August 2005        Volume 11, Number 08

Missouri Company Adds Optimization

By Diane Calabrese
Contributing Author

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Altenburg is one of six wood products businesses -- all hardwood businesses -- owned by Dean Calhoun of Coldwater, Mich., who purchased the 26-year old company 10 years ago.

The mill cuts hardwood species from southeast Missouri, southern Illinois and northwest Kentucky. The company buys about 75% of the logs it needs, and the other 25% comes off standing timber that is cut by a company or contract crew.

Scanner projects laser lines onto a log on the carriage; the head rig is optimized with the INOVEC YieldMaster system with StereoScan 3-D log scanning technology.

Altenburg buys both tree-length logs and cut-to-length logs. Red oak makes up 40 percent of incoming species. A second 40 percent is white oak. The remaining 20 percent comprises poplar, hickory, hard maple, cherry, ash and walnut.

Altenburg uses its own tractor-trailers to pick up logs from contractors. Eight of the 11 tractors are Macks, and the trailers were supplied by Burnett's Welding in Pekin, Ind.

In the yard, logs are sorted by species and length and stacked with John Deere loaders. The 25-acre site has an irrigation system to keep the log deck wet during the summer in order to prevent the logs from drying out.

The debarker head and carriage were designed and built by C+L Steel in Union City, Indiana.

From the Filer-Stowell head rig, cants go to a Salem band resaw with a C+L line-bar system. From the resaw, boards are routed to one of two paths. Boards that are ready for trimming go directly to an Irvington Moore trimmer; the trimmer is old, and the company is considering upgrading it with an optimized trimmer. Boards that require edging go to the new INOVEC-optimized TMT edger first. A TS Manufacturing stick stacker stacks the finished green lumber on stickers in preparation for drying.

Altenburg dries about 70% of its production in its own dry kilns -- seven package kilns supplied by American Wood Dryers Inc. in Portland, Ore. The American Wood Dryers kilns are fitted with Lignomat controls. The kilns, with a combined capacity of 500,000 board feet, are loaded with Caterpillar forklifts. They are heated with a 200 hp Industrial Machinery boiler that is fueled with sawdust from the mill.

The American Wood Dryers kilns feature an aluminum structural framework that is well suited to tolerate the dramatic seasonal swings in climate. Altenburg, a village of only about 300 people in southeast Missouri, experiences near-tropical weather with high heat and humidity in summer and near-arctic or extremely cold and dry conditions in winter.

American Wood Dryers specializes in providing thermal barriers that tolerate annual exposure to a wide range of environs. The barriers are constructed of special heavy gauge Alcad aluminum or stainless steel panels.

As for residuals, a Precision chipper processes scrap wood into pulp and paper chips, and bark is sold wholesale for landscaping mulch.

"We're normally custom-sawing for a customer," said Roger. Customers fall into many categories but mainly are manufacturers of cabinets, moulding, stairs, furniture, or are engaged in the lumber export business.

Altenburg uses a Forestry Systems end tally and log scaler software system to help manage procurement and inventory. "We buy everything by the board foot," said Roger.

Roger works closely with Larry Sharp, Altenburg's sales manager, to ensure the flow of incoming raw material is coordinated with lumber sales. "I like log procurement," he said, and his work is made much easier because of good communication with Larry.

In today's lumber production environment, there must be good communication between the mill staff and management, explained Roger. That is where some of the most important results obtained with the INOVEC optimization of the head rig and TMT edger come into play.

"We have noticed increases in the yields," which was a primary factor in selecting the INOVEC systems, said Roger. Likewise, the company has experienced increases in production. In fact, INOVEC has met all expectations for improving yield and production.

The optimization systems enable management to have greater control over the company's lumber product mix and also have led to an improvement in lumber quality. Speaking of the TMT edger with the INOVEC WaneMaster G3 edger optimizer, Roger said, "The control it gives management is a very nice feature of the system."

The INOVEC WaneMaster G3 edger optimizer is capable of considering thousands of potential board edging solutions for maximum lumber recovery and best appearance of the finished lumber. "The better appearance of the lumber" was noticeable right away with the TMT and WaneMaster working together, said Roger.

"In the past we've been talking about not edging too heavy," said Roger. The goal was to achieve proper board edging but reduce fiber loss. Without optimization, edging was time-consuming and generated a lot of waste wood fiber. All that changed with the INOVEC WaneMaster G3 edger optimizer and the new TMT machine.

the story continues...

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