The primary objective of this project was to assess the potential for Canadian sawmills to use simulation techniques and tools to optimize lumber yard management. More specifically, this study aims at assessing the potential benefits of improving the management of green lumber inventories, that is to say the wood supplies that circulate between the sawmill and the kilns. Sawmill managers can benefit from optimizing the location of lumber stockpiles by considering the next phase of the lumber manufacturing process (drying, planing or shipping) and the handling equipments’ parameters, such as load capacity, tasks and speed.
In the absence of off-the-shelf software to simulate sawmill lumber yards, we have developed a lumber yard operating model using a general purpose simulation software application adapted to the study sawmill situation.
We first simulated the typical lumber yard operation, and then used the model to assess the effects of modifying lumber yard design. We quantified the impact of changing the location of certain types of products to reduce the use of wheeled lumber handling equipment. By changing the location of only eight types of products a 10 % reduction in the distance travelled by one of the loaders used in the study resulted. This represents yearly savings of approximately $16,000 for the study sawmill. A thorough analysis of the location of each type of lumber stockpile shows a potential annual savings of up to $50,000. Furthermore, this level of performance can be achieved without any capital investment.