Simulation of sawmill yields at Hyne Tuan Pine Mill

Abstract

Tuan plant processes between six and seven hundred thousand cubic meters of plantation pine annually, on average this equates to around five thousand trees daily. Logs are cut to length through a Log Merchandising machine. The numerical data generated by the dimensional measuring system is proposed as feedstock for an ambitious computer program that is designed to imitate the computerised, electrical and mechanical processes of sawmill plant. Supposition being that a well fashioned predictive software can provide an element of competitive advantage through the potential to aid production planning. The program takes any user specified generic Tuan sawmill alpha-numeric cut pattern code and interrogates into dimensional pattern cross-sections. The software has been fashioned to select the sideboard width option that maximizes sawn volume yield recovery. The board trimming process synthesises laser vision sensing and computer processing to determine the mechanical saw docking requirements; it is the vital final quality control mechanism at the sawmill. Sensed wane dimensions of the timber are paired up against programmed wane rules in the solutions computer to decide which trim saws will actuate and dock to chip. The yield predictor program does a virtual trimmer processing of every sawn board to assess the length output of sawn boards, dock to chip and sawdust exhaust by saws. The program is predicting the sawmill yields for sawn timbers, chip and sawdust, all the yield indicators are reported as displayed outputs