Optimising throughput and WIP at RF Gevers Sawmill
MANUFACTURING
Goals
- An accurate, real-time and comprehensive production information system with web access for all qualified personnel
Challenges
- Having to derive accurate volumetric values from warped timber with variations in timber and sap colour
Results
- The system cost 25% of that quoted by the original OEM
- Identification of losses even before cutting the logs
- Actual losses reduced by more than 6%
- System payback in two years or less
- Overall 8-10% improvement in accuracy
- More choices available to clients
- Semi-automatic reporting reduced manual reporting
- On-demand production monitoring is now available anywhere
- Identification of reasons for stoppages
- OEE, plant throughput and the identification of bottlenecks
- Increased uptime
Solutions & Products

Implementation
The implementation was done between December 2015 and March 2016 with the old system running in parallel for comparison. “System Platform was used as the integrating central hub with InTouch used to visualise the real-time process information while thin clients were deployed in the field,” says Nair. “But once management saw what was possible, more and more requests were submitted for a variety of different and customised reports.”
PCS Global used an integration algorithm to calculate more accurately the volume of the incoming logs. Together with laser sensors in the cutting section, this provided a far more accurate picture of what was coming in and what was going out.
“Warped timber created reading problems as did variations in timber sap and colour,” says Nair. “Oddly enough, the new system proved to be too accurate and highlighted far greater losses than were previously thought. So, the process was improved before the first reports were issued to management. The Historian Client / Excel plug-in tool made it possible to pull information into Excel for analysis. This proved to be an extremely useful feature as it presented information in a familiar form to existing users.”

Results
- The system cost 25% of that quoted by the original OEM
- Identification of actual losses even before cutting the logs due to better log volume calculations
- Actual losses reduced by more than 6% – this alone means a system payback in two years or less
- Overall 8-10% improvement in accuracy
- Better cutting patterns on the smaller logs improved recovery and made more log classes available to clients
- Semi-automatic reporting reduced manual reporting
- On-demand production monitoring is now available anywhere
- Identification of reasons for stoppages
- Information is now available for OEE calculation, plant throughput and the identification of bottlenecks
- Increased uptime due to predictive maintenance
- Universal solution allows for expansion based on infrastructure upgrades