Production planning is one of the key factors in sawmilling business. The production planning begins with raw material procurement and ends with customer deliveries.
The basis for production planning is demand, which is the cornerstone for the utilisation of available raw materials, production processes, capacity and other resources.
Sawmill’s production planning optimizes the available log raw material and the value yield available from it. © Koskisen Oy
The aim is to utilize the raw material in the most optimal way, support the sales and ensure that the sawn timber quality and delivery time tables correspond with what has been agreed.
In the sawn timber business, the raw material makes up to 80% of the end product price. This is why the optimal use of raw material is a must for profitability.
Flexible and smooth production
Good production planning ensures that the saw runs smoothly with minimal disruption.
Main functions of production planning:
- Production planner operates as a coordinator in between sales and production, as well as a raw material procurement coordinator, steering all these functions. He gives production and delivery estimates, together with estimates of sales possibilities to the sales team. He also gives feedback about the accuracy about log procurement and sales predictions.
- In order to ensure even and balanced production runs and to avoid bottlenecks the production planner must take into account all parts of the production process from log sorting to packaging.
- It is the responsibility of the production planning that the cutting period targets are met at sawmill.
Optimal volume or value yield
Optimization means the use of a sawset to sawing a log class or an individual logs so as to obtain the best possible value.
Production planning maximizes the value yield (€) of the production as well as volume yield (m3).
When calculating volume yield, the volume of the timber obtained from a log is compared to the overall volume of the original log.
Yield means the ratio of the amount of raw wood used to the amount of sawn timber produced. As a rule of thumb, the Finnish sawmill industry uses the ratio of 2.0. This means that two cubic meters of logs are needed for one cubic meter of sawn timber..
When determining the value yield, different products are produced from the log in an optimal way so that a different value is assigned to different products according to the relevant market situation or order order book of the sawmill. Sideboards – the overall volume, not individual grades – have usually a lower value then center cut goods, therefore the log is usually optimised according to the centre cut dimensions.
When sawing is optimised on the basis of the value yield, the value produced by by-products, such as chips and sawdust, can be factored in.
A log with bark still on produces:
- 45 – 50 % sawn timber
- 28 – 32 % chip
- 10 – 15 % sawdust
- 10 – 12 % bark
It can be difficult to calculate yield accurately because predicting the exact amount of by-products is not easy.
