks to the drying capacity, Quarles says the 270MMBF can ramp up significantly if needed, but for now production stays at 270MMBF in 2×4 to 2×12, 8 ft. to 20 ft. lengths. In order to cut those, cants are typically either 4 in., 6 in., 8 in., or 12 in. The primary breakdown is capable of making 10 in. but Quarles and his team don’t use them right now.

Once packaged for the kilns, bundles either go to the green yard or to one of the kilns. AFP has two USNR UniFlow unidirectional kilns (UDKs) with eight grate sawdust burners, and a third natural gas burning USNR batch kiln that was commissioned in the fall of 2020. Three packs are placed on each kiln cart. “We’re fuel positive,” Quarles notes with pride of the two UDKs. Of the batch kiln, he explains that it gives the mill the option to be more flexible in its product mix, and get into some specialty products, but notes that it was designed to be converted if needed to a UDK.

Angelina has two USNR continuous dry kilns and a third natural gas burning USNR batch kiln

Coming out of the kilns, lumber meets a USNR tilt hoist takedown system ahead of a USNR planer machine, quad cam lug loader and USNR transverse high grader merchandizing line. A dual sort bin system from USNR with 80 bays total, first 25 being duals, allows the merchandizing system and cut-in-two to be more efficient. “This way, we’re maximizing efficiency on that line and long lumber is sorted on the back end,” Quarles explains.
Once sorted, finished packs are made with a USNR package maker, strapped using a Signode machine and then stored in the warehouse for trucking.

All rolling stock, big and small, is provided by Taylor. Scanning mill-wide was provided by USNR. The vibrating conveyors in both the green end and the dry end were provided by Mill Power. Western Pneumatics handles the chip, bark and shavings bins, as well as sawdust collection in the sawmill.

Saw filing is done in-house with one head filer and two filers on each shift, working primarily with Williams & White, Vollmer and Simonds equipment. Circle saws are top and face ground with Vollmer CHC 840s, while the side grinding is completed on a Vollmer CHF 840 machine. Stellite tips are installed using a Vollmer GPA 200. Armstrong 25 CNC grinder handles rough grinding, while automated saw bench work is done on the Armstrong GSL. Several Williams & White machines are used in knife grinding (W&W LSGX-P72), guide cutting (W&W GDX), and circle saw stretcher roll (W&W 36DF).

This article originally appeared in Hatton-Brown’s Timber Processing July 2021 issue. Re-published with permission.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article incorrectly identified the USNR kilns as continuous dry kilns or CDK. These are USNR UniFlow kilns, or UDKs. CFI apologizes for the error. 

The Papasay Sawmill resides in the heart of Lake Nipigon Forest in what is both the old and new home of Bingwi Neyaashi Anishinaabek (BNA), formerly called Sand Point First Nation. It’s a two-hour drive northeast of Thunder Bay, Ont.

Today, just 14 people live on the BNA reserve land, which comprises a handful of recently built housing units, a health centre, cultural area, government office, greenhouse, and the sawmill.

One hundred per cent owned by the First Nation, the Papasay Sawmill is tooled for maximum flexibility to provide both local employment and the wood products needed to build a new community from the ground-up.

Home at last

To understand the importance of the Papasay Sawmill to BNA members, you must understand their history.

The people of Bingwi Neyaashi Anishinaabek have always called the southeastern shores of Lake Nipigon home. In the 1920s, Ontario dammed the Nipigon River, flooding all communities on the shores of the lake. The BNA people were forced to pick up and move to higher ground.

Not long after, in the ’40s and ’50s, the Ontario government cancelled the provincial License of Occupation that allowed BNA band members to live on their traditional land, instead claiming the land for a provincial park. Once again, BNA members packed up and left their homes, this time leaving their land behind entirely.

On April 22, 2010, after more than half a century, a federal Order in Council returned the Lake Nipigon Provincial Park territory to BNA. Work has been ongoing since to resettle and rebuild the community. Top of mind at the time for Chief Paul Gladu was a sawmill, explains BNA director of economic Development, Jordan Hatton.

“He had a vision of a sawmill being an anchor project for the community, which would bring members back home with a good job, and from that we could redevelop the First Nation that was destroyed,” Hatton said in an interview with CFI.

Lead sawyer Adam Hardy from Biinjitiwaabik Zaaging Anishinaabek (Rocky Bay First Nation) operates one of the mill’s Wood-Mizer sawmills.

After years in the making, the Papasay Sawmill cut its first board in August 2017. Mill manager Art Gladu recalls those early days with a laugh.

“We started off in 2017, myself and two other BNA band members. We were running our sawline throughout the winter. Minus fifty outside, probably minus forty inside. We had a porta-potty outside because we didn’t have running water. We were pretty much working inside a pop can,” Gladu said.

Conditions improved radically thanks to Resolute Forest Products’ donation of two Herman Nelson diesel heaters, and support from federal funders. Today, the mill is hooked up to three-phase power and uses a Froling 150-KW boiler that runs on sawmill residuals.

“Now workers in the sawmill, instead of wearing parkas and heavy-duty pants, we’re back into our summer attire. We have our T-shirts, our safety vests, our hard hats. The temperature now is about ten degrees Celsius, which sounds cold, but sometimes that feels too warm when you’re sweating!” Gladu said.

Mill specs

Like any mill, Papasay Sawmill is a work in progress. At its current state, the mill can produce 2,000 bdft a day, running whatever species they have in the log yard: typically birch, cedar, poplar or SPF.

Rough cut, green cants from Papasay Sawmill are loaded for delivery.

The mill purchases most of its volume from Resolute Forest Products in Thunder Bay. Resolute’s mills are tooled for specific, smaller log sizes so Papasay purchases their oversized logs, anything 18 inch and above, at fair market value.

Sixteen-inch logs are brought to the mill doors via 310SG John Deere backhoe. Another smaller Toyota forklift positions the logs at the infeed of one of the mill’s two Wood-Mizer portable hydraulic sawmills, an LT40 and LT50.

“The LT50 has lifting arms that take the log, bring it up on top of the cradle. And then there are log turners and pins getting that log semi level and straight. Once straight, the operator locks that all in and starts to cut that log,” Gladu said.

The LT50 can handle up to a 30-inch diameter log and can cut a maximum of 28-inch width and 17-foot length. The LT40 is a more manual version of the LT50, but can cut similar max diameter, width, and length logs. Both machines are built by Wood-Mizer in the U.S.

After the sawline, conveyors bring the slabs to a 250 Wood-Mizer edger that removes the bark and wane from a 3-inch to a 15-inch board to produce a finished product. Boards are then pilled according to sizes in their lumber yard, ready to be shipped out as rough-cut, green lumber.

At the time of writing, Gladu was overseeing a concrete pour that will be the foundation of a recently purchased Nova kiln chamber to house their KDTL 685 dry kiln.

Once the kiln is up and running, the mill will be venturing into value-added products. Papasay has purchased a Gau Jing Machinery GN-6S23 planer moulder that can produce dimensional lumber, tongue and groove, and other products where there are opportunities.

From left: Sawmill workers Cody Ladouceur, Lindsay Whalen and Josef Gladu stand with the mill’s new planer moulder.

The mill also runs a John Deere 310SG backhoe, a Kubota M7-152D tractor, two mobile chippers – a Pezzolato PTH 40.70E stationary drum chipper and a Farmi Forest CH27 chipper with a BC3000 infeed trailer.

Papasay plans to install a custom-built Baker Products sawline in the coming year that will quadruple their daily production. But, with employment an ongoing challenge across the industry, the mill is designed to keep operating whether they have five employees or only two on shift.

“With the Baker line, you can operate it with fewer people. You can still run it with two people. We’re not going to shut down because we don’t have a full workforce. Flexible and nimble is the two terms we aim for,” Hatton said.

Building their community

Papasay Value-Added Wood Products has two business plan goals. The first is to increase production numbers to meet the needs of larger rough-cut, green lumber projects in Northwestern Ontario. The new sawline will go a long way to seeing that happen, Hatton said.

The second goal is diversification of their product line to produce more value-added products with the new kiln and the planer moulder operating on site.

BNA Chief Paul Gladu and Papasay sawmill manager Art Gladu tour the operation with neighbouring First Nation members.

A consistent priority for Papasay has been the production of lumber and value-added wood products for building homes in the new BNA community, as well as in neighbouring First Nations. So far, they have built two duplexes, three houses, a small health centre and a greenhouse. This is just the start. Three more houses are in the works and the community is making plans for a biomass district energy system to heat the buildings from sawmill residuals.

“We can use the residue from the sawmill to heat the homes and lower heating costs for the members. It’s all interlinked,” Hatton said. “I use the word anchor project for the sawmill because it’s a foundational project. BNA 100 per cent owns it, controls it, drives it, and the whole point is to redevelop the community that was destroyed. It’s almost symbolic.”

Gladu describes a heartwarming moment when an Elder set foot in a new house on BNA land for the first time in 2018. “One of our Elders walked into one of these homes, basically in tears, saying ‘I never thought in my lifetime I’d be back in my community,’” Gladu said.

“For me, the end goal is that we’re on the community, we’re getting the material from our Lake Nipigon forest, we have our band members cutting it (with a few other First Nation members), drying that material, creating it and selling it to build our next home. That’s the glory right there,” he said.

The Bioenergy Centre will use residual wood waste from nearby NorSask Forest Products (also owned by the MLTC), to provide enough electricity to power 5,000 homes in the community. As part of that project, a new Muhlbock six-zone Progressive Flo 1306 PRO continuous kiln is being installed, which will run off of the energy produced in the Bioenergy Centre.

Repurposing residual waste

The MLTC (which is made up of nine First Nations communities) has owned NorSask Forest Products for over 30 years – 10 years as joint owners (1988 to 1998), and 20 years (1999 to 2021) as the sole owners.

The objective of MLTC’s bioenergy project is to generate carbon-neutral green power using sawmill biomass residuals and to reduce air emissions by eliminating one of Canada’s last remaining beehive burners.

“All of the wood waste coming out of the NorSask mill – trim-ends, sawdust, planer shavings, bark and off-sized chips – have been disposed of in a 50-year-old beehive burner, until now when a new technology is being brought into operation,” explains Tina Rasmussen, corporate development and administration officer with MLTC Industrial Investments.

MLTC’s elders and leadership have long understood that there needed to be something done with that biomass, to ensure that each piece of the tree is being used and not wasted, she adds.

“The bioenergy plant will enhance the economic outcomes of the nine First Nation communities associated with the Meadow Lake Tribal Council through improved operations of Canada’s only 100 per cent Indigenous-owned sawmill and by converting a waste stream into valuable energy that can be sold to SaskPower to power up to 5,000 Saskatchewan homes. The revenue produced by the sale of power created by the bioenergy facility will go directly back to support the First Nations communities,” Rasmussen explains.

Construction is currently underway at the MLTC Bioenergy Centre, which is expected to be fully operational by January 2022. Photo courtesy MLTC.

Management and leadership began the lengthy process of negotiating a power purchase agreement with SaskPower for the sale of electricity and secured a federal green energy grant funding to begin construction on the Bioenergy Centre.

“The project consists of a reciprocating grate furnace with thermal oil heat exchangers, an 8.3 MW organic rankine cycle (ORC) turbo-generator and all associated fuel handling and environmental emission systems. In general terms, all of the residual wood waste products from NorSask are burned in the thermal oil furnace,” Rasmussen explains. “The thermal oil plant combustion creates heat, which is transferred to an oil that in turn heats Cyclopentane, which becomes a gas. This gas then turns a turbine that produces electrical energy.”

Construction began on the Bioenergy Centre in April 2020, and will be fully operational in January 2022. The facility is capable of producing 8.3 megawatts of energy, of which 6.6 megawatts will go into the SaskPower grid.

Environmental benefits

The excess energy from the Bioenergy Centre will be used to produce and heat glycol, which will be piped to a new Muhlbock continuous kiln over at the NorSask mill.

The kiln has radiant-type heating throughout it to control the temperature, Rasmussen explains. All told, it will cut 50-60 per cent of natural gas usage at the mill.

“The efficiency and productivity gains of this new continuous kiln will be very exciting,” adds Kelly Lehoux, general manager of NorSask Forest Products. “It lowers our input costs by not having to use natural gas as a heat source. The new continuous kiln uses a lower temperature for drying lumber compared to a traditional natural gas heated batch kiln. The new continuous kiln will substantially improve our lumber drying quality.

On top of the environmental benefits, the new kiln will help offset some capacity challenges at the mill.

NorSask Forest Products produces 150 mmbf annually, but in March this year, a fire took out two of the mill’s existing batch kilns, both of which were around 50 years old. Since then, the mill has been down 40 per cent in terms of drying capacity, Lehoux shares.

“So, this new kiln will pick up that volume and then some. We expect the new kiln to dry 90 million board feet annually, which would be approximately 60 per cent of our production,” he explains.

“It’s giving us a substantial boost in lumber drying capacity, so we’re happy about that,” he continues. “It’s been a little tough to be without two kilns for seven months or so now, but we’re getting through it. The new kiln is well on its way with the construction phase nearing completion.”

The construction process has been fairly smooth and has not disrupted the mill’s normal operations, Lehoux says. There have been some challenges and delays caused by COVID-19, he admits, but “we’re a creative group, we work well as a team and we discuss our challenges in order to find solutions.”

Commissioning of the kiln will happen in November or December, and it should be fully operational in January 2022, when the MLTC Bioenergy Centre comes online.

A unique design

The Muhlbock continuous kiln is not your average continuous kiln. Not only will it dry lumber using glycol instead of natural gas as a heat source, it also has a unique design.

Lumber does not flow through the kiln continuously as one would expect. Instead, the kiln acts like six batch kilns in one. There are six zones inside the kiln that advance together at certain stages of the lumber drying process, Lehoux explains.

This is a big reason why Muhlbock won the request for proposal (RFP) that the MLTC put out when they first started looking for a new kiln.

“We had four or five different vendors bid on this project, and it came down to a few different things. The amount of volume that we could dry in the kiln was a big factor and, of course, price is another consideration. How the design fit into our way of doing things, particularly the lumber transfer system – that was a big part of it,” Lehoux explains.

NorSask has an uncommon lumber transfer system. Rather than using mobile equipment to move the lumber, they use an electric transfer car, he says. Additionally, lumber at the mill flows from north to south, but the kilns are loaded at the south end of the mill site.

As a result, “we couldn’t have wood flowing in both directions, which is very typical of a continuous kiln,” Lehoux explains. “So, the transfer system and the existing mill infrastructure is a key point in the choice to go with Muhlbock.”

Once construction on the kiln is finished, NorSask will begin training their staff on the new equipment.

“We’re going to put a lot of effort into training our controls people, our electrical team, mechanical team and the new kiln operators on the operation of the kiln,” Lehoux says. There will be a lot of effort upfront on training, safety protocols etc. I think it’s like any other piece of new equipment – you have to just go through the process and make sure everybody understands what’s required.”

But, he expects that the training will be fairly straightforward.

 ‘A huge opportunity’

Looking ahead, the new Muhlbock kiln and the Bioenergy Centre will have a big impact on the MLTC’s forestry operations, not only by reducing their greenhouse gas emissions and boosting production capacity, but also because by providing economic opportunities to local First Nations people and companies.

“We have opportunities here for Indigenous people to participate in the overall forest industry. If you’re looking at economic reconciliation from an Indigenous perspective, that truly is an opportunity. And this bioenergy facility is just a completion of the circle, an addition to taking every resource that we have and turning it into an opportunity,” Rasmussen says.

In September 2020, construction began on a $35-million modernization and expansion project that saw the mill leap ahead decades in technology improvement.

The white pine mill, which employs 135 people operating a single shift, produces 35 mmbf annually, turning out products ranging from four to 12 inches in width, six to 16 feet in length and four-quarter to eight-quarter in thickness.

About half of those products go to the U.S., while 40 per cent goes to the domestic market and another 10 per cent is exported overseas, explains Susan Coulombe, general manager of J.D. Irving’s pine division.

The fibre for all those products comes from J.D. Irving’s nearby free-hold and Crown licenses, along with wood purchased from local suppliers.

In order to take advantage of that fibre supply, a new mill needed to be constructed with the latest automation and optimization equipment.

COVID-19 challenges

The company partnered with the BID Group on the project. However, COVID-19 meant rethinking some aspects of the project.

 “Throughout the construction, we were very careful around all of the COVID protocols and managing different contractors,” Coulombe explains.

To ensure employee and contractor safety, J.D. Irving used proximity sensors, which were paired to an employee’s ID card, so they could track everyone’s locations in the event of a positive COVID-19 case.

The company also had separate facilities for all the contractors, including separate lunchrooms and breakrooms.

“We really worked very hard to maintain social distancing and keep everything separate and isolated,” Coulombe says. “It was quite a challenge, but the team did an excellent job. Not only did we not have any COVID cases, but we also did not have any injuries during the entire process and start-up.”

The new mill successfully started-up in July 2021, and the old mill was officially decommissioned on August 20.

JD Irving installed a four-saw stacked horizontal resaw from PHL and a Comact TrimExpert trimmer as part of the upgrade at the mill. Photo courtesy J.D. Irving.

‘Remarkable’ improvements

The new mill is now under the same roof as the planer mill and value-added centre. J.D. Irving added 14,000 square feet to the existing building to accommodate a new Nicholson A6 debarker and a fully automated MoCo stacker. The mill and the value-added lines are now side-by-side, in a U-shape.

In addition to the new debarker and stacker, the company installed two new tilted Cleereman carriages with Cleereman controls, a four-saw, fully optimized Comact EdgeExpert board edger, a four-saw stacked horizontal resaw from PHL, and a Comact TrimExpert trimmer.

Coulombe says the impact is already being felt at the mill.

“The changes are remarkable,” she says. “We’re able to have thinner kerf, better bandsaw technology so we can have a lot less sawing deviation, and we can reduce our target size.”

The fully automated stacker has resulted in improved piling and stickering, which will reduce the mill’s drying defects and trim loss, she adds. And, thanks to the new scanner at the edger and the trimmer, the mill has multiple options for different sawing profiles depending on customer needs and market conditions.

“We expect an increase of about 10 per cent in yield from the automation, thinner kerf and better stacking,” Coulombe says.

Steep learning curve

Until this upgrade was done, grading was manual and lumber handling was labour intensive. So, there was a learning curve with the new automation technology, Coulombe says.

“Obviously, when you put in any scanning technology, no matter how much technology you had before, there’s tweaking and learning to be done with that. But everybody adapted quite well, and we get comments from the employees saying they can’t believe they work in such a nice environment.”

“The employees have come along well,” she continues. “Our management team did a great job in developing training protocols and procedures. As we were building, we tried our best – and again, COVID made it challenging – but we tried our best to bring employees through so they could see it and get familiar with it.”

The new automated equipment has also helped the mill respond to labour shortages.

“Before, we were always short people, and now the equipment has allowed us to fill those gaps,” she says.

“Obviously, the older mill was much more labour intensive. A lot of those jobs, they weren’t very ergonomically friendly, to say the least, and everybody knows how challenging finding labour is. It was next to impossible to find people that were willing and able to do that kind of physical labour,” she adds.

Given this, Coulombe believes automation is the way of the future.

Future market opportunities

Highly automated equipment will also help the Doaktown mill navigate the ups and downs of the lumber market, which has seen record-highs in the past year-and-a-half.

“It’s been a rollercoaster,” Coulombe says. “Last winter, we were struggling to keep up, and then this summer it was a big correction, and now it’s starting to ramp back up again.”

This has made it difficult to do proper market forecasting and planning, she says.

“But, at least now we’re able to try to optimize because we can better predict what’s going to come out the other end, and we can better control what we’re going to make.”

The new equipment will also help the mill get into more niche markets that previously presented challenges because of how quickly customer preferences changed, Coulombe says.

“When you have people manually making decisions, it’s just not realistic to expect them to be able to change as quickly as customers need change,” she explains.

Looking ahead, Coulombe says there will also be more opportunities for the mill to focus on improving the value and yield of the products produced in the value-added centre.

“Now that we have technology from one end to the other, we can really focus on getting the right piece in the right bucket all of the time,” she explains. “Customer trends will change, but because now we’re automated right back to the log, we can make sure we’re doing the right thing right from the first time we put a saw in it.”

The company, now operating under the name Harry Freeman & Son and owned by brothers Charlie and Richard Freeman, employs 150 people full-time, working a shift-and-a-half per week. The mill shipped just under 110 mmbf last year, and is on its way to producing 115 mmbf this year, Richard says.

Most of that lumber is SPF, but they also produce approximately 20 mmbf of eastern white pine. Products range in size from 1×2 to 2×12, including dimensional lumber from six to 16 feet in length; Spruce decking at custom lengths; one-inch SPF boards in various widths for sheathing, strapping and fence construction; and 5/4-inch and one-inch eastern white pine products from three to 12 inches wide.

These products are delivered to customers down the eastern seaboard to Florida, to the U.S. Midwest, and eastern Ontario. Some products are also exported to Pakistan, explains Luke Freeman, dry-end superintendent at Harry Freeman & Son.

Modern facilities
Harry Freeman & Son includes not just a sawmill, but also a stud mill, planer mill, white pine remanufacturing facility, and high-speed moulding plant. The facilities have seen several upgrades over the years to become among the most modern in eastern Canada.

The sawmill is “set up like a duplex,” Richard says. Logs from the log yard go through one of three Nicholson debarkers or an old Morbark debarker. Smaller logs go through a Comact small log line with a Comact trimmer optimizer and Comact optimized board edger. Lumber is then sorted into a 20-bin sorter.

The sawmill, located next door to the stud mill, has a Comact OLI and a Cardinal carriage for primary breakdown. A Comact CPG is used for secondary breakdown. Like the stud mill, the sawmill is highly automated, with an Autolog trimmer optimizer and PHL board edger that grades the lumber and detects any defects, Richard says. The sawn lumber is then sorted in a 45-bin sorter.

The lumber is then dried in biomass-powered steam kilns, after which it goes to the planer mill, through a Gilbert planer and an Autolog linear optimizer, to a 20-bin sorter.

Optimizing operations
Over at the white pine remanufacturing plant, a new optimization project was completed in July. The plant, which has a Gilbert S-series planer moulder and a Leadermac moulder, now features a new Full GradeScan with Perceptive Sight from Lucidyne.

Lucidyne’s Perceptive Sight Intelligent Grading platform uses deep learning artificial intelligence to identify defects and grade lumber. Lumber graders can input data and send it to Lucidyne to teach the system to recognize defects using RGB colour, tracheid sensors, T3 sensors, throughboard sensors and geometric sensors.

“We thought there was a good opportunity with white pine to really focus on better grade recovery and better optimization,” Richard explains when asked about the motivation for installing this new equipment. Previously, grading in the remanufacturing plant was a bottleneck, he adds.

They decided to go with Lucidyne for two primary reasons. First, the company needed a linear machine, as a transverse one would not work with the layout in the plant.

Secondly, Lucidyne has “a great deal of experience dealing with white pine and have excellent customer references,” he says. “The people that were using their system with white pine have been very pleased with how they work, and, so far, we’ve been impressed not only with their equipment but with the level of service they’ve been providing us.”

To install and commission the equipment, the plant only had to be shut down for five days while the new equipment was installed, Luke says. Lucidyne installed the equipment over a weekend, which was ideal as the mill does not run on weekends.

It was “a bit of an adventure” making a new optimization system work with the plant’s existing controls, Richard admits. But, thanks to support from Lucidyne and their own employees, the installation was completed pretty smoothly. 

“We found effective workarounds that enabled us to continue with the commissioning of the line, and to keep moving forward and refine the implementation of the system,” he explains.

The company expects a strong return on investment, since the equipment reduces trim loss and improves the accuracy of grading, resulting in higher productivity.

Investing in the future
And there are more optimization projects in the works at Harry Freeman & Son. The company plans to add additional bins to their lumber sorter at the sawmill, replace their debarkers with two new ones and a used one, and add four log decks. They also plan to replace the sawmill’s trimmer and edger optimizer system with two new vision systems from Comact and install Autolog’s newest species detection system to replace their current one in the stud mill.

“We’ve invested quite heavily in our filing room as well,” Richard says, with new equipment including a Kirschner LK Pro automatic tipping machine, an Iseli RZ-1 bandsaw levelling machine, an Armstrong AS-58 autoswadge, and a Williams & White circular saw levelling station.

The filing room is “trying to automate,” he adds. “Maintaining good quality saws is one of the most important parts of lumber production, of course, and we have to make it easier for the guys to do better jobs, so we’ve made quite an investment there.”

These investments will help the company continue to be successful in the face of multiple challenges – most importantly, the closure of Northern Pulp in Nova Scotia in January 2020.

“It’s had a huge impact on us,” Richard says. “Here in Nova Scotia, we’ve got the highest log costs in Canada. The province, in effect, closed our largest and most important customer.”

According to data published by the government of Nova Scotia, Northern Pulp’s closure resulted in a 25 per cent reduction in the provincial harvest in 2020 compared to 2019, which is about an 800,000 cubic metre reduction – the lowest harvest levels since 1962, Richard says.

“We had higher harvest levels in the 40’s and 50’s than we did in 2020, and it represents about a $400 million blow to the provincial economy,” he adds.

Record-high lumber prices since summer 2020 have helped offset the effects of the pulp mill’s closure. But, this means “the full impact of it really hasn’t been felt yet.” 

On top of the impact of Northern Pulp’s closure, Richard believes current policies are hampering the forest industry.

“We’ve had a very poor policy environment from the provincial government and even from the federal government. It’s not very complicated – we need access to renewable resources and we need markets for residuals,” he says.

Telling our story
Despite this, he believes the sawmill industry is in a good spot, given the environmental benefits of wood products.

“We probably have the best possible building product in an age when people are concerned about the renewable use of scarce resources and carbon sequestration,” he says. “We’ve got wood, which is just a wonderful product – grown with solar energy, it’s renewable, captures carbon, and it has low embodied energy.”

For Richard, the bioeconomy presents a huge opportunity in the forestry sector. Now, it’s just a matter of getting policies in place to be able to take advantage of it.

“Hopefully, we’re going to have that policy environment where rural Nova Scotia can take advantage of these opportunities that are arising as they do in other places, like Scandinavia,” he says. “They grow nine times as much wood per acre in Scandinavia than we do in Nova Scotia, and it’s an abomination.”

The industry also needs to do a better job raising awareness about the environmental benefits of forestry, he says.

“We’ve allowed people who are opposed to the responsible development of natural resources, including renewable resources like forestry, to tell our story for far too long,” he says. “We’ve got a great story now, and we need to do a better job telling it.”

With opportunities like the bioeconomy and engineered wood products, Richard is optimistic about the forest industry. And he believes Harry Freeman & Son is well-positioned to benefit from these possibilities.

“We’ve come through a ‘school of hard knocks’ with the big U.S. housing crisis and the aftermath of that, but now I can honestly say we’ve got better people than we’ve ever had, we’ve got more technical depth and skill than we’ve ever had, we’ve got better equipment than I ever dreamed we’d have, and a world of opportunities opening up around us,” he says. “So, I think there’s huge potential out there.”

1. Investing in new equipment: Sinclar Group’s Apollo Forest Products, based in Fort St. James, B.C., recently invested in a new Iseli BNP200 4 axis CNC bandsaw grinder to do profile grinding of standard and Stellite-tipped bandsaw blades, as well as top and face grinding of Stellite and Carbide-tipped blades. The new technology is “amazing,” according to head filer Kevin Ransom, and a key investment to keeping the mill’s saw blades in tip-top shape.
2. New products: Although the BC Saw Filers Association Convention was once again unable to take place in person due to ongoing concerns about the COVID-19 pandemic, CFI rounded up the newest saw filing solutions. Like last year, automation is a key theme among the new pieces of equipment – Thode’s Iseli BNP 200 bandsaw profile grinder now features automatic loading of the blade, while DK Spec’s Filex MK2nx allows for robotic loading for high-volume grinding of a straight knife, and Williams & White’s new Hammerhead 3000 Auto Bench can automatically tension and level a bandsaw. Multiple other companies have also added automation and data monitoring to their repertoire.
3. Closing the gender gap: Saw filing is “just not a very recognized trade,” says Sara Davies, a ticketed circular saw filer with Spray Lake Sawmills. There are few young people joining the industry and even fewer female saw filers. But, Davies is working to change this by raising awareness about the trade and advocating for increased support for underrepresented groups.
4. Long lead times: In recent months, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has been felt in supply chain problems and worker shortages in multiple industries around the world. Saw filing is no exception, with many mills dealing with long lead times for new saws. CFI columnist Paul Smith explains how mills are combating this by relying on professional saw filers to keep their existing saws running.
5. One-stop-shop: Last week, Wood Fiber Group and USNR announced their merger – big news for the filing world. Wood Fiber Group, which includes Simonds International, Burton Saw & Supply, BGR Saws, Global Tooling and U.S. Blades, is one of the largest suppliers of filing room equipment. The merger, according to USNR, will be a win for both companies and their customers.

CFI’s File Week landing page will continue to be the place for sawfilers and other stakeholders to find best practices and the latest information on new saw filing technology all year long. Find it under the MENU tab, under Explore.

Find the landing page here, and see you next year for File Week 2022!

Apollo Forest Products, which started out producing railroad ties, now produces six- to nine-foot products using primarily white spruce and pine, along with some balsam fir. On a yearly basis, the mid-sized mill produces around 140 mmbf, manufacturing two-inch and one-inch material for the commodity market, along with specialty products for the construction industry.

The mill employs 130 people full-time, six of whom work in the filing shop, fixing up the mill’s bandsaws and round saws, explains Kevin Ransom, lead filer at Apollo.

Ransom is the head of the saw filing department, in charge of organizing his employees’ shifts, ordering saws, and maintaining the machines in the shop and in the sawmill. Ransom and his five co-workers handle all the filing duties, including several different size bandsaws and round saws.

The first of those is in the QM Industries slasher, which cuts logs into eight- or nine-foot blocks. The logs are then sorted by diameter into two sorts – small or large. The small blocks go through small log canter, with a four-inch cant saw running about 550 feet per minute. The cants then go to a Comact TBL2, a gang saw that cuts them into 2x4s or 2x6s. The TBL2 takes 20-inch saws, with 100-inch plates and 60 teeth on each of them, Ransom says.

Blocks that are too large – 24 inches or more – go through a bandsaw, which cuts them down into six-inch or four-inch cants. Then the cants are transferred to the TBL2 for further processing into products ranging in size from 1×3 to 2×6. The bandsaws are 36 inches long with 231 teeth, Ransom says.

Meanwhile, sideboards are transferred to a re-saw edger, which has a 20-inch saw with a 120-inch plate and 60 teeth.

“It’s a shifting edger, so that’s why we’re using a thicker plate,” Ransom explains. “But, it’s only cutting, at most, a two-inch slab.”

The mill also has a sideboard edger from Optimil that cuts up to two-inch slabs, running a 24-inch saw with a 140-inch saw plate and 50 teeth, he says.

Because the mill largely runs spruce and pine, and only occasionally balsam fir, everything is run at the same speeds with the same saws. This means Ransom and his crew don’t have to adjust the amount of tension in the saws depending on the species running through the mill. However, the saws are changed approximately every four hours.

To handle the mechanical duties of the filing room, Ransom and his crew run a few different machines.

The newest one is an Iseli BNP200 4 axis CNC bandsaw grinder, which can do profile grinding of standard and Stellite-tipped bandsaw blades and top and face grinding of Stellite and Carbide-tipped blades.

The machine features automatic insertion of the blade, meaning the machine inserts the saw until it reaches a predetermined height and then closes the sheet clamp. The machine can determine the first saw tooth and calculate the tooth pitch, and then the grinding process begins. Essentially, an operator only needs to insert the blade and then press a button to start the machine.

“It’s amazing,” Ransom says. “It’s got a corundum grinding wheel on it that doesn’t seem to ever wear out. We run oil on that. It’s pretty much eliminated the cracks.”

Ransom also uses an old TMH 10-tooth Vollmer swage, but “that’s pretty much obsolete right now,” he says. “They’re not going to make parts for it anymore, so we’re in the market for a new swage, which will probably also be Iseli.”

But, for the round saws, they are happy with their current fleet of Vollmer equipment, including a CHC 250 face and top dresser, a CHF 210 side dresser and a CPF 200 side dresser. They also have an ECO face and top dresser.

The round saws are carbide-tipped, so Ransom and his team use diamond wheels to grind them. A benchman takes care of the saw plates, leveling them and adjusting the tension.

Accordingly, Apollo Forest Products invests in their people, training new filers in-house. Given the ongoing shortage of available saw filers, this strategy is easier than trying to hire outside talent. New saw filers typically come from a mechanical or utility background, and begin working on the graveyard shift changing knives, Ransom explains.

“I have a really good crew right now,” he adds.

Moving forward, Ransom says he would like to see the filing room get a new exhaust system – a project that is currently in the works.

And, fortunately, management at Apollo Forest Products is on board to help bring in any necessary equipment to help boost efficiencies in the filing room.

“If I submit a machine to put on our budget, I always have a good reason, so they’ll usually get it for me,” Ransom explains. “Our filing room is fairly up-to-date – everything’s new.”

We are looking for other filing rooms that would like to be profiled in this space. If you are interested, please ask your mill management for permission. The mill will always get final approval on the article before printing. Please contact CFI editor Ellen Cools at ecools@annexbusinessmedia.com if you are interested.

That’s why it’s more important than ever to keep up with the latest in the filing room, from the newest technology to industry challenges and more. It’s not just critical for sawfilers, but for everyone at the mill.

Canadian Forest Industries has everything you need to know with File Week 2021 – our annual week-long focus on saw filing innovations and accomplishments, starting today!

All week long, we’re sharing brand new cutting-edge content and product news, as well as content from our archives. We’re highlighting:

• Stories from the filing room
• Technical articles on saw filing
• Equipment spotlights on the latest saw filing gear
• Columns and profile stories
• Strategies for employing the next generation of filers, and more!

CFI’s File Week landing page is a hub for both sawfilers and other stakeholders to learn best practices and find the latest information on advancements in saw filing technology. Our landing page is live all year round, found under the tab sawmilling/File Week.

Find the landing page here and enjoy File Week 2021!

Thank you to our sponsor, SiCam Systems, for making this week possible.

The new turn-key facility, which produces southern yellow pine (SYP) lumber products, began construction in 2018, commenced operations in late 2019 and is expected to progress toward full production capacity of approximately 305 million board feet over the next three to four years. The transaction includes approximately $4 million of target working capital and approximately $24 million of supplemental tax attributes that are expected to result in a direct cash flow benefit to West Fraser.

Strategic rationale and synergies

The acquisition is another important step in West Fraser’s continued expansion of its U.S. lumber operations. The new, highly efficient facility is expected to be a top quartile mill that will integrate with and support our existing East Texas lumber and OSB business. Anticipated to be among the lowest cost operations in the company’s lumber mill portfolio, the Lufkin mill is strategically located near low-cost and abundant fibre as well as large and growing end-markets and its additional lumber production will allow West Fraser to better serve the company’s growing customer base in Texas and the southern U.S. Upon completion of this transaction, West Fraser will have combined Canadian and U.S. lumber production capacity of approximately seven billion board feet, with U.S. capacity of SYP lumber representing approximately 50 per cent of the company’s capacity.

“We look forward to welcoming the Lufkin mill employees to West Fraser. The management team at Angelina Forest Products has done a commendable job developing the Lufkin team and operations, and we believe this modern, high-margin facility will enhance our existing U.S. platform of lumber mills and help us to better meet the growing demand for our lumber products in Texas and the U.S. South,” said West Fraser’s president and CEO, Ray Ferris. “With this acquisition, we will be able to quickly capitalize on a fully-invested and high-quality manufacturing facility. This includes a trained labour force and the local community and logistics infrastructure to support the mill’s supply chain, distribution and outlet for residuals. Further, we are able to immediately reap the cash flow benefits of our investment while significantly reducing the associated risks of greenfield construction, execution and start-up.”

West Fraser intends to finance the acquisition with cash on hand. Annual synergies of approximately $13 million are anticipated to be achieved within two years with minimal capital requirements. These synergies are expected to be realized through continued capacity utilization improvement, implementation of best practices and the co-ordinated transportation, logistics and procurement benefits derived from West Fraser’s distribution scale and existing production facilities in the region.

It is anticipated that after the cash tax benefits described above, the post-synergy mid-cycle Adjusted EBITDA multiple at full production will be approximately 6.4x and the transaction is expected to generate an internal rate of return (IRR) of approximately 13 per cent. Based on recent industry announcements and West Fraser’s latest internal analysis, the cost to construct a greenfield lumber mill of the scale and quality of the Lufkin mill plus working capital investment and the foregone cash flows anticipated during the construction and ramp up phases are expected to exceed the purchase price for this top quartile facility.

The expansion will boost lumber production capacity by 75 per cent from 130 mmbf to 230 mmbf, which will require approximately 821,000 cubic metres of softwood timber. The investment will create 240 new direct and indirect jobs.

“Dunkley looks forward to completion of its sawmill expansion in Saskatchewan and appreciates the proactive approach by the provincial government in its mandate to grow the forest sector while meeting important sustainability objectives,” Dunkley Lumber president Rob Novak said. “The sawmill will add a second saw line and increase production over five phases of development by the fall of 2023. Saskatchewan is clearly open for business and refreshing to work with. We really appreciate the response from the province in the form of a timber allocation increase to help support our capital investments in Carrot River.”

The company will invest an additional $17 million in the mill, up from $13 million announced in June, which will increase production at the mill by up to 40 mmbf, reports tbnewswatch.com.

Resolute also plans to add another shift at the mill, creating 30 new jobs in addition to the 250 people currently employed.

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