Lumber manufacturing

Challenges

What are the problems faced by the industry in this area?
Fibre supply, cost, and raw material quality
Demographic changes and shortage of labour with skills needed for evolving manufacturing technologies
Profit margins erosion, and limited manufacturing flexibility and agility
Lack of automation/robotization and other disruptive technologies and processes

Actions

What does FPInnovations do to address the challenges?
Detect log attributes, internal defects, and volume of fibre under the bark
Provide economical solutions and assess the economic value of fire-damaged log processing
Demonstrate value of digitalization as well as modelling and decision-support tools for sawmills
Demonstrate technologies to eliminate physical aspect of strenuous sawmilling jobs
Improve lumber drying process for conventional and CDK kilns with consideration for balsam fir drying
Maximize performance of log turner and planer to improve overall mill agility and reliability
Validate the commercial application of the ultra-fast drying concept
Develop new generation of cutting tools and validate automated saw filing room concept
Seek and rapidly evaluate disruptive technologies to add value to wood products sector

Goals & Impacts

What are the goals to reach and what are the impacts on members?
Deliver five technologies validated in a manufacturing environment to improve agility and flexibility
Providing cumulative industry margin gain of $10/m³ of logs processed by 2023
X