Changing conditions Macklin, Andrew
Canadian forest industries,
11/2014
Magazine Article
Formerly contracted to cut lumber for Buchanan Forest Products, Firesteel is now part of the Resolute Forest Products Woodlands Group, cutting a portion of RFP's 5.28 million cubic metres of Crown ...land wood supply it currently is contracted for in Ontario. Firesteel provides cut-to-length 9ft. and 10ft. logs, as well as chips and micro-chips for RFP's sawmill and paper mill in Thunder Bay. The micro-chipping is a new element for the Firesteel business. Just over a year ago, the company purchased a Morbark 40/36 Advantage 3 Drum Micro-Chipper to diversify its product offerings to Resolute in Thunder Bay. Those micro-chips can be used in the co-gen facility at RFP, or could help to supply the pellet mill that is expected to come online at the end of 2014. Firesteel looked to Morbark for the micro-chipping operation after the success of the stationary chipping plant that it had purchased from Morbark several years earlier. On the day that Canadian Forest Industries joined Macsemchuk in the forest, southwest of Kakabeka Falls, a Cat 545D skidder was hauling logs off of a steep hillside to the Morbark micro-chipper below, trudging through thick mud from two straight days of rain topped with the first frost of the season. The crew was using a Hitachi Zaxis 200LC excavator with a grapple attachment to feed the chipper, while an older model Caterpillar dozer helped move material around and flattened out some of the deeper ruts in the mud where needed.
BREAKING IT DOWN Macklin, Andrew
Canadian forest industries,
11/2014
Magazine Article
B&B has realized several benefits from this investment, Bégin & Bégin general manager Frédéric Dubé. "With the old system we only had one breakdown option, and that was minimum opening face (MOF). ...With the new line we have added another option which is full log breakdown. This gives us a more optimum breakdown solution for the boards that are produced." He also reiterated that he is pleased with the benefit that comes with both front and back side scanning. "We only had one scanner before so we had to scan it once, turn it and then scan for the second side. Now we scan the log once and we're done." The 3-knee carriage handles high value logs up to 36" diameter, with output processed by the USNR vertical resaw and a combination gang/edger. B&B's old carriage system had front scanning only, and with outdated optimization the only solution available was based on minimum opening face (MOF). The new system with MillExpert optimization significantly expands this capability to include full log breakdown grade sawing solutions generated from dense 3D modelling via data collected from front and back side LASAR sensors. The MillExpert system generates not only the initial breakdown, but also utilizes logic from downstream processes to generate a solution that will be used to further break down the piece into boards.
LIMITED OPTIONS Macklin, Andrew
Canadian forest industries,
09/2014
Magazine Article
Both mills run on a steady diet of softwood and hardwood lumber. The mill primarily processes red and white pine, which accounts for close to 70 per cent of the wood they receive. Ed Heideman also ...saws quite a bit of oak, accounting for about 20 per cent of the company's total business. The remaining 10 per cent of business is a mix of wood, with some ash, poplar, maple, basswood and birch coming in to the yard. In total, Heideman cuts around 120,000m3 per year, with another 30,00040,000m3 being sold from the mill as roundwood. The logs are purchased from contractors from a radius of 300 km around the mill, extending throughout eastern Ontario and in to Quebec. The majority of the Heideman business stays within Ontario, despite the close proximity to the Quebec border. Approximately 90 per cent of the mill's red pine stays within the province, with only side cuts and a few boards going elsewhere. The red pine is primarily cut to 4x4 and 6x6 lengths, along with some dimensional lumber. The 4x4 and 6x6 cuts are used in the Ontario landscaping industry for decks, fences and retaining walls. Much of the other hardwood and softwood lumber offered by Heideman is also sold into the landscaping and home construction market. "If you are fortunate that the ground starts to freeze up in early December, then you've got December, January and February to harvest," says Heideman. "Other than that, it's getting very difficult to find an area that you can harvest that doesn't have an animal or plant, or doesn't have timing restrictions for water crossing."
CULTURE SHIFT Macklin, Andrew
Canadian forest industries,
09/2014
Magazine Article
Macsemchuk is the Bush Operations Supervisor and part owner of Firesteel Contracting, a company his grandfather started in the 1960s. Firesteel does CTL 10ft. logs for the stud mill, and also has a ...chipping and grinding operation, both of which feed Resolute Forest Products in Thunder Bay. Firesteel does run several Cat machines as part of its fleet, purchased from the Cat Toromont distributor in Thunder Bay, but had not previously run any Cat skidders. The skidders were put in the field in time for the winter logging season of 2013-14, with the larger 545 and 555 models being sent into Canada for field follows. The 545D includes 250hp (gross) Tier 3 engine with a 1.77m2 grapple capacity and an operating weight of 19,153kg, while the 555D has 275hp (gross) Tier 4 engine, the first Tier 4 skidder introduced to the market, with a 2.04m2 grapple capacity and an operating weight of 20,204kg. Both machines also feature the Cat ProductLink hardware, which has now been standardized for all Cat forestry equipment, with all of their forestry machines on the same interface as of July 1st of this year.
ARTIFICIAL SKILL Macklin, Andrew
Canadian forest industries,
05/2014
Magazine Article
When John Deere introduced TimberLink in 2005, the company hoped its newest innovation would prove to identify the drivers affecting the productivity of the machine. The company collected a large ...amount of data from the TimberLink system, filtering and aggregating the data, as well as eliminating external variables, to understand where productivity was being lost. "Overall, that data has shown up to a 40 per cent difference in productivity between an average operator and a very good operator," says Richard Lawler, director of forest engineering for John Deere. "That allowed us to understand that operator ability had a much greater impact on productivity than we had originally thought." In July of 2012, John Deere officially introduced the Rapid Cycle System for boom operation, an option for its newly-released 900K series of tracked feller bunchers. The RCS included automating both the boom and cutting head motions as well as harvesting arm cycling. The series represents John Deere's most powerful line of feller bunchers, featuring a 9.0L, 300330hp engine. Canadians got their first look at the 900K series at DEMO 2012 in September of 2012 in Québec.
Red pine management Macklin, Andrew
Canadian forest industries,
05/2014
Magazine Article
Heideman Forest Services in Eganville, Ont., located 190km northwest of the Larose Forest, had already been logging in the Larose Forest for 15 years prior to the takeover by Prescott-Russell. Ed ...Heideman established a market for red pine in the early 1990s that allowed plantation owners in eastern Ontario and Quebec to profit from thinning their stand. The company employs two logging teams trained specifically to tackle the challenges of harvesting red pine in thinning operations, using versatile machines to reach through the dense stand without damaging remaining trees. Each harvester and forwarder team works in the Larose Forest as well as on private plantations in the region. All trees are made cut-to-length onsite and then trucked to the Heideman sawmill. At the second site, a forwarder was finishing a red pine thinning operation northeast of the Larose Forest. The Puma forwarder, with Kesla 600 arm and Hultdins SuperGrip grapple, is a product of Norco Equipment Co. in Wisconsin. The 12-ton six-wheel Puma 612 forwarder was introduced by Norco in July of 2010, and has now been re-branded as the Barko 612, featuring the same 197hp Volvo engine - following Barko Hydraulics' purchase of Norco Equipment in May of 2012.
FUELLED UP Macklin, Andrew
Canadian forest industries,
03/2014
Magazine Article
In Salmo, British Columbia, the team at Sutco has taken advantage of the opportunity to add LNG trucks to its fleet. They came across LNG in discussions with Inland Kenworth, one of Sutco's primary ...equipment suppliers and a company that has ample experience with the technology in the U.S. market. Inland has been using the LNG fuel systems designed by Westport, whose global headquarters is located in Vancouver. "We have had strong service support from Inland Kenworth for almost 20 years," said Sutco president Chris Sutherland. "They've been servicing the Westport products for many years in their U.S. locations and we believe their extensive knowledge will be beneficial." "Past history and new technology point to a stable fuel management future with natural gas," explains Doug Sutherland, vice president of Sutco. "We believe this will close the gap between the capital cost of LNG vs. diesel, and enable us to meet our commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions."
Log Trailers Macklin, Andrew
Canadian forest industries,
11/2013
Magazine Article
Manac log trailers are built using the highest quality of materials with the utmost attention to detail, providing customers with the best strength-to-weight ratio in the industry. Our products offer ...many bolted features for ease of maintenance and access, floating welded connections for strength and flexibility and standard galvanized components to withstand the harsh environment in which these trailers operate. Maximizing loads, minimizing maintenance and providing a longer-lasting trailer remain the cornerstones of our success. Temisko is a well-recognized Canadian trailer manufacturer in business since 1969. For the forestry industry, we manufacture: flat bed, B-train, wood chip trailers, logging trailers and low bed. All the trailers we fabricate are custom built to our customer's specifications. Our line of fabrication is very diversified and our goal is to provide simple solutions to complex applications.
Top 20 under 40 Macklin, Andrew
Canadian forest industries,
09/2013
Magazine Article
"Boisaco is a small business that punches above its weight," states the 31-year-old, who was able to make it up the corporate ladder rapidly. Boisaco is a mill owned by two co-operatives, one of ...which - COFOR (Coopérative des travailleurs forestiers de Ste-Marguerite) - Bernier heads up. The company's 500 workers transform roughly 500,000 cubic metres yearly. It wasn't long before his entrepreneurial fibre lit up again. During his last year at Laval, in 1999, he launched Aztek Développement Forestier, his first forestry company. In 2003, he made a move to LacSaint-Jean Christie, where he became the operations director for the Coopérative forestière Girardville. "I've always been an entrepreneur and I did not want to work for somebody else. A co-operative was a great fit for me because I am a co-owner," says Simard, who at 39 is still an entrepreneur. Jérôme Simard also is the president of the Coopérative des PFNL du Québec (NTFP co-op), president of the Association pour la commercialization des PFNL du Québec (NTFP provincial association) and vice-president of the Coopérative de valorisation de la biomasse (biomass co-op).
Celebrating a landmark Macklin, Andrew
Canadian forest industries,
09/2013
Magazine Article
"We went through really tough times in the '80s," he explains. "After we bought the company out, for the entire decade, we just held on." Once the early '90s arrived, and the mill became more ...profitable, Mjolsness did a complete overhaul of the mill to form the business as it stands today. "In the 1970s, it was the vision of my dad and his brother to have zero waste," says Mjolsness. "So over the years we have developed a segment of our business called Top Spray." "In the early '80s, we got into the pressure-treated business and it's one of the reasons we survived," says Mjolsness. "It gave our company an important value-added product and a little bit of diversity. Over the years we have built that business up and now it's a substantial part of our operation."
