Issue link: http://palletcentral.uberflip.com/i/1498036
PalletCentral • March-April 2023 45 AUTOMATING Growing Wood Industry Automation Parallel industries, such as sawmill wood processing, is adapting to automation. Canadian Forest Industries (CFI) Managing Editor Maria Church says, " ere is growing interest in robotic solutions to mitigate the impact of widespread labor shortages in the sawmill industry. It is a slow integration, project-by-project, as mills work around OM-specifi c sawmill equipment (which can be challenging to integrate off -the-shelf products, robots included). OEMs are aware of the trend and scrambling to partner with robot providers to off er these solutions to mills. ere are a lot of NDAs involved, but we know there are many projects in the pipeline." In a recent CFI article, she shares the example of J.D. Irving's ( JDI) Veneer Sawmill in Saint-Léonard, N.B. "Robots in sawmills? Not that long ago it was unusual at best… but a close look at the maritime forestry JDI's robot journey has led them to recently install two articulating robots on their hardwood mill's tie line." Interviewing Jody Gallant, business improvement manager with JDI's hardwood and pine division, he said, "We know the labor 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." According to Gallant, the mill's 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. e job was labor-intensive and repetitive, which carries a high ergonomic risk. Today, the mill has two permanent, tough-as-nails "laborers" fi lling that job – Buckdjeuve ( Jackalope, in English) and Tie-Rex, names mill staff have aff ectionately given the new articulating robots working on the Veneer Sawmill tie line. David Richbourg, plant manager at Culp Lumber Co., in New London, NC explained to PalletCentral the uses of automation in their plant. Each piece of lumber in the mill is scanned and measured by computerized sensors as the wood moves through the plant – processed and inspected with each machine process. " ere are scanners at every machine center. e automated machinery can take a log and size it up to decide what needs to be done with it. Out of 124 of our employees, only three to four of them actually touch the lumber." He notes, " ere are some frontiers still to be automated – laser cutting with no sawdust, one day that will happen." Automating Pallet Production "When discussing robotics and automation, the way I view those two things, a robot is simply a tool. It is a piece of automation. e broader conversation is really surrounding why companies invest in automation," says Doug Wenninger, CEO at Alliance Automation, LLC. ere are many diff erent reasons, but number one is lack of employee resources, as well as increasing safety and productivity. " ere are jobs that humans just simply aren't designed to do and cannot do safely. "We know the labor 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." —Jody Gallant, Business Improvement Manager with JDI's Hardwood Pine Division