Product quality control is performed by a majority of sawmills, but to varying degrees of intensity. It is more often done at the end of the process, generally in the planing mill once the products are ready for shipping. It is rarely based on standardized statistical quality control procedures specific to key sawmill processing stations. The general objective of this research project is to establish quality control procedures to ensure optimal operating efficiency of sawmill equipment at every major step in the manufacturing process. The results are presented in the form of a series of guidelines for specific procedures at target processing stations. These guidelines are intended for sawmill quality controllers and those in charge of process optimization. They are an excellent source of information for setting up a process control program.
This report covers the edging and resaw station. The guidelines cover the following points:
Equipment fine tuning: this section provides a checklist of essential elements to ensure the equipment is running properly. Special attention is paid to the infeed, scanning and position systems on the machine.
Optimization of operations: this part addresses the role of the operator (in manual and optimized systems) and focuses on clarifying optimization parameters, an understanding and mastery of which are crucial to optimal machine operation.
Quality control: this section suggests simplified daily control procedures for critical equipment areas. The goal is to ensure top performance of the edging and resaw station.
Finally, the last section of the document provides a performance evaluation procedure for an optimized edger along with a comparison with industry standards.
Included in the appendices are forms for the various proposed procedures.