Logging & Sawmilling Journal - June/July 2015

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June/July 2015

Business-minded logging at Vancouver Island’s Dyer Logging

Special Insert: Scanning & Optimization Wall Chart Valley Carriers’ successful move into B.C. log hauling

Triple F Logging’s investment in operator training pays off A re-start for Oregon’s Rough and Ready Lumber With this issue…

The Edge!

FEATURES On the Cover: June/July 2015 Volume 46 • No. 4 Editor Paul MacDonald Contributing Editors Jim Stirling Tony Kryzanowski George Fullerton

British Columbia has been slammed with forest fires this summer, with more than 200 wildfires burning around B.C. in mid-July. For an update on the current wildfire situation, please go to Logging and Sawmilling Journal’s website at www. forestnet.com (Photo of helicopter working on a controlled burn at the Cisco Rd. forest fire near Lytton, B.C. courtesy of BC Wildfire Service).

loyalty

4 Spotlight

30 Avoiding logging

Tech Update Editor Tony Kryzanowski

Publisher Rob Stanhope E-mail: stanhope@forestnet.com Phone: (604) 990-9970 Fax: (604) 990-9971 Sales Associates James Booth (604) 990-9970 E-mail: jbooth@forestnet.com Perry Rosehill (604) 613-3001 E-mail: rosehill@forestnet.com

Circulation Manager Maureen Cole (905) 201-0853 Fax: (905) 294-8645 E-mail: mcole@idirect.com Design & Art Production Manager Sheila Ringdahl E-mail: artwork@forestnet.com Office Manager Betty Rosales E-mail: brosales@forestnet.com

B.C. sawmill explosion, fire ruled accidental

A coroner’s jury has ruled the explosion and fire at the Lakeland Mills sawmill in Prince George, B.C. in 2012 as accidental, and it made a number of recommendations to help prevent such a tragedy from occurring again.

8 Business-minded logging

Office PO Box 86670, 211 East 1st Street North Vancouver, BC V7L 4L2 Phone: (604) 990-9970 Fax: (604) 990-9971 Website: www.forestnet.com

Long-time coastal logging contractor Ted Arkell of Dyer Logging has found the challenges of logging have changed over three decades in the business, with a need to be far more business-minded to make a return on your equipment investment these days.

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14 A Re-start for Rough

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and Ready Lumber

A significant investment in the small log line at Oregon’s Rough and Ready Lumber has resulted in better aligning production to the local log supply—and delivered solid economic benefits to a hard-hit part of the state, with the restarted sawmill.

20 Successful move

into log hauling for Valley Carriers

A long-established, family-owned B.C. trucking firm, Valley Pulp & Sawdust Carriers, has recently expanded into log hauling, and is finding their already established trucking base—and their focus on their customers—gives them an edge in this competitive business.

26 Building operator Alberta logging contractor Ted Freake finds that when it comes to the people who run his equipment, it pays to take the time to train operators—sometimes from scratch—with the goal of building loyalty and long term employee relationships.

equipment fires

Nate Burton, Technical & Safety Services Manager of the Association of Equipment Manufacturers, on the top five causes of forest equipment fires, and how operators can avoid them.

32 Returning to logging

The ongoing recovery has seen some contractors returning to the forest industry— New Brunswick’s Greg Davis and Wade Regan have now returned to the industry, and moved from a chainsaw/cable skidder operation to mechanical harvesting and a harvester/forwarder set-up, to better ensure their success.

44 DEMO show is on the

way

Planning for the largest live equipment logging show in North America next year—DEMO 2016, to be held at the UBC Research Forest near Vancouver—is well underway, with recent planning meetings firming up the details for DEMO.

37 The Edge

Included in this edition of The Edge, Canada’s leading publication on research in the forest industry, are stories from the Canadian Wood Fibre Centre, Alberta Innovates - Bio Solutions and FPInnovations.

54 The Last Word

Given the changes that have occurred in the Canadian forest industry—and what’s to come—Tony Kryzanowski says it’s time for the Canadian forest industry to refresh its research and development priorities.

DEPARTMENTS

Calendar.........................................................................................................7 Suppliernewsline..........................................................................................46 Classifieds / Employment Opportunities.......................................................52 Ad Index / Subscriptions...............................................................................53 Logging & Sawmilling Journal - June/July 2015

3

spotlight

B.C. sawmill explosion, fire ruled accidental

A coroner’s jury has ruled the explosion and fire at the Lakeland Mills sawmill in Prince George, B.C. in 2012 as accidental, and it made a number of recommendations to help prevent such a tragedy from occurring again.

A characteristic of beetle killed fibre is the dryness, fineness and amounts of sawdust created during processing. At the time of the accident, the Lakeland sawmill was working to process salvage wood killed in the mountain pine beetle epidemic.

By Jim Stirling he explosion and fire that destroyed Lakeland Mills’ sawmill in Prince George, B.C. in April 2012 has been ruled accidental by a coroner’s jury.

The jury’s verdict was predictable given the role of a coroner’s inquest. Assigning blame is not part of the jury’s mandate.

Rather, it is charged with making recommendations to prevent a similar incident from recurring.

The scope of the jury’s 33 recommendations suggests responsibilities for improvements and changes to procedures and practices are both essential and broad-based among several parties and agencies.

Glen Roche, 46, and Alan Little, 43, died as a result of the Lakeland explosion and fire, and more than 20 others were injured. The Lakeland incident followed a similar occurrence three months earlier

that levelled the Babine Forest Products Sawmill near Burns Lake, British Columbia, about 220 kilometres west of Prince George. Two sawmill workers lost their lives in that incident and another 22 were injured. A coroner’s inquest into that incident began July 13 in Burns Lake.

The five-man Prince George coroner’s jury heard from 54 witnesses during fourand-a-half weeks of testimony between March 2 and May 14.

They listened to haunting recollections from the survivors working the fateful shift that night. And they heard testimony from first responders to the incident, the mill’s owners and the expert witnesses who subsequently subjected the accident to meticulous interpretation and analysis.

There was conflicting evidence presented about precisely where in the mill the instigating explosion occurred. But the experts agreed it was fueled by dry sawdust. The Lakeland mill, like others in

4

Logging & Sawmilling Journal - June/July 2015

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the region, was working to process salvage wood killed in the mountain pine beetle epidemic while it retained value for commodity lumber production. A characteristic of beetle killed fibre is the dryness, fineness and amounts of the sawdust created during processing. During her charge to the jury, coroner Lisa Lapointe said the dust was described at one point in the testimony as “floating in the air.”

Sets of related recommendations were directed to strengthening industrial health and safety committees, and reinforcing the tools at the disposal of the RCMP to investigate workplace incidents involving serious injury and death. One of the recommendations in the former category recommended by the jury concerned mandatory training and education for health and safety committee members. to page 6

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spotlight from page 4 WorkSafeBC was also advised to develop methods to audit the effectiveness of health and safety committees in the workplace. The jury recommended WorkSafeBC champion workers’ rights including their right to refuse unsafe work.

The inquest heard testimony that mill workers’ were concerned about mill safety surrounding increasing dust levels.

But the concerns were not recorded in safety meeting minutes nor were they reported to the Steelworkers Union. “In addition, while there were concerns about accumulation and dust as a fuel, the combustibility of wood dust was not well understood,” noted Lapointe.

The jury also recommended something the industry has already instigated: to convene at least an annual meeting to pool health and safety best practices and circulate them. After the Lakeland explosion and fire, the CEOs of Canfor and West Fraser convened an extraordinary meeting to find ways of protecting other mill workers. It evolved into the development and distribution of dust control standards and procedures for use within

each mill’s safety programs, regardless of the operation’s size.

The coroner’s jury urged the RCMP to examine and improve officer training when investigating alleged criminal negligence in the workplace. The jury also recommended the RCMP include workplace deaths and injuries as “benchmark” offences requiring a higher priority. In a similar vein, the coroner’s jury suggested the federal justice minister review the onus of proof requirements in cases of criminal negligence in the workplace.

Proposed changes to the Workers’

6

Logging & Sawmilling Journal - June/July 2015

Compensation Act came to the jury’s attention. It recommended reviewing employer access to disaster sites and require their findings be forwarded to WorkSafeBC. The jury said that in the future “near miss” incidents causing a fire, explosion or business disruption should immediately be reported to WorkSafeBC. For example, the jury heard of an incident near the mill’s headrig when sparks ignited sawdust creating an explosion. That was the day before the explosion and fire at the Babine Forest Products mill near Burns Lake.

The B.C. Ambulance Service was

spotlight Union calls for full public inquiry into sawmill accidents

T

he coroner’s inquest into the Lakeland Mills explosion and fire and the 33 recommendations it generated— while helpful in shedding more light on the tragedy and improving measures to prevent a recurrence—doesn’t go far enough for many.

For the families of Glen Roche and Alan Little, who were killed on the job in the Lakeland incident, and the 20

other mill workers injured, accountability remains unsettled. Many involved are calling for a public inquiry into the explosion and fires that destroyed the sawmills at Babine Forest Products and Lakeland three months apart in 2012. A coroner’s inquest into the Babine Forest Products explosion began in July.

The United Steelworkers—which represents the unionized work force at both

now rebuilt sawmills—is championing the cause for a full public inquiry. It’s a proposal already turned down by B.C. Premier Christy Clark. However, the union is continuing its efforts with a petition and in May was more than half-way to its goal of 10,000 signatures. The intent is to present the petition to the provincial legislature this fall. The United Steelworkers petition can be accessed at: www.usw.ca/inquiry

instructed by the jury to review its procedures regarding access to emergency sites and not to use an ambulance as a command post.

Among other recommendations from the jury, which was thorough in its review of the testimony presented, was for sawmills to employ a safety watch person on every shift to monitor dust levels and systems. A further recommendation was that the United Steelworkers Union mail their regular newsletters to sawmill workers’ homes so family members could become more aware of safety issues in their loved ones’ work place.

CALENDAR August 10-13

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September 11-12

70th Annual Lake States Logging Congress, Escanaba, MI 715-282-5828

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September 18-20

Mid-Atlantic Logging & Biomass Expo, Selma-Smithfield, NC 252-432-1903

September 23-25

Alberta Forest Products Association 73rd AGM, Jasper, AB 780-452-2841

September 24-26

American Loggers Council 21st Annual Meeting, Eureka, CA 409-625-0206

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7

BClogging

Business-minded logging Long-time B.C. coastal logging contractor Ted Arkell of Dyer Logging has found the challenges of the business have changed over three decades in logging, with a need to be far more business-minded to make a return on your equipment investment these days.

By Paul MacDonald

I

t’s sometimes interesting how people get involved in becoming a logging contractor.

8

For Ted Arkell of B.C.’s Dyer Logging, which operates out of the small town of Sayward, north of Campbell River, on Vancouver Island, it came down to getting a phone call in the late-1980s.

Logging & Sawmilling Journal - June/July 2015

At the time, Arkell was a woods superintendent with a forest company, overseeing logging and roadbuilding operations.

“The fellow who owned Dyer Logging at the time wanted to retire so he phoned

BClogging Ted Arkell (far right) and son, Kelly Arkell, of Dyer Logging take pride in the contributions the company makes to the communities on northern Vancouver Island, and the well paying jobs Dyer Logging provides to employees.

me up and asked me if I was interested,” he recalls. Arkell laughs and says it had been “one of those days” at work, and his answer was quick: yes, he was in.

The equipment line-up at Dyer Logging has changed substantially since Arkell bought the company almost 30 years ago.

“In those days, we had a couple of steel spars and a small grapple yarder, and were doing maybe 85,000 cubic metres a year.”

These days, they are doing upwards of 250,000 cubic metres a year, most of that for Western Forest Products.

The business side of logging has also changed. The downturn that hit the forest industry like a Mack truck reinforced to logging contractors that they are in

the logging business—with the emphasis very much on the business end of things.

Perhaps more than ever, loggers have to be right on top of their game, and be very hands-on managers.

“The challenges of the business have changed,” says Arkell. “The returns on the logging business aren’t what they were—it is a heck of a lot more challenging environment now to make the financial return justify your investment in equipment,” added Arkell.

In January of each year, Arkell gets together with other coastal logging contractors at the Truck Loggers Association convention, held in recent years in Victoria. Arkell is a past president of the TLA. Contractors will meet over a coffee, in informal get-togethers, at the convention.

“We all have different backgrounds, but we all now have one thing in common: we all understand a balance sheet,” he says. “We all get that first and foremost we are running a business—and it’s logging second. It’s not the other way around. You need to approach it that way for the business to be successful and sustainable.”

For contractors on the B.C. coast, there are now fewer business opportunities, with fewer customers to work for in logging. Dyer Logging, for example, does most of its work for Western Forest Products, now the major licencee on the coast.

They also do some logging for log brokers, and timber sales.

Dyer Logging runs a few different brands of logging equipment. They have two Cypress 7280 grapple yarders, both of which are in good shape. One went through a rebuild at T-Mar Industries, to page 10

Logging & Sawmilling Journal - June/July 2015

9

BClogging from page 9 in Campbell River, about six years ago.

The other yarder went through a major overhaul prior to Dyer purchasing it. The third grapple yarder is an older Madill 044 which was rebuilt at the Madill facility in Nanaimo a number of years ago and is still pulling its weight, production-wise, thanks to the focus on maintenance at Dyer Logging.

They run four Madill 3800C hydraulic log loaders, a Madill 075 Line Loader, a Hitachi EX400 and EX330 excavators for roadbuilding work, and a Cat D8. Their most recent purchase was one of the new 3800C log loaders, picked up in 2014.

They have one Western Star highway truck, with most of the trucking contracted out to Kurt Leroy Trucking Ltd. The processing work, at least so far, has been subbed out by Dyer Logging, with the subs using Waratah and Southstar heads. But Arkell says they are now seriously looking at purchasing some processing equipment for their own use. “We’d sooner own the equipment and do it ourselves, but at a business level, it’s a matter of having a continuous program to justify

purchasing it. It gets close but we haven’t quite got to that threshold, volume-wise, yet. It’s all a matter of what makes the most sense, business-wise.”

Last year they had steady work for the processing equipment from September through to March; but they then move into higher ground, and have limited use for a processor.

Western Forest Products wants its timber harvested within a condensed period of time, so that means its contractors such as Dyer Logging work seven days a week, much of the year.

The strong maintenance program at Dyer Logging positioned the company well going into the downturn, as they relied on working with existing equipment, rather than looking at getting anything new, through the lean times. “We already had a good solid maintenance program in place. And we really need that, since we are running seven days a week for Western much of the year.”

Their well-maintained equipment, along with low overhead, gave them the advantages they needed to survive. Of three logging contractors in this area of Vancouver Island in 2008, Dyer Logging is

the only one still operating today.

“Going into the downturn, we had low debt and we’re very hands-on,” said Arkell. “It’s important to keep your overhead and your fixed costs low, with a strong focus on maintenance—you don’t want to let your equipment deteriorate, due to lack of maintenance.”

When it comes to repairs, it’s all about safety first, and then prioritizing what needs to be done, he says. “Our mechanics understand that at times they have to do what they need to do to keep equipment running safely, and keeping production going. We’ll fix what needs fixing. It will then go to the top of the list for repairs, when it is possible to do that—we’ll then swap the components out, or send it out for repairs.” This approach gives them the ability to be flexible, but also get the necessary work done.

Lower fuel prices are helping things out a bit for all logging contractors these days, including Dyer Logging. And the lower value of the Canadian dollar has definitely helped the industry overall, in terms of selling lumber to the U.S. But there’s a bit of an offset there for logging contractors, as they see higher prices for some logging

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1/21/2015 8:32:09 AM

BClogging Dyer Logging takes pride in its longterm employees. Larry Ruff (right, with a Madill 3800C loader) retired after 30 years at with the company, and now fills in part time. It’s a family affair for the Ruff’s at Dyer Logging: Larry’s father and brother both worked at Dyer Logging. equipment and parts produced in the U.S. “It’s hard to see if you’re gaining or losing with lower fuel prices after you factor in the higher equipment costs, with the low dollar value. I think we might be gaining a bit overall, but how long will the cost of fuel stay down for?”

After some very lean years, contractors would seem to have a solid case when discussing improved rates with the major forest companies, all of which are reporting healthy profit levels these days.

Many coastal contractors, like Dyer Logging, have been around for decades, and they provide well paying jobs in the communities where they are based. Dyer Logging has been around for 72 years, for example.

“The company has been supporting

families on northern Vancouver Island for more than 70 years—we’ve had two generations of families working here,” says Arkell. They have a log loader operator who recently retired whose father worked as a faller for the company. Guys retire after 30 years-plus with the company. The company also takes a lot of pride in supporting the communities of Sayward and Campbell River.

That kind of longevity, stick-to-it-iveness

and stability needs to be recognized by the industry—and government, too, says Arkell. “I think that is something to be aspired to, providing you are being competitive in the market.”

Arkell, like the other long term contractors, faces different cost structures vs. start-up logging operations. “The crew to page 12

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BClogging from page 11 has been here a long time, and that is something that should be encouraged and supported in the industry—but there are higher costs with that. With long term employees, there is a legacy cost you have to support.”

Arkell notes that while Dyer Logging can very ably compete—and perhaps out-perform—new entrants to logging in terms of production, they can’t necessarily compete with them on costs. “It’s not a level playing field, when you look at labour costs. We can’t afford to compete with the lowest common denominator in the market.”

In spite of the challenging times facing the industry, Arkell remains positive about its future. But it’s going to need some solid people to lead it. “More than ever, there is a need to attract talent and good managers to the industry for it to have a good future.” Sustainable business and quality employment are key to this.

Arkell pointed out the Logging Fundamentals Training Program put on by Western Forest Products on Vancouver Island as the right direction to go, in terms of getting more people in the industry.

“We’ve picked up a couple of people from the program. It’s a good idea. You get people coming out of the program who have received proper training for the industry—who have learned to log safely.

It all helps.”

Arkell says their skillset requirements for employees are definitely higher than they were 10 years ago. “We are expect-

ing more of our employees, so you are going to have to put more resources and money into training—it’s that simple.”

And that comes back to having the funding, and logging rates, to do the training. It’s important that the forest companies, as much as they want inexpensive fibre, see that a well-trained, sustainable and safe logging workforce is in everyone’s interest—including their own interest. If reasonable returns on investment are not there, Arkell says the industry could see more contactors making hardnosed business decisions to exit the industry, and move into other sectors, such as construction, that offer better margins.

“For a lot of people, logging is a way of life. But some people will wake up and say, hey, if the financial returns on their investment are not there …”

That said, some of the talent that the industry lost in the downturn to the Alberta oil patch may be trickling back, with cutbacks there due to low oil and natural gas prices.

At the recent Truck Loggers convention in January, B.C. Premier Christy Clark announced that the provincial government would be placing ads in Alberta, inviting skilled workers to move to B.C. and work in the province’s resource industries.

Arkell notes that Dyer Logging has been fortunate in that—as noted—it has some very long term employees, as well as some new folks. They have a couple of heavy duty mechanics in their early-30s.

“The biggest challenge we have is maintaining a continuous operation yearround, or as close as we can get to that.

Loader operator Grant Gibbons has been with Dyer Logging and predecessor companies for 37 years.

12

Logging & Sawmilling Journal - June/July 2015

For young guys, supporting a family, that is especially important.

“We want to keep the work happening and hang on to our people.” Arkell notes that between the work they do for Western Forest Products, and additional logging, they’ve been able to achieve that in the last few years for their 45 employees.

But the big crunch, employee-wise for the logging industry—whether it is on Vancouver Island at one end of the country, or the island of Newfoundland at the other end—is still to come.

“We have a number of guys in their 50s and 60s who are going to be retiring,” says Arkell. In some situations when the labour situation is especially tight, the industry has even brought back some retired guys. “There’s the odd guy out there operating equipment who is in his 70’s,” he says. “But that is not going to be sustainable much longer.”

An approach Dyer Logging is taking to try and deal with this is giving their crews as much experience as possible. “You might have a log loader operator who can load logs efficiently, but who has not hoe chucked in tough ground. We give them the opportunity to train and be able to do that, too.”

It gives the operators more experience, and in turn, it makes them more productive, and flexible, for the company.

“Especially with the younger guys that come in, you want to expose them to all of the phases in logging, and the equipment in the operation, so they are as versatile as possible. We’re lucky in that we have guys who can run more than one type of machine, so we are able to switch them around—it helps make the operation more flexible.”

The challenges aside, Arkell remains positive about the future. “I think it’s a great industry. I think it has a great future, the coast industry in particular. And hopefully, the opportunities become true opportunities for both sides, the contractors and the licencees.”

Arkell likens the forest resource in B.C. to a pie. “The government and people of B.C. have to get a slice of the pie, their return on the public resource. The major companies operating the conversion facilities and doing the marketing, need a slice.

And the contractor who does the harvesting—and supports the small communities in B.C. and provides employment—needs a slice of the piece.

“It’s about balance and a fair slice for everyone.”

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1

smalllogsawmilling

A re-start for

Rough and Ready Lumber A significant investment in the small log line at Oregon’s Rough and Ready Lumber has resulted in better aligning production to the local log supply— and delivered solid economic benefits to a hard-hit part of the state, with the re-started sawmill.

By Tony Kryzanowski $7 million investment has brought back a familiar sound to Josephine County, Oregon, located just north of the California border—the sound of trucks, mobile equipment and sawmill blades from the Rough & Ready Lumber mill, after nearly a year in mothballs.

Sawmill co-owner Link Phillippi says the investment was made possible from a partially forgivable $1 million loan from Oregon’s Strategic Reserve Fund due to their creation of more than 60 jobs, and $4 million to $6 million from both state and federal New Market Tax Credits meant for development in distressed areas. The reopening of the sawmill has put 70 people back to work in this area of

high unemployment in Oregon.

“The retooling of the mill allows us to utilize a wide range of log diameters and species and lines us up with the local log supply better,” says Phillippi. “That has made all the difference.”

In an all-too-familiar story for southern Oregon, Phillippi says it wasn’t a lack of lumber sales that precipitated the sawmill’s closure in 2013—it was a lack of access to wood fibre within a reasonable distance to keep the third-generation sawmill owned by the Krauss family running.

It was founded by the grandfather of Phillippi’s wife and business partner, Jennifer Krauss Phillippi, in 1922. Many of the sawmill’s customers have been with them since the business began and were eager for them to reopen.

14

Logging & Sawmilling Journal - June/July 2015

A

The story of Rough & Ready Lumber’s closure reads like the story of a man dying from thirst while being surrounded by an abundance of drinking water. Located near the town of Cave Junction, Rough & Ready Lumber is within easy driving distance to the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest, the Klamath National Forest, the Six Rivers National Forest, and the Medford District of the Bureau of Land Management. About 70 per cent of the county is federal forest. However, severe restrictions on logging in these forests has decimated what was once a vibrant forest industry in the Cave Junction area.

At the time of its closure, Rough & Ready Lumber was the last operating sawmill in that region.

What’s different today—with the

smalllogsawmilling investment made primarily to the sawmill’s small log line and planer mill—is that the mill now has the right design to maximize product recovery from the size of commercial wood fibre available to the sawmill. Phillippi is now much more optimistic about the mill’s future. Also, he senses a change in the public’s perception of the role careful logging can play in the surrounding national forests, as questions are raised about the need to maintain the overall health of these forests and the potential for forest fires if some measure of forest management doesn’t occur.

“If there is one thing that the federal government needs to wake up and start doing quite a bit it is to start managing some of their forests by fireproofing them and starting to remove some of the excess fibre, caused by years of successful fire prevention,” says Phillippi.

The sawmill is a two-line mill processing ponderosa pine, sugar pine, and Douglas fir, currently operating on a one-shift basis. Phillippi hopes to bring on a second shift once the economics and wood supply issues align.

At present, the sawmill produces high volumes of shop and industrial, random

width, pine lumber, in five quarter and six quarter thickness, typically in 16’ lengths sold primarily to remanufacturers, particularly window and door manufacturers.

Their Douglas fir line is primarily structural dimension lumber and timbers.

The product ratio is about 75 per cent pine and 25 per cent Douglas fir. The sawmill processes 30 million board feet of logs annually on a single shift basis.

The large log line processes logs in the 24” and over diameter range, while the small log line processes logs from 6” to 30” diameter.

In terms of log supply, Rough & Ready Lumber received about 90 per cent of its wood supply from public forests until the mid-1990s, when the federal timber supply was severely curtailed. The reason for the curtailment was pressure from environmental groups and litigation. Without an affordable and dependable log supply, investment in the local forest industry essentially dried up.

“We had to downsize in 1995 and shift to page 16

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smalllogsawmilling from page 15 our focus so that we were about 90 per cent dependent on private wood supply,” says Phillippi. “That was quite a change, but the log supply dictated that we had to make an adjustment.”

That trend continues today, with supply coming from about a dozen large, industrial landowners in southern Oregon and northern California, within 160 to 220 kilometres from the sawmill. Given that it is the only pine sawmill on the west side of the Cascades mountain range, it has a niche in terms of sourcing its wood supply.

At its peak in the early 1990s when wood fibre from public lands was plentiful, the sawmill had over 200 employees operating both onsite mills on a two shift basis. That fell to about 145 employees once the public timber supply retracted, with a further reduction in shifts and employees to 85 by 2002, with a focus on operating the large log line almost exclusively.

“In 2013, we looked out on the horizon to see how far we were going out to keep a single shift of large logs, and we were going out 320 kilometres to find enough wood,” says Phillippi. “It got to be so that the transportation costs were too high, and we decided it was time to pull the plug.”

It was the uncertainty of the log supply that precipitated that decision.

With financial support from the state, the sawmill owners decided to invest in their small log line and reopen the mill because they realized that the diameter of local logs was becoming smaller and smaller.

“We just said that we needed to align

our sawmill manufacturing more in line with the timber supply within 160 kilometres of our operation,” says Phillippi, “and that required us to invest in our small log mill, which has allowed us to saw logs more efficiently.” The result has been more production per hour, fewer employees, and a more competitive business.

Phillippi describes the large log line as a lower technology cutting mill with three dimensional scanning in front of the headrig. But the operator is still making all the decisions on when to turn the log, how deep to cut, and what products to manufacture from each log.

By contrast, he describes the refurbished small log line as a higher tech, optimized, higher speed mill, processing a lower quality of smaller log, but achieving high production per hour.

The sawmill reopened in September.

The focus was to design the small log line so that it could process larger cants. Prior

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Logging & Sawmilling Journal - June/July 2015

Between the sawmill and planer mill at Rough and Ready Lumber, there is a Wellons wood-fired boiler, 12 double-track dry kilns, and a 1.5 megawatt cogen power plant. to the capital investment, logs on this line had to be broken down to 6” cants before they could be processed further through an edger on the outfeed.

Now, the small log line starts with a Nicholson A1 35” ring debarker, leading to an operator-controlled bucking system.

Logs are conveyed to the Maxi Mill 24’ overhead system, with end dogging, with an existing 6’ Klamath Iron Works quad saw with chipper heads. Boards are processed through an existing Schurman 6” X 42” board edger. To allow the small log line to process larger cants, Rough & Ready lumber invested in a USNR optimized 12” double-arbor gang edger with optimization scanning provided by Baxley to process the cants. They replaced a single band resaw line with a Letson & Burpee 5’ twin resaw. Lumber from the to page 18

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smalllogsawmilling from page 16 edger, gang edger and resaw line all converge on a single landing table.

“This investment has allowed us to saw 6” to 30” logs pretty efficiently on our small log line, and we can also take some of the wood that we are running through our large log mill,” says Phillippi.

From the landing table, the lumber is processed through a Lucidyne grade mark reader, leading to a USNR Irvington, 24’ automatic trimmer and a Newnes 40 bin, J-bar sorter. After the sorter, there is a USNR Lunden 24’ sticker/stacker with all new PLC controls. Stacked lumber proceeds to the dry kilns. Between the sawmill and planer mill, there is a Wellons woodfired boiler, 12 double-track dry kilns, and a 1.5 megawatt (MW) cogen power plant.

About $2 million was also invested in the planer mill to accommodate the higher production from the sawmill, including a new infeed and outfeed system, a higher speed, rebuilt Stetson-Ross 614 D1, 8” X 25” planer, a Lucidyne grade mark reader, a USNR Irvington trimmer, and a 17 bin, USNR Irvington sorter, leading to a Flow Tech stacker.

Both lines of the sawmill as well as the planer mill are now back into full production, and are delivering solid economic benefits to the region.

“We are in a poor, rural community in southern Oregon that has an abundance of federal public forests that can provide an awful lot of opportunity,” says Phillippi.

“It’s a good thing to have this mill running, providing jobs and an economic lifeline for one of the poorest areas of the state.”

Phillippi estimates that with the sawmill operating, they are providing about 600 direct and indirect jobs.

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Logging & Sawmilling Journal - June/July 2015

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loghauling

Successful move into log hauling

A long-established, family-owned B.C. trucking firm, Valley Pulp & Sawdust Carriers, has recently expanded into log hauling, and is finding their already established trucking base—and their focus on their customers—gives them an edge in this competitive business.

Travis Klassen (far right) and Ben Klassen of Valley Pulp & Sawdust Carriers.

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Logging & Sawmilling Journal - June/July 2015

By Paul MacDonald

W

hen it comes to trucking, B.C.’s Valley Pulp & Sawdust Carriers Ltd has hauled a lot of different materials in its decades of operation— from aggregate to soil to sawdust to wood shavings. But it has not hauled logs—at least not until the last couple of years.

Valley Carriers, as it’s known to customers, is based in Abbotsford in the Fraser Valley east of Vancouver, and has been trucking materials for more than 50 years; it was founded by Neil Klassen in 1963, who started hauling sawdust and firewood from local sawmills to farms, with a single truck.

Fast forward to 2015, and the company now has 26 trucks and 70 employees, 25 of those employees being family members.

Valley Carriers still hauls to local farms and landscape businesses, but these days they also haul chips to pulp mills on the Coast, from the Interior, using a variety of trucks and their collection of Titan walking floor trailers. In addition to using local reloads, they also have their own barge loading facility on the Fraser River, for moving chips over to Vancouver Island and the Sunshine Coast.

These days, Generation Three of the Klassen family, or G3 as they call themselves, run the operations of Valley Carriers, and they recently expanded the company into log hauling.

Travis Klassen, CEO of Valley Carriers and Neil’s grandson, says the move into log hauling was a natural transition for the company.

Travis’s brother, Ben, was already doing hauling of wood chips from the Merritt

loghauling area, about 200 kilometres northeast of Abbotsford, when they decided to move into log hauling. “It just seemed like you couldn’t place a truck in Merritt and not have work for it,” says Travis.

Currently, they have six logging trucks hauling out of the Merritt area, for a variety of logging contractor clients, to Weyerhaeuser, Tolko and Aspen Planers mill operations. The diversity is by design; essentially, they don’t want to put all their logging truck eggs in one basket.

“We like to keep it spread around, so if a logging operation goes down, we can just move over to another operation,” says Ben, who is also the Company’s Chief Operating Officer.

“I like to stay diversified. You can be hauling for great contractors, but things can change for them, and they might have to move to another area. The forest industry is the forest industry, that way. I don’t want us to be doing 35 or 40 per cent of our log hauling for one contractor.”

By all accounts, they are off to a fine start. The log hauling has quickly grown to the point where it represents 25 per cent of their total business.

But, as Ben points out, the log hauling business was brand new to them when they started out.

“I went to the first cut block with our truck and had never thrown a wrapper in my life,” he says. “But I was pretty confident I would be able to figure it out.”

Ben has since thrown wrappers thousands of times, and though he oversees the log hauling side of the business and driver training from his base in Merritt, he climbs into the cab on a regular basis.

There are a number of keys to a successful trucking business, but of course one of them is having good drivers.

“Getting the right people is the hardest part of the business,” says Ben. “But what I’ve said from the start is that we

were going to base the operations on the drivers, and not necessarily demand.

“The market can demand a lot of trucks, and that’s fine—we get calls all the time to do work. But we’ve tried to keep high hiring standards, and that’s worked out well for us. I try to be particular about the drivers that we hire—they’re good guys that don’t need babysitting. We’ve been able to attract good people.”

Because Valley Carriers has carefully and gradually grown the log hauling business, they’re not in a spot where they have all these trucks, and have to have those seats filled. “I’ve never been stuck where we will take anyone and put them in a truck,” says Ben. As mentioned, Ben trains the drivers— sometimes from next to scratch.

“If you give me someone who really wants to do this, and they are willing to do the work, I will make them a logging truck driver,” he says.

“It takes attentiveness and training, but it’s not the hardest thing in the world to do,” he added.

To some extent, trucking is trucking, but log hauling can be a whole different breed of work.

“I tell the guys all the time that the mistakes that happen in logging aren’t any different from the mistakes that happen on the highway or on the pavement— they are just magnified ten-fold because of where you are.

“Driving on the highway, you can let the clutch out hard, and blow the driveshaft on a paved hill and it’s no big deal.

I’ll come out with my tools, and we’ll fix it on the nice dry pavement.”

But with logging, it’s quite a different story. “When that same thing happens on a logging road, you are sitting on a river of

Logging & Sawmilling Journal - June/July 2015

21

to page 22

loghauling mud, and no one can get out on the road that you are on, and the crew is stuck in there, and we have to bring a loader down because you are blocking that road.” And there is no nice dry pavement on which to do the repairs.

Ben says there is no substitute for two or three years of experience driving a logging truck. “You put someone like that into any truck and it will take them halfan-hour and they will have the tranny, the shifting and the mirrors all figured out.”

But that said, he’s fine to train someone new. The desire to learn and attentiveness are key qualities in a driver, he says.

“Nothing beats experience, but a willingness to learn almost equals the experience.

“I’ll ride with them for a week or two, and during that time we’ll probably come across 30 to 40 per cent of the situations they are going to have to deal with. And I’m actually happy when it’s a bit stressful.

If guys get overconfident, then it can get sketchy very quickly.”

In the areas they haul, each road usually has two or three tough sections, and it’s generally slow going.

“Up around Prince George, you may have guys that are able to do 100 kilometres an hour on the main haul roads—but that’s not us. We might be able get into sixth gear on some of the roads around Merritt, but that’s about it.”

Ben says one of the things he looks for in drivers is guys who want to work hard.

“Our work ethic is one of our strengths— that, and our drive to keep our customers happy.”

And Ben notes that they run a lean operation. “As a company, that’s what we have always done. And it’s the forest industry—we’re hauling timber here, not gold, and price points have to be hit for us to be successful.”

While the overall Valley Carriers fleet is made up of a variety of truck brands, all the trucks on the logging side are Western Stars, from James Western Star in Kamloops. “They’re all equipped with Detroit Diesel engines, and are working really well for us,” says Ben. Ben and Travis say Valley Carriers has an advantage in that it can move trucks around between their various operations.

“We needed a tri-drive truck for the sawdust hauling side. Rather than getting

22

Logging & Sawmilling Journal - June/July 2015

from page 21

something new there, we switched things around and took a truck out of the log hauling side that is two years old, put it into doing the sawdust hauling and got a new one for the log hauling. That twoyear old truck will now have another 10 years of life on the highway.”

And they very carefully watch fuel prices. Though oil prices have come down recently, much of that has yet to be translated into lower diesel prices at the pump.

“We’re spending two million dollars a year on fuel,” notes Travis. “If fuel goes down 10 cents a litre, that could be savings of $100,000 for the company.”

And they also have the benefit of a large shop in Abbotsford where they can fix trucks of all vintages. “We can fix trucks from the 1990s right up to today,” says Travis. “We keep revitalizing the truck fleet—but at the same time, our business model is not based on 20 trucks on three year leases that have to be turned in. We can extend the truck’s lives.”

Valley Carriers brings more than trucks to the business relationships they have

to page 24

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loghauling Valley Pulp & Sawdust Carriers Ltd has hauled a lot of different materials in its decades of operation—from aggregate to soil to sawdust to wood shavings.

It has now taken up hauling logs, including hauling out of the Merritt area for a variety of logging contractor clients, to Weyerhaeuser, Tolko and Aspen Planers mill operations. The log hauling has quickly grown to the point where it represents 25 per cent of their total business.

from page 22 with all their customers, including the loggers. “We stand behind we do, and integrity is important to us—we’re been that way as sawdust and residual haulers, and we’d like to be seen that way as log haulers,” says Travis.

The Klassens are a family anchored by their Christian faith, and have a Family Charter on their website that they work to follow. In addition to the religious aspects,

24

the charter includes a point to “honour and respect our customers”.

“The charter is not just words,” says Travis. “It’s not your typical mission statement. It comes from the heart, it’s from who our grandpa is and who we decided to be.” It’s integral to all that they do, and a big part of their heritage, Travis added.

“We’re not perfect by any stretch,” he says, but they strive to meet the charter.

Everyone is in business, including the trucking business, to make money, but Travis says Valley Carrier’s goals go beyond that. “If you asked why the family has decided to continue the business, part of it is because it’s a true way to act out the values we believe in. We’re not just here to make a dollar—we’re here to give back to the communities in which we operate.”

Last year, for example, the company gave 25 per cent of their profits to various charitable organizations in the communities in which they operate. It has set up the Klassen Foundation, to support a number of charitable groups and projects in the communities.

Part of what separates Valley Carriers from other companies in the business is the family aspect, says Travis.

“I think the family side of it is really the biggest part,” he says. “It used to be that we shied away from that because we did not want to be seen as this hokey, family business.” Hokey they are not. Professional, they are. Travis is a graduate of the Family Enterprise Advisor Program at the Sauder School of Business, at UBC. Family meetings are held on a regular basis to talk about business issues. “We’ll sit at the boardroom table with 10 members of the family every couple of months Logging & Sawmilling Journal - June/July 2015

and hash out different ideas,” says Travis.

And, he notes, the ideas, can be different. “Some family members are excited about the growth and some people would like us to stay the size we are. But at the end of the day, we keep that family component to the business.”

Four of Neil’s children, Merv, Dennis, Reg and Genny (Generation 2 or G2) are senior partners in the business, but day to day management has now been passed on to G3: Travis, Ben and four cousins, Erin, Russ, Stu & Greg.

The family as a whole gets together every May long weekend, and only some of that is for business. The rest is family time.

From the initial expansion into Merritt, Valley Carriers has since located a couple of logging trucks in the Radium area, in southeastern B.C., hauling for the Canfor mill there.

It was a long way in getting there, but Travis says that their interest in logging trucks stems from trips down to the Deming Logging Show, just across the line in Washington State, when all of the cousins were young. “We’ve been enamored with logging since we were kids,” says Travis.

When they took delivery of their first Western Star logging truck, the whole Klassen Family turned out—and they were pumped.

These days, even though Generation 3 is relatively young, there is talk about passing on the business to Generation 4—or G4. And that will happen, though it may be a ways off.

In the meantime, Travis and Ben Klassen and the other members of the G3 generation see a big part of their responsibility as being about stewardship, managing the business well and passing it on to G4. “Our goal is to maintain our ethics and values through that transition,” says Travis.

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contractorprofile Alberta logging contractor Ted Freake finds that when it comes to the people who run his equipment, it pays to take the time to train operators—sometimes from scratch—with the goal of building loyalty and long term employee relationships.

By Tony Kryzanowski

W

hen Canadians think of Newfoundland, they often imagine fishermen living in picturesque coastal villages. But veteran logger Ted Freake grew up in one of the few inland communities on the island and rather than codfish oil, he has sawdust in his veins.

The owner of Triple F Logging, Freake moved to Alberta over 30 years ago after continuing a family tradition of cutting his teeth at the end of a chainsaw in Newfoundland’s forest industry. However, he developed serious back problems and thought he’d try employment in Alberta’s oilpatch instead.

“I told my dad when I was getting on the airplane in Newfoundland and coming to Alberta that I would never work in forestry again, and he just laughed,” says Freake. “Years later, I asked him why he laughed, and he told me that people just have to do what they are born to do.”

What really helped Freake return and flourish in the forest industry was its evolution toward mechanized logging.

While he started in Alberta by operating a chainsaw working with a line skidder, Freake was at the forefront of the arrival of feller bunchers, skidders and processing heads to the Canadian industry. He operated equipment for a number of contractors before he became an owner-operator in 1998. At that time, he purchased and operated a Timberjack 618 feller buncher and the province’s first Tigercat skidder.

26

With employees, it’s all about attitude, says Alberta logger, Ted Freake (above, left). Recently, he implemented an approach of hiring lesser experienced operators, and has had great success.

Processor operators Tamara Clarke, and Rodney Kornelsen (above) are thankful for the opportunity.

Building operato Today, Freake owns a completely mechanized stump-to-dump logging operation, with the log haul aspect contracted out, based in Whitecourt, about 180 kilometres northwest of Edmonton Freake has found his niche. He says he typically wakes up at 4 a.m. to head out to the bush after knocking off at 10 p.m. the night before, keeping that schedule seven days a week during the busy nine-month logging season, with the occasional day and weekend off. During the three-month seasonal break-up, he is pulling wrenches in his yard with a few of his experienced employees, preparing his equipment for the trip back to the bush.

Triple F Logging harvests 100,000 cubic metres of softwood annually for West Fraser Timber, supplying primarily their Blue Ridge Lumber sawmill with mostly Logging & Sawmilling Journal - June/July 2015

tree length logs. The incidental aspen hardwood logs in Freake’s cutblocks are shipped tree length to Millar Western’s pulp mill in Whitecourt. About 10 per cent of his softwood harvest is cut-tolength wood from smaller diameter logs.

The diameter of the logs can vary, but this year, Freake is pleased that the average diameter has been from 6” to 18”.

The softwood consists primarily of spruce and lodgepole pine, with some mountain pine beetle wood typically part of the mix. Triple F Logging is part of the forest industry’s—and the province’s—aggressive beetle control plan. The goal is to harvest areas showing beetle infestation as a means of controlling its population and diminishing its ability to take flight and infect larger areas, while recovering timber that is still merchantable. So far, Triple F

contractorprofile

Veteran Alberta logger Ted Freake says his LogMax XT7000 Extreme processing head (above) is called ‘extreme’ for a reason. It can handle just about any type and size of wood he can throw at it. Freake adds that his operators appreciate both the performance capabilities and comfort of his John Deere 953K feller buncher (below), one of two John Deere feller bunchers in his fleet.

or loyalty Logging has not been required to sort out beetle infected wood. Freake leaves the sorting up to the sawmill when it comes to issues like bluestain lumber.

“Kudos to Blue Ridge Lumber, Millar Western and other forestry companies because we are attacking this as aggressively as we can,” says Freake. “We have to go after it because otherwise, it is going to kill our industry.”

Triple F Logging works primarily in the Swan Hills area north of Whitecourt, which can be a challenging environment because of the hilly terrain and smaller diameter logs. Recently, they have been harvesting high quality timber west of Whitecourt near Fox Creek.

One area that continues to be a constant challenge for Triple F Logging in the boom and bust environment of oil-rich

Alberta is attracting and keeping operators. Freake has nine employees.

“It just seemed to me that when I got good, experienced operators, the oilfield would dangle a carrot in front of them and they were gone,” says Freake.

He recently adopted a new strategy that, so far, seems to be working well.

“My theory was to get some operators that I could train the way I wanted, I could get the quality I needed, and the production would come, which has happened,” he says. “I like to be straight with my employees and tell them right up front that they’re not going to make as much

here as working in the oilpatch. But I promise that the work will be steady.”

The goal is to build loyalty and a long term relationship, and another benefit of working with greenhorns is that they don’t bring bad attitudes and bad work habits.

Freake is also open to hiring men and women. At present, one of his processor operators is a woman originally from Vancouver Island who came to Alberta two years ago. She acquired some experience

Logging & Sawmilling Journal - June/July 2015

27

to page 28

contractorprofile

Uptime is a high priority with Alberta logger Ted Freake, and he says his two John Deere skidders provide what he needs to maintain good production. Triple F Logging harvests 100,000 cubic metres of softwood annually for West Fraser Timber, supplying primarily their Blue Ridge Lumber sawmill with mostly tree length logs. from page 27 operating construction equipment in the oilpatch, but the work was hit and miss.

The other processor operator is a young man from Ontario with no experience operating heavy equipment. Prior to working at Triple F Logging, he was working at a local Subway restaurant. Both now have a complete season of log processing experience under their belts, and are delivering decent production numbers, with a strong sense of appreciation for being offered the opportunity to work in forestry.

“I came to Alberta two years ago with the intention of working in the oil industry,” says Tamara Clarke. “I had a taste of operating construction equipment with the oil and gas industry, but I’ve found working in forestry much better. It is much more reliable, steady work.”

The other processor operator, Rodney Kornelsen, came to Alberta hoping to land a forestry job. He was able to find work with Triple F Logging through his father, Norm Kornelsen, who is a log truck driver working for the company. Kornelsen is much happier in the cab of his Komatsu carrier and operating his processor than working behind the counter at Subway.

Skidder operator Chris Bergseth also joined the company as a greenhorn.

Bergseth says he enjoys working with the skidder, having the opportunity to learn how forest cutblocks are laid out, and being a part of the overall harvesting process. One area where Freake ensures that he has an experienced operator is on the feller buncher; operator Chuck Harris brings decades of experience to his job on both the operational and maintenance

side, as well as a great attitude.

With the current downturn in the Alberta energy industry, Freake is getting regular calls from operators looking for work. But he has been burned enough in the past that he is taking a very careful approach, mindful that should the oil industry pick up again, many of these job applicants could be gone.

“I would sooner keep the people that I have that I train, and put my time and effort into them,” says Freake. All three greenhorn hires have turned out to be excellent producers and employees. Having steady operators also makes it easier for Freake to consider possibly taking on more volume.

Triple F Logging’s equipment fleet tends to be on the heavier side. While it is a little heavier to move, Freake says this approach offers better ground stability and reduced downtime. The fleet consists of a recently purchased John Deere 953K feller buncher and a John Deere 953G feller buncher. His skidders are a John Deere 748 GIII and a John Deere 748H. For processing, he uses a Cat 320 carrier with a Waratah 620H head and a Komatsu 200PC carrier equipped with a LogMax XT7000 Extreme processing head, which he purchased last fall.

Freake’s log loader is a Komatsu 270 machine, and he has a Komatsu 65 dozer for road building.

“I wasn’t sure about the LogMax head but after having this one, I would definitely purchase a new one,” says Freake.

“This unit is extreme for a reason. It does every aspen stick that I have, it does all the big wood, and with the people from LogMax, I’ve never had service dealing

28

Logging & Sawmilling Journal - June/July 2015

with any other company like that in my life. I’ve had a few little issues, but nothing that actually shut us down.”

What he likes is that if there are any issues with the processing head, LogMax sends out a technician quickly, traveling from Kamloops to service the head in Whitecourt usually within a couple of days. Processor production is very important, says Freake, to keep some distance in terms of timing between logging operations and the log haul.

Freake says that he has experience with a number of equipment brands and has come to favor John Deere and Komatsu, through dealers Brandt Tractor and SMS Equipment, respectively, because of how much his operators like using those brands of equipment, their performance, uptime, and the service he gets from the dealers.

“John Deere has come a long way with their product,” says Freake, speaking of his John Deere 953K feller buncher. “It has a high rotation head, a 24” cut, and they have opened up the throat on the head, which helps to provide extremely good production. When that unit goes to work, it chews up a lot of wood.” While it does consume a fair amount of fuel because of higher horsepower, the payback is in higher production.

In good times or bad, Freake says that Blue Ridge Lumber staff have been extremely supportive, available and communicative in helping him manage his logging operations so that consistent flow is maintained to the mill throughout the year.

5

equipmentmaintenance

Top

causes of forest equipment fires... and how operators can avoid them

Top Causes

By Nate Burton

Technical & Safety Services Manager Association of Equipment Manufacturers

L

ogging equipment fires can have a human impact in terms of injuries— and be expensive in terms of property damage, and lost production. Equipment fires increased through the industry downturn, possibly a consequence of squeezed revenue and earnings.

“Contractors appear to be doing more with less,” said Chris Colello of Acadia Insurance, an insurer of logging operations.

“This may involve ‘double shifting’ putting on more hours in a shorter time.”

Aging equipment, fluid leaks, and worn electronics result in more fires, Colello said.

Machines are generally equipped with fire suppression systems (often at insurer request), but operators can help prevent fires.

“The work environment is as dirty if not dirtier than even agricultural harvesting,” said John Walker of Walker Fire Forensics. “You move a tree, debris falls.

Processing and chipping creates more debris. This ‘trash’ finds its way into the engine compartment.”

30

Debris accumulation is a cause of forestry equipment fires. But not the only one. Here are five causes of forest machine fires and how operators can help avoid them: 1. Debris in the Engine Compartments Leaves, needles, twigs, and sawdust will build up, particularly around engines.

This highly combustible debris must be removed frequently—once a day is not enough. Make it a habit, check for debris at breaks and if needed, take time to remove it.

2. Hotter-Running Tier 4 Engines Tier 4 engines run 15° to 20°F hotter than earlier engines, so it’s more critical to remove debris. The injector pump’s fuel bypass to the tank is warmer, too.

3. Debris Ignited by Rotating Components Slow rotating parts can rub on debris until it ignites. Remove this debris to prevent fires.

4. Altered Electrical Systems Unauthorized and inadequate modifications and ‘temporary repairs’ to electrical systems frequently lead to shorts, overloading, and fires. Never add unauthorized electrical components to

Logging & Sawmilling Journal - June/July 2015

wiring. Only use power outlets provided by the manufacturer.

5. Ultra Low Sulphur Diesel Ignition Hazard Ultra Low Sulphur Diesel (ULSD) poses a greater ignition hazard than earlier diesel with higher sulfur content. The absence of sulfur allows static charge buildup in fuel delivery systems. Higher fuel tank temperatures (see #2) make vapours more combustible should a spark occur, resulting in a fire or explosion.

Bonding and grounding machines with the fuel delivery system is now important when refueling. A simple wire connection between the equipment creates bonding; an electrical path between the tank and the ground creates grounding, to help dissipate static charge and reduce spark potential.

Direct any fuel system bonding and grounding questions to your fuel system supplier, and review the Association of Equipment Manufacturers bulletin on “Best Practices during refueling” at aem. org/ulsd.

Safety is everyone’s job. Hazard awareness and reduction keeps everyone working, minimizes injuries and property losses while improving work conditions for all.

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eastcoastlogging

Returning to logging

The ongoing recovery has seen some contractors returning to the forest industry—New Brunswick’s Greg Davis and Wade Regan have now come back to the industry, and moved from a chainsaw/cable skidder operation to mechanical harvesting and a harvester/forwarder set-up, to better ensure their success.

By George Fullerton

G

reg Davis and Wade Regan have made their way back to forestry.

The two grew up around Durham Bridge on the Nashwaak River north of Fredericton, New Brunswick, and while forestry and harvesting has been part of

Wade Regan (far left) and Greg Davis have made their way back to working in the New Brunswick forest industry.

They left the industry while it was in its extended downturn. But with improved prospects for the industry, this pair of young entrepreneurs (both 35-yearsold) have come back and made serious equipment investments.

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Logging & Sawmilling Journal - June/July 2015

eastcoastlogging their lives, they had left the industry while it was in its extended downturn. But with improved prospects for the industry, this pair of young entrepreneurs (both 35-years-old) have come back and made serious investments for their future.

While the pair teamed up under the banner of G&L Equipment Ltd. to invest in and operate a harvester and forwarder in 2013, their individual paths to that point had followed different routes.

As a young adult, Davis established himself as a cable skidder harvest contractor, providing forestry services to woodlots in central New Brunswick. Regan on the other hand, while maintaining an interest and part-time employment in forestry, established a landscaping business serving the Fredericton region.

Davis contracted into the depths of the forestry downturn, and he saw his ability to make a living with a chainsaw and skidder evaporate. He finally sold his skidder in 2010, and invested in an excavator and worked in residential development, basement excavation and driveway construction.

“I really didn’t like excavation and construction work much, and in 2013 we could see that forestry was beginning to make a comeback,” explained Davis.

“Wade and I decided that was where we should be, so we began looking for an opportunity to return to contract harvesting.”

Davis fully understood that the ability to make a living with a chainsaw and cable skidder was past, and if they were to make a go of it, they needed to become mechanical harvesters.

With virtually no experience with mechanical harvesting equipment, the pair decided that they would approach this new enterprise with a good deal of caution and limit their investment as they tested the waters.

Their first harvester was a used Rocan Enviro harvester equipped with a LogMax 3000 head. Regan hopped into the operator’s seat with his cable skidder and excavator experience, and began the journey to becoming a harvester operator.

A 1999 Timberjack 1010 forwarder was purchased to fill out the harvesting team.

In the contracting business, it is important to have clients to work for, of course.

Davis began testing the waters to see if his old contacts were in a mood to do some harvesting. One of his first contacts was Yorg Beyler. Davis contracted for Beyler until the point in the downturn when they both agreed it was not economically feasible to harvest.

Beyler had left his fledgling career as a

Gloria and Yorg Beyler (above) with a 207 Timberjack skidder used for cleaning up those small corners where it is not efficient to send in the mechanical harvester team. Yorg Beyler responded positively to the desire of Greg Davis and Wade Regan to mechanize their operation, and sat down with them to scope out an agreement to contract commercial thinning and other harvesting work. physical education teacher to become a forester in the early 1970s. While gaining his forestry degree at the University of New Brunswick, Beyler began buying cutover woodlots near the Village of Minto, with an eye toward long term management.

Over the years, Beyler has built his woodlot assets to several thousand acres in central New Brunswick.

Beyler’s forestry career included being tree nursery manager with J. D. Irving for several years. He then went to work for the Nova Scotia Department of Natural Resources, initially to establish a nursery operation and forestry education centre in the Musquodobit Valley, and he later moved on to other managerial positions and retired as director of forestry.

While working in Nova Scotia, Beyler met a group of investors who formed Five Islands Forest Development Ltd., which shared Beyler’s philosophy of investing in low value and cutover woodlands, carrying out silviculture (planting and pre-commercial thinning) and collecting on the long term investment when the woodlots would be harvested. After his retirement, Beyler assumed management responsibilities for several thousand acres of Five Islands’ land in New Brunswick.

The current forest management on both Beyler’s and Five Island’s land is directed primarily toward commercial thinning and other partial cut harvesting systems.

Beyler responded positively to Davis’ and Regan’s ambition to mechanize,

and sat down with them to scope out an agreement to contract commercial thinning and other harvesting work on both Beyler’s and Five Islands’ land. Beyler feels that together his needs and Five Islands’ harvesting needs will potentially provide about ten years employment for Davis’ and Regan’s operation.

While learning to operate the harvester—and less so the forwarder—the pair also faced the significant challenge of servicing, maintaining and adjusting their machines. Early in the process, they contacted LogMax in Moncton to have a service technician visit their operation, to give them instruction and advice on servicing the harvester.

“Our equipment experience had basically been cable skidder and excavator, which is pretty basic mechanical technology,” said Davis. “With the mechanical harvesting equipment, we were quickly introduced to things like electric over hydraulic systems and computers.

“At first it was like hitting a technological wall—it was a whole new ball game for us. So getting a day of going over the machines with the technicians was a critical step for us. We had a day with both LogMax and John Deere technicians and that gave us a good basic understanding of the mechanics of our machines.”

Davis went on to comment that both LogMax and the Fredericton Brandt Tractors

Logging & Sawmilling Journal - June/July 2015

33

to page 34

eastcoastlogging from page 33

G&L Equipment is currently working with a Timberjack 608 harvester equipped with a LogMax 5000 head.

The 5000 head is fast and powerful, and offers a broad diameter capacity, making it a good fit for the type of harvesting G&L is doing. They are now handling a larger range of diameters, and are not afraid to tackle hardwoods.

staff have been very helpful, including on the phone, helping to figure out day to day snags.

On his return to the Moncton shop, the LogMax technician discussed with sales rep Rob Moran that this novice team of loggers might benefit from a visit, to offer a little more guidance on harvester operation.

While Moran possesses enviable sales talents, he came to sales after several years as a harvester operator and operator trainer.

Moran said that his initial visit was positive, and he found the novice operators very receptive to his advice and after demonstrating the potential of the machine, he continued to offer some coaching.

While Davis and Regan progressed along the learning curve with the harvester, they came to the realization that things needed to change on the equipment front.

Rob Moran came back into the picture and located a Timberjack 608 harvester with a LogMax 5000 head in Newfoundland, which replaced the Rocan/LogMax 3000 equipment set-up.

“We are a lot happier with the 608,”

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Logging & Sawmilling Journal - June/July 2015

said Davis. “It is bigger, with better power and stability, and we’re comfortable with the excavator configuration. The 5000 head is faster and a lot more powerful, and has a lot more diameter capacity compared to the 3000.

“It is a lot better fit for the type of harvesting we are doing. We can handle a lot bigger range of diameters, and we are not afraid to tackle hardwoods. With increased familiarity with the harvester, we are at the point we are seriously considering moving up to a 6000 head,” he added.

Davis explained that as their proficiency with the mechanics and operating improved, they found their machine team had a fundamental imbalance.

“Once we had both machines operating productively, we found the forwarder capacity pushing the harvester’s production. We looked around to hire a harvester operator to put extra shifts on the 608, but that talent proved very hard to find.

“We eventually decided that Wade should train on the harvester and take it for a couple days through the week, and I would work it a few nights, and that would pretty well balance the forwarder capacity to harvester production.”

However, this past February found the 1010 forwarder foundering in record snow accumulation, aggravated by persistent deep cold temperatures. With the 1010 parked and a contracted eightwheel forwarder hauling the wood, Regan went on day shift on the harvester and Davis filled out the nights.

“We each do a ten hour shift,” explained Davis. “Wade works the days which means he is able to see better in daylight hours while he learns to operate.

He had excavator experience, so basically it has been a matter of learning the buttons for operating the head, and he has been doing really well.”

Since going back to work for Beyler, the harvesting has been focussing on commercial thinning in plantations and old pre-commercial thinned stands, and a partial cut harvest strategy for natural stands with commercial wood.

“Our ultimate management strategy is to maintain a good deal of our woodland in a multi-age, multi-species condition, dominated by tolerant species,” explained Beyler, referring to his owned woodlots, as well as Five Islands land.

“On the other hand, we typically patch (clear) cut stands dominated by balsam fir and poplar. We are putting a focus on harvesting balsam fir in particular because we are pretty confident that we will soon

eastcoastlogging see the spruce budworm population peak, and we know it will eventually kill a good deal of the balsam fir all across the region, before the population collapses.”

While Beyler prefers to see about 80 per cent of the harvest activity as partial cuts and commercial thinning, Davis suggests that target might change with an increased emphasis on harvesting balsam fir.

“When balsam fir gets 35 to 40 years old, it generally starts to decline with stain and rot. A lot of the (formerly PCT) thinned stands are reaching that age and it needs harvesting. Additionally, as budworm becomes a threat, harvesting becomes all the more important, and we may see more patch cuts that clean up the fir.”

While Davis and Regan have gained a good deal of proficiency carrying out partial cut harvesting, they realize that site and species mix have a huge impact on the success of the type of management.

“It appears that it is very important to critically evaluate site, soil type and species mix to have a wind-firm, post-harvest, stand. Some places, we seem to have great success, and other sites it is less successful. Partial cuts seem to work very well on relatively dry soils types, especially

areas with a mix of pine, spruce and tolerant hardwoods. That type of site tends to have deeper richer and drier soils and trees that can tolerate wind. On the other hand, on wet site soils the trees do not seem to root as well, and we see those sites experience more windthrow.”

Beyler declares he is looking forward to a positive and productive working relationship with Davis and Regan. “I

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have a significant land base to manage and I need a contractor with the right attitude toward forest management. They have a good understanding of the type of work I want, and as our comfort level has grown, the need for close supervision has declined. It’s a good relationship—we all want to be in it for the long haul.”

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June/July 2015

The Edge FPInnovations plays important role in reopening of West Chilcotin Forest Products mill by Ulkatcho First Nation

T

he collapse of the U.S. lumber market in 2006–2007 ultimately led, in 2010, to the Ulkatcho First Nations securing 100 per cent ownership in the West Chilcotin Forest Products (WCFP) sawmill. To help address the challenges of operating a sustainable sawmill in a remote area such as Anahim Lake, B.C., Chief Zach Parker engaged the services of FPInnovations to perform an opportunity assessment under the B.C./Alberta Aboriginal Forest Sector Technical Support Program. Dave McRae, who manages the program on behalf of FPInnovations, and program consultant Bill Lewis responded to the mill’s request.

Their study supported the reopening of the mill, and the study made numerous recommendations on various aspects of WCFP’s operations. With the help of WCFP staff and other key industry players, Bill Lewis developed an analysis that proposed a new formula for a viable and sustainable operation.

FPInnovations was also called upon to conduct two studies on the costs and benefits of wood waste-fuelled combined heat and power systems, to replace the diesel generators now in use. This work was completed in 2014 by FPInnovations Senior Researcher, Dr. Marian Marinescu.

Chief Zach Parker of the Ulkatcho First Nation is quick to acknowledge the role that FPInnovations and the B.C./AlbertaAboriginal Forest Sector Technical Support Program have played in the resurgence

Chief Zach Parker, Ulkatcho First Nation (far left), and FPInnovations Vice President Peter Lister sign a Letter of Understanding.

Logging & Sawmilling Journal - June/July 2015

of WCFP as a viable forest products manufacturer.

“It is only thanks to FPInnovations that we are now confident the mill can operate continuously and successfully, and be a catalyst for a revived community. With the help of FPInnovations, we have come close to success; with your continued support, success is assured,” said Chief Zach Parker, of the Ulkatcho First Nation.

For more information on FPInnovations’ First Nations Technical Support Program, please contact Dave McRae at 250-713-1721 or by e-mail at dave. mcrae@fpinnovations.ca

37

The Edge

Helping logging contractors manage their business

O

ver the past year, FPInnovations’ Harvesting Operations group has continued to provide the forest industry with two services targeted at increasing the operational efficiency and financial performance of its logging contractors.

Firstly, in partnership with 20 member companies, FPInnovations has provided business skills workshops to about 25 different logging contractors, including First Nations crews, involving over 100 participants. Additionally, over 60 member company employees participated in these workshops.

The workshops consist of day-long sessions framed around the concept of continuous improvement and FPInnovations’ DiagFor tool. DiagFor is a diagnostic and benchmarking process that divides a contractor’s business into eight responsibilities.

This interactive workshop engages participants and challenges them to look at how their operations deal with issues such as fuel management, machine productivity and utilization, machine maintenance and repair strategies, measuring financial performance, managing people, product quality, and complying with environmental obligations.

While measuring the value of such a workshop is often difficult, post-event surveys have told FPInnovations that

38

reducing machine idling time, controlling fuel consumption, getting a better handle on machine utilization, and understanding the break-even point of each phase of an operation are some of the “lowhanging fruits” that participants identified as immediate potential improvements to their operations. As well, many company representatives indicated that they found it very helpful when concepts and terminology that are often misunderstood are clarified. While getting logging contractors unaccustomed to a classroom environment to sit inside for half-a-day is always a challenge, FPInnovations often had to extend the duration of the workshop beyond the scheduled time because of high interest from the participants!

As a second service to the harvesting community, seven contractors have been the subject of a one-week diagnostic/benchmarking Logging & Sawmilling Journal - June/July 2015

exercise. In this process, FPInnovations’ Forest Operations staff spend one week on site assessing machine productivity, operator skills, phase flow, maintenance/ repair practices, infrastructures, product quality, etc. This is done through both direct observations and staff interviews. At the end of the week, the contractor receives a personalized review of the operation along with a benchmark assessment and recommendations on how to make improvements in all of DiagFor’s eight skills sets. As one contractor said, “It was the best week I have invested in 20 years of operations.”

For more information on either of these services, please contact Peter Hamilton, Senior Scientist, Harvesting Operations, at 514-782-4518 or peter.hamilton@fpinnovations.ca or Jean-Philippe Gaudreau, Scientist, Harvesting Operations, at 418-7816801or jean-philippe.gaudreau@fpinnovations.ca

The Edge

Robots in the forest: the lumberjacks of tomorrow

F

PInnovations presented its Robotics in the Forest Workshop April 21-23—a successful event that aimed at discussing promising avenues for advanced technologies in forest operations.

For the first edition of the event, nearly 75 guest speakers and participants got together in downtown Montreal.

The event—coordinated by Jean-François Gingras, Research Manager, Forest Operations at FPInnovations—attracted participants from the forest industry, equipment manufacturers, government agencies, universities, advanced technology providers and people in the research field. The attendees came from all over— from Canada, of course, but also from 12 other countries as far away as New Zealand, Brazil and South Africa.

One of the purposes of the workshop was to present the forest sector representatives with the progress achieved by other sectors, and particularly by the university network and the mining sector, on the development and integration of automation and robotization technologies.

The second objective was to identify the most promising technological solutions for responding to the challenges inherent in the lack of manpower in tomorrow’s forest sector as well as the profound changes in that “new” manpower of tomorrow.

And lastly, the last objective was networking and making new contacts, potentially leading to partnerships or alliances.

Based on the lively discussions follow-

ing the presentations and those during the breaks, this objective seems to have been easily reached.

Nearly 20 technical presentations were made, covering topics as varied as the technologies used in mines, robotics in manufacturing plants and in the field, aerospace, remote operations, self-learning systems, the automation of repetitive tasks and the new efficient sensors now available on the market, particularly those usable by drones in the air or on land.

It seemed clear, following the various discussions, that some of these automation technologies will be integrated into forestry equipment on a large scale in the very near future.

Maria Hedblom, director of the Umeä forest technology cluster in Sweden, was the guest speaker at the dinner held on April 22. In her opinion, the organization of this workshop was a brilliant idea of FPInnovations, as it provided an opportunity to connect different sectors discussing automation and robotics. “I hope that the industry will continue with this collaboration. The environment in forestry is very complex; it will therefore be important for the forestry field to know how to learn from the other sectors on a lot of new intelligent ways of using robotics.”

Luc Lebel, Professor in the Faculty of Forestry, Geography and Geomatics at Université Laval in Quebec City, was the moderator of the closing plenary session.

“The workshop perfectly met my expecta-

tions: examples of robotics applications in industrial sectors other than forestry were presented to us and were followed by discussions on the potential of drawing inspiration from them,” said Lebel.

“There were many wonderful exchanges of information and views all throughout the workshop.”

Following the workshop, the participants were given the opportunity to tour McGill University’s Centre for Intelligent Machines (CIM). At the invitation of CIM’s Director Greg Dudek, the various laboratories for artificial perception, applied dynamics, robotic mechanical systems, aerospace mechatronics and for the simulator produced by CM Labs opened their doors to the visitors, who were very interested in this display of new technologies.

To develop its program for the Robotics in the Forest Workshop, FPInnovations benefited from the technical support of Unmanned Systems Canada, Université Laval, the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), FPAC, SkogForsk, McGill University and the Canadian Institute of Forestry as well as the financial support of Natural Resources Canada, through its Transformative Technologies Program for the forest sector. Several companies in the forestry sector also chose to express their interest in this new topic by serving as sponsors of this event: John Deere Inc., Tigercat Industries, Liebherr Inc. and Fibria Pulp.

More information on the subjects presented during the workshop may be found at: http://fmtc.fpinnovations.ca/. Additional information may also be obtained by contacting Jean-François Gingras, Research Manager, Forest Operations, at 514-782-4543 or by e-mail at jean-françois.gingras@fpinnovations.ca.

Logging & Sawmilling Journal - June/July 2015

39

The Edge

AI Bio funds help prepare industry for imminent environmental change

By Tony Kryzanowski

Dr. Mike Flannigan spoke on potential future fire events in Alberta at the recent AI Bio Impact Innovation public outreach event.

“We’re getting a lot warmer than we used to be,” he added. “You give me hot, dry and windy conditions, and we’ve got a fire problem.” While fire is a common occurrence in the boreal forest, with about two million hectares burned annually, “in the last two years, we have burned double that,” he said.

Dr. Flannigan indicated that some models predict that the average mean temperature in Alberta could get five to six degrees warmer by the end of this century. “And the warmer it gets, the more fires you have.” He noted that Alberta has already adjusted its spring fire season from starting April 1st to starting March 1st. The province is unique compared to other areas of Canada because most fires occur in Alberta in May, and not in summer.

Given what is known about climate change and when most forest fires occur in the province, as well as the fact that most fires are caused by humans and not lightning, “we can be better prepared for spring fires.” Better preparedness is the advice that he passed on to all Albertans in general, and to stakeholders such as government and the forest industry specifically.

Other presenters spoke about making better use of our environmental resources to solve specific remediation issues or to produce new and environmentally friendly consumer products—an initiative strongly endorsed by AI Bio Board Chair, Art Froehlich.

“If we are going to have sustainable and efficient production, we need novel products,” he told the outreach audience.

That starts with gaining more knowledge of what is in our forests and food to help us address future environmental and food production challenges, he added.

Among those new products is cellulose nanocrystals (CNC), a minute component that can be extracted economically from wood fibre and can strengthen, enhance or alter the attributes of consumer, commercial, or industrial products. With help from Alberta Innovates, Alberta has spent $6.7 million to build a CNC demonstration plant capable of producing 100

40

Logging & Sawmilling Journal - June/July 2015

E

nvironmental change is coming to Alberta, both on the positive and negative side of the equation, with this year’s dry spring and numerous forest fires an indicator of one major challenge the province’s forest industry could face in the not-too-distant future.

“Forest Fires in Alberta’s Forests: What Does the Future Look Like?” a presentation given by Dr. Mike Flannigan, Professor at the Department of Renewable Resources at the University of Alberta, was one of several presentations given at this year’s fifth annual Alberta Innovates Bio Solutions (AI Bio) Impact Innovation public outreach event, held recently in Edmonton.

AI Bio funds research and knowledge transfer like the work being done by Dr. Flannigan to ensure that industry is wellprepared for potential imminent changes that could impact its future.

“Fire is going to have the biggest impact on the Canadian forest,” Dr. Flannigan said, and Alberta will be no exception as annual mean temperatures rise due to climate change on a global scale.

kilograms of CNC per week.

In his presentation entitled, “Cellulose Nanocrystal Pilot Plant: Production & Applications” Dr. Behzad Ahvazi, Program Lead, Biomass Processing & Conversion - Bioresources at AI Bio’s sister organization, Alberta Innovates - Technology Futures, said that AITF is working with local pulp producer, Al-Pac, to advance the commercialization of this novel material. He said that CNC from the Alberta pilot plant has been shipped to a number of countries for experimentation in such materials as shoes, and in the aerospace industry.

A little closer to home, CNC has potential commercial application in the oil and gas industry in fracking fluids and drilling oils. It also has potential applications in bio-medical products, as well as diversifying the product mix offered by the pulp and paper industry.

The focus at the present time is to increase the conversion rate during the CNC production process, which at present is less than 50 per cent.

Another presentation at the outreach event focused on AI Bio-funded research related to, “Remediation of Petroleum Hydrocarbons Using Phytotechnologies.”

Dr. Barbara Zeeb, Canada Research Chair — Biotechnologies & Environment at the Royal Military College of Canada, said that they have developed technology and methodologies to use plants or trees to breakdown contaminants in soils to less toxic forms. These are plants that are native to the area, and with combined use of a biomaterial called biochar, the result can be a substantially bigger plant. “We’re actually ready to take this technology to the field,” she told the audience.

All Impact Innovation presentations are available for review on the AI Bio website at http://bio.albertainnovates. ca/about/corpevents/impactinnovation2015/. And mark your calendars— Impact Innovation 2016 is Wednesday, May 11, 2016.

The Edge

CWFC outlines site rehab project to key stakeholders in beetle battle

By Tony Kryzanowski

“

E

ndemic populations of the mountain pine beetle will likely hang around for a long time. The threat will be there for a long time.”

That was the message presented by Dr. Katherine Bleiker, research scientist working from the Pacific Forestry Centre of the Canadian Forest Service, at the recent Mountain Pine Beetle (MPB) Information Exchange Forum hosted by the Foothills Research Institute (FRI) in Edmonton. She was speaking on the topic of “Cold Tolerance of the MPB: Implications for population dynamics and spread.”

Her audience represented the MPB scientific and government leaders manning the battlements in B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan and Ontario, ever watchful for any sudden spread of the MPB beyond current established boundaries, given the devastation it has wrought in B.C.’s lodgepole pine forest and its ongoing infestation of Alberta’s commercial pine forest.

Dr. Bleiker noted that cold weather alone is no guarantee of a potential beetle population collapse. That’s because research has shown that even if 90 per cent mortality occurs at temperatures of minus 35 degrees Celsius, the beetle can still maintain a stable population.

Other factors working in the beetle’s favor, according to research conducted so far by the Canadian Forest Service, Foothills Research Institute, and researchers from other stakeholder groups, is that warmer temperatures and forest degradation from drought contribute to the beetle’s spread and that the beetle will feed on jackpine. This has particularly serious potential consequences for Canada’s entire commercial forest.

Given its mandate, the Canadian Wood Fibre Centre (CWFC) is concerned how this long term MPB presence will impact the value of the lodgepole pine timber supply now and going forward—and what industry and other stakeholders can do to capture as much value as possible from impacted forests, while implement-

ing silvicultural practices that result in stand re-establishment as quickly as possible. Research conducted by Dr. Ellen Macdonald and others from the Department of Renewable Resources at the University of Alberta has shown that industry can’t depend on nature alone to regenerate the pine forest.

Given this reality, the presentation given at the Forum by CWFC on innovative stand enhancement and regeneration systems to recover value, reduce risk and rehabilitate mountain pine beetle affected stands in the Alberta boreal plains ecozone was particularly timely.

CWFC’s concern is that if a strategy to recover value and rehabilitate the many unmerchantable beetle affected sites isn’t implemented, this could lead to a significant delay in the re-establishment of these lands to a productive state, impacting wood supply in future. Risk reduction to wildfire and continued beetle production losses can also be addressed by adopting fibre recovery and advanced regeneration systems in affected stands.

Derek Sidders, CWFC Regional Coordinator and Program Manager at the Northern Forestry Centre in Edmonton, along with Tim Keddy, CWFC Wood Fibre Development Specialist, presented a synopsis of CWFC’s project, being conducted in partnership with Canfor and the University of Alberta and supported by the Forest Resource Improvement Association of Alberta (FRIAA). The project has established a demonstration site and long-term research study to assess the impact of innovative partial harvest and regeneration systems on value recovery, risk reduction, and stand rehabilitation of beetle affected stands.

It was launched in 2014 with the selective harvesting of 350 hectares of mixed beetle affected stands that had greater than 50 per cent lodgepole pine crown composition and greater than 15 metres in height. The stands were comprised of a mixture of green, red and grey lodgepole Logging & Sawmilling Journal - June/July 2015

Derek Sidders (foreground), CWFC Regional Coordinator and Program Manager at the Northern Forestry Centre in Edmonton, was among the presenters at this year’s FRI Mountain Pine Beetle Information Exchange Forum in Edmonton.

pine as well as white spruce and aspen.

The harvest system that was used in the CWFC project selected active attack trees, green lodgepole pine greater than 20 centimeters DBH as well as incidental hardwoods and other softwood species, with the goal of finding a commercial use for this wood fibre, while creating space to selectively site prepare and plant to establish a new softwood crop. The goal was also to demonstrate that this method can be applied economically.

“The objective was to transform a protection and rehabilitation prescription into multiple commercial values including sawlogs, OSB, pulp and pre-processed, densified and packaged woody biomass,” says Sidders, while opening up the stand to reduce fire hazard and establish a new commercial crop using advanced site preparation techniques including high speed mixing to reduce competition and enhance early establishment growth.

For more information on the methods and results of this CWFC study, contact Derek Sidders at (780) 435-7355 or Derek.Sidders@NRCanRNCan.gc.ca or Tim Keddy at (780) 435-7212 or tkeddy@NRCan-RNCan. gc.ca.

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industryshows

Canada North Resources Expo: another winning show The Canada North Resources Expo, held in Prince George, B.C. at the end of May, was a huge success, thanks to features like a 30 per cent boost in outdoor exhibition space and the show hosting the first Northern B.C. Safety Conference.

By Jim Stirling

T

he Canada North Resources Expo (CNRE) continued to expand its impact in central British Columbia with its recent second biennial show held May 29-30 in Prince George.

The show’s producer, Master Promotions Ltd., and its co-organizers described the event as “a huge success.”

Master Promotion’s figures reveal the event was attended by 8,451 visitors, which represents an increase in numbers compared to the more than 8,000 attending the first CNRE in 2013.

“Visitors representing northern Canada’s varied resources and resource industries came out in droves to check out the big iron and live equipment demos,” enthused Mark Cusack, national show manager with Master Promotions, a national event organizing company based in Saint John, New Brunswick.”We’ve had great feedback from show visitors and exhibitors alike.”

For Master Promotions, the local response to this year’s show represented another highlight in what is developing as a banner year for Prince George. Cusack noted in his welcoming comments to the show that 2015 is the city of Prince George’s 100th anniversary and was marked by the city’s recent and successful hosting of the Canada Winter Games.

“There’s no better time to pay tribute

to the many sectors that are part of the region’s economy, including mining, oil and gas, forestry, bioenergy, education, health care, transportation and professional services.

The Canada North Resources Expo showcases the leaders and rising stars of each of these industries,” said Cusack.

The CNRE’s primary focus in 2015 was providing a showcase for the region’s forest industry, heavy construction equipment and services and natural resource project infrastructure. An appreciated feature of the 2015 show was a 30 per cent boost in outdoor exhibition space. This provision allowed more room for exhibitors to display the latest in machines and services and encourage a broader range of participation.

Among the new features introduced during this year’s CNRE was the hosting of the first Northern B.C. Safety Conference. Its guiding principle is the provision of practical information and tools to help manage safety challenges encountered at work. The conference was designed for workers, supervisors and owners active in the regional forest industry.

The intent is for the safety conference

42

Logging & Sawmilling Journal - June/July 2015

to become a regular feature of future CNRE editions. It’s organized by a committee representing a cross section of the forest industry including licencees, contractors and suppliers along with WorkSafeBC and the BC Forest Safety Council.

A returning and associated feature at the 2015 CNRE was the Health, Wellness and Safety Zone. It’s a cluster of services and information sources collectively designed to improve awareness and safety habits on the job.

The CNRE is produced in partnership with the Resources Expo Society, a locally based, not-for-profit operation with a mandate to promote training and educational opportunities in the central and northern B.C. resource sectors.

Funding generated by the show helps the society meet its objectives. Community beneficiaries include a legacy scholarship and bursary program at the regional College of New Caledonia; creating a legacy fund with the Prince George Community Foundation and support for local heavy equipment training programs.

The next CNRE in Prince George is scheduled for May 2017. Organizational work for that event began with an analysis of this year’s successful show as its baseline.

industryshows

show is on the way Planning for the largest live equipment logging show in North America next year—DEMO 2016, to be held at the UBC Research Forest near Vancouver—is well underway, with recent planning meetings firming up the details for DEMO.

By Paul MacDonald

I

t’s still a ways off, but the planning for DEMO 2016—which is returning to the west coast—is well underway and those looking to attend should now circle the dates on the calendar: September 22-24, 2016.

The Faculty of Forestry at the University

44

of British Columbia will host the event at the Malcolm Knapp Research Forest in Maple Ridge, located within an hour’s drive of downtown Vancouver.

The first site selection meeting took place in June, as major players in the industry gathered to choose the optimal sites to demonstrate their equipment live—in-woods and in action—for the thousands of visitors who will descend upon the area for the event next year.

Owned by the Canadian Woodlands Forum (CWF) and produced by Master Promotions Ltd., this world-class event is unlike any other in Canada. A show this big only happens every four years, so it is definitely seen as a “must-attend” for those in the industry.

“People love being part of this show because it’s so unique and only comes around every four years,” said Peter Robichaud, Executive Director of the CWF. “It’s a huge draw, so there’s always lots of interest and excitement as we develop Logging & Sawmilling Journal - June/July 2015

the site.”

“The site selection we held at the research forest in June went very well, and we were pleased to welcome representatives from a considerable number of industry leading companies,” added Mark Cusack, National Show Manager with Master Promotions Ltd. The June meetings provided suppliers an opportunity to visit the research forest and choose their site.

“It’s really at the site selection meeting that the buzz really starts,” says Robichaud.

“It went really well. The exhibitors bring a high level of interest and passion to the show, and the excitement is building. We were able to line up all the key equipment people—they all came to the table and are participating and supporting DEMO.” Organizers are working on all the details that surround such a large show, such as lining up hotels and on-site services, and that is coming along nicely, reports

industryshows Robichaud. They are designing a show site that meets the highest of standards and expectations.

Robichaud noted the UBC Research Forest is an excellent location for DEMO, because of the features of the research forest itself, and also since it is so close to Vancouver.

Robichaud noted that the show is getting complete buy-in and support from the Malcolm Knapp Research Forest staff, led

by Paul Lawson, Director of UBC Research Forests and Anthony Robinson. The Knapp Forest is truly a multiple use research forest, providing an ideal location and forested venue for an event of the scope of DEMO. This will mark the 13th edition of DEMO International. During the course of its 49 -year history, DEMO has evolved into one of North America’s largest and unique outdoor equipment shows. Attracting more than 110 exhibitors and thousands of attendees from around the world, the “all live and in-woods” equipment show will feature the latest technologies in equipment, products and services covering all aspects of woodlands operations, and will attract individuals interested in forestry from around the world. Past shows have attracted up to 16,000 attendees.

Robichaud said that DEMO is more relevant than ever before, considering the cost pressures the logging sector continues to deal with, and the need for modern, efficient logging equipment.

“I think the timing for DEMO is good,” he added. “There is still a lot of older equipment out there and I think there is a renewed sense of confidence among contractors. They have the assurance that things are starting to improve, and wood is moving—and with that, they see the opportunity to invest in their business.”

They know they have to re-invest in newer equipment if they are running old gear—in order to survive today, machine utilization and productivity are so important, says Robichaud.

“You have to be on top of your game in logging and have the latest equipment. A show like DEMO provides the opportunity to really shop around—all the major logging equipment manufacturers will be there.”

It’s a great opportunity to see all this equipment at a single site, and to see much of it working in the woods—that really is the unique feature of the DEMO show. Loggers can see equipment harvesting trees, or hauling timber or processing wood. “You can see all this at one show, in a great outdoor atmosphere,” says Robichaud.

“It provides the opportunity to bring together the people who are selling logging

equipment with the people who are buying the equipment—the companies and contractors can see equipment demonstrations, and shop for what is the best piece of equipment for them, and their operation.”

As part of Demo Week, there will also be a pre-show conference—Canada’s Forest Sector: Adapting to a New Reality, “Technology and Innovations as a Catalyst for Success”—being held September 19 to 21 at the Four Seasons Hotel in Vancouver.

The conference is being co-hosted by the Faculty of Forestry, UBC and the Canadian Woodlands Forum in association with the 108th Annual General Meeting of the Canadian Institute of Forestry, FPInnovations, and the Council on Forest Engineering 2016 Annual General Meeting.

Robichaud noted that in addition to DEMO, Vancouver itself will be a draw for attendees. “The city of Vancouver is a major attraction in itself, for people who

have been there before and want to come back, or who have never been to the city.

It’s a great destination.”

He noted that the prime audience for DEMO, logging contractors, don’t typically take a lot of time off. “So with DEMO being in Vancouver, it’s an attractive package. They can spend a couple of days at DEMO, and do a bit of R and R in Vancouver.”

With a great team and event planned for DEMO 2016, the excitement is clearly building.

That team includes Logging and Sawmilling Journal, which will producing an Official Show guide for DEMO—further information is available on LSJ’s website at www.forestnet.com.

Further information and updates on DEMO are available at www.demointernational.com.

The first site selection meeting for DEMO 2016 took place in June, as major players in the industry gathered to choose the optimal sites to demonstrate their equipment live—in-woods and in action—for the thousands of visitors who will descend upon the area for the event next year.

Logging & Sawmilling Journal - June/July 2015

45

SUPPLIERNEWSLINE New chains from Wallingford’s

Wallingford’s Inc has introduced additions to their line of BABAC Traction Products.

The product line now includes an extremely aggressive 7/8” Multi-Ring and 1” Multi-Ring, as well as 7/8” Single, Diamond and a half and Double Diamond chains.

Designed with today’s larger machines and rugged terrain in mind, BABAC Forestry and Heavy Equipment tire chains are made of the highest quality boron alloy steel available, says the company. This American-made product is built by hand in Winslow, Maine. The process of manual welding provides the best results in quality control and customer satisfaction, according to the company.

Exclusive to BABAC chains is their exceptional through hardening process which provides a uniform hardness and tensile strength throughout the steel. Extensive tests and field experience have shown that BABAC tire chains wear longer, more uniformly, and without the breakage that is associated with the alternative, case hardened products, says the company.

BABAC offers a full line of standard tire chain patterns for skidder, forwarder, harvester, tractor, and heavy equipment applications through Wallingford’s Inc. BABAC also offers a computerized custom design capability and they specialize in custom tire chain applications for odd tire sizes. www.babactirechains.com

EnviroBridge makes crossing easy

EnviroBridge crossing systems are designed to rapidly get crews and equipment across streams and underground utilities on one job site or on many job sites. Based on years of experience in the resource and construction industry, the company has designed medium and short span modular bridge products that stand up to the rigors of temporary use and reuse, as well as the functional requirements of long term installations.

The company’s bridges require no special tools or fasteners to install, use local fill or gravel as bridge decks, and can be transported easily without the need for special permits or pilot cars.

Support staff at EnviroBridge have been building roads and installing bridges for decades across Western Canada and they ably lend expertise to the specific project needs of customers. Their goal is to help customers get across streams and underground utilities in the most efficient manner possible while respecting the sensitive ecology of areas under and around bridges. www.enviro-bridge.com 46

By Tony Kryzanowski

Brutus ETV2 emergency transportation vehicle approved by WorkSafeBC

With forestry workers employed often in remote locations, transportation to medical care in the event of an injury is critical.

The Brutus ETV2 emergency transportation vehicle, an insert that is designed to fit GM, Ford and Dodge trucks with 8” pickup boxes, has been approved by WorkSafeBC. It has also been certified to meet Transport Canada and WCB requirements.

The unit is tubular aluminum that is structurally framed for rollover protection, with an aluminum entrance door with stainless handles and quick release hinges. It has an aluminum stretcher door with stainless handles equipped with quick release hinges, an aluminum stretcher platform with rubber matting, three stretcher belts, and an EVS 1760 padded attendant seat with seat belt. www.brutusbodies.com

Madill appoints Matdil Parts & Service as Alberta representative

Madill has appointed Matdil Parts & Service as the authorized Madill representative for the territory of northern Alberta, effective June 16, 2015.

“We are very excited to be representing the Madill brand of purpose built forestry equipment in northern Alberta,” said Matt Swenson, President of Matdil Parts & Service. “There are plenty of older Madill machines still working in this area and customers will now have local access to new Madill equipment and OEM parts.”

In turn, Madill is pleased to be represented by Matdil Parts & Service, who have been providing services to forestry customers in the Grande Prairie region since 2008, said Doug Jeffrey, President of Nicholson Manufacturing, the parent company that owns the Madill brand.

“Madill previously had a very successful branch office in Grande Prairie up until 2008 and Matt Swenson was part of that success as the parts and service manager for the branch,” said Jeffrey.

“Following the closure of the Madill office in Grand Prairie in 2008, Matt established his own business to service the many forestry customers in the region and continues to do so today.

Matt’s past experience with the brand ensures a perfect alignment with Madill’s philosophy and commitment to maximum uptime and productivity of its forestry machines,” Jeffrey added.

Madill is a leading independent supplier of services to forestry and other heavy equipment customers in Northern Alberta. It has experience servicing Detroit Diesel, Cummins, Bosch-Rexroth, and Linde, all of which are common to Madill equipment.

Logging & Sawmilling Journal - June/July 2015

to page 48

suppliernewsline from page 46 Madill is a premium quality purpose built forestry brand designed and manufactured in British Columbia with distribution in Canada, the U.S., New Zealand and Australia. The Madill brand of logging equipment is designed with experience developed from manufacturing over 4,000 machines over a 60 year period, and it has a well-earned reputation for its solid construction and simplicity of design which provides superior performance, productivity and long service life, says the company. www.madillequipment.com

Olofsfors upgrades ECO-Wheel Tracks for CTL machines

Olofsfors has announced that an upgraded version of ECOWheel Tracks for cut-to-length machines is now available in North America.

There is a new cross member design based around the proven EVO model, and the addition of side supports make ECO-Wheel Tracks available for more tire sizes and brands. The EVO cross member is said to offer excellent strength and anti-slip properties with a unique sunken cleat position which reduces the stress in the cross member, making it user friendly when re-cleating.

ECO-Wheel Tracks ‘CTL’ are

suitable for harvesters and forwarders where traction and stability are the primary requirements. Wheel tracks are an economical alternative to conventional tire chains for the metric sized tires. www.eco-tracks.com

LINCK introduces compact processing centre

LINCK has introduced a newly-developed compact processing centre. With this machine, four-sided cants can be produced, with minimum space required.

The components used in the processing centre—such as log rotation, log guiding and cutterheads—have been tried and tested for years, says LINCK. The compact design allows the application of LINCK technology in areas where it had not been possible until now, due to space restrictions.

LINCK says new sawmills can be designed with noticeable reduced building length.

All established processing methods are supported. Whether the logs are to be processed split taper, diagonally aligned or curve sawn is determined through the LINCK process control software.

Through additional units for profiling and sawing, a complete production unit can be realized with minimum space required. www.linck.com

SPRINGER Group buys WoodEye

With the purchase of the Swedish lumber-scanner producer WoodEye, the SPRINGER Group is expanding its product portfolio with camera-based image-processing systems for the lumber industry.

“In WoodEye, we will gain a very well established, innovative team,” said Springer CEO Timo Springer. “WoodEye is a specialist in measuring and detecting all kinds of defects in lumber. This means we can keep the share of waste lumber in the valuable raw material down to a minimum, while raising profitability in wood processing.”

The Swedish company WoodEye is a leader in optimization systems in software and optical image recognition.

SPRINGER has been successful in the field of lumber measuring with the South Tyrolean subsidiary MiCROTEC since 1990. www.springer-microtec.com

BID Group acquires Miller Manufacturing

The BID Group of Companies has acquired Miller Manufacturing Inc, of Washougal, Washington, which does business as A&M Manufacturing.

“Adding A&M Manufacturing expands our equipment and service product lines including the new Miller Planer Machine,” says Alistair Cook, Chief Executive Officer of The BID Group.

“This new line of products will further enhance The BID Group’s abilities to offer a complete solution to our highly valued customers. We want to serve our customers throughout the 48

Logging & Sawmilling Journal - June/July 2015

industry with a full range of equipment, installation, and aftersales service.”

The privately-owned BID Group family of companies has 32 years of experience in providing solutions for its customers. With Comact, PHL, Deltech, SEC and BID Group Construction, the group of companies provides innovative, efficient and reliable equipment. The company has offices in 14 locations across continental North America. www.bidgroup.ca

Waratah brings tough felling head to market

The new Waratah FL-85 series 2 felling head offers increased durability with a heavier frame.

It includes a larger saw box design and improved heavy duty guarding protection.

It comes with full 360 degree continuous rotation and a unique hydraulic link-brake for improved control. A strong upper-boom link system provides simple installation on log loaders, excavators, and feller bunchers.

Weighing 3844 lbs, Waratah says customers can even toss in a heel rack. It has a new larger 3/4 saw unit with auto tensioning that provides a single pass cut capacity of 37”. It can be used for picking, sorting, or piling, and is said to be ideally suited to harvest steep slope timber. It requires fewer cuts on larger timber and minimizes the need of manual hand falling. www.waratah.com

tread from clogging, inter-lug terraces ensure a self-cleaning tire that can always work at maximum efficiency.

The tires, made from a newly developed enhanced rubber compound, have also been redesigned to improve track compatibility, so that maximum grip and maximum performance is achieved with and without tracks.

The new Twin Forestry tire range consists of the T440 and T480 series, complemented by the existing skidder range, T418.

Twin Forestry T440: • Said to be ideal for clay, mud, ice and snow—maximum traction design means there’s nowhere you can’t go • Unmatchable traction and accessibility in its class, says the company • Exclusive Progressive Traction technology for proven better grip and self-cleaning with less impact on forest floor • New lug design with heavier shoulder, lug heads and transverse edges for an effective track Twin Forestry T480: • A perfect fit with tracks for exceptional grip • Transverse grooves and a wide flat tire profile for optimized track usage performance • Unique tread design with inter-lug terraces for effective selfcleaning and added pulling power • Large contact area with low ground pressure for less impact on forest floor. www.trelleborg.com/wheelsystems

Trelleborg launches innovative forestry tire range

Trelleborg has introduced an all-new Twin Forestry tires series, which is said to combine the best attributes of the previous range with innovative performance-enhancing technology.

The new design, including ProgressiveTraction and inter-lug terraces, delivers the next generation of self-cleaning, track-compatible tires with superior traction for tough forestry applications, says the company.

“With a combined tradition in forestry and agriculture, Trelleborg can bring together the best from both worlds,” said Susanna Hilleskog, Managing Director of Trelleborg Wheel Systems for the Nordic countries. “Our completely new range draws on all our experience and know-how from forestry and adds awardwinning innovations from Trelleborg’s agricultural tires. The result is an enhanced tire range that is ideally suited for the tough demands of forest terrain, providing improvements in traction, resistance properties, stability and accessibility.”

ProgressiveTraction was specifically developed to increase tire efficiency and performance based on the action of a double lug.

Operating on the soil at different times, the double lug progressively releases higher traction when required. The double lug also provides the tire with better floatation capability, producing even pressure distribution over the extra wide footprint and less impact on the forest floor.

Inter-lug terraces, another proven Trelleborg concept, have been integrated into the new tread design. By preventing the Logging & Sawmilling Journal - June/July 2015

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50

Logging & Sawmilling Journal - June/July 2015

Andy Porter –

A Forest Industry Pioneer

A

ndy Porter, the founder of Porter Engineering, passed away suddenly on June 5, 2015 at the age of 76.

Andy was a pioneer in the field of scanning, optimization, and control systems for primary breakdown systems in sawmills.

Andy was a graduate of the University of New Brunswick as well as the New York State College of Forestry at Syracuse, where he received his doctorate.

After completing studies, he traveled to New Zealand to study forestry methods in plantations. While there, Andy was invited on a research expedition to Antarctica where he spent the next year with various research teams.

Upon returning to North America, he began working at the Western Forest Products Lab at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. In 1970, Andy started work at Letson & Burpee Ltd. as a consultant, particularly in relation to bandmill strain and kerf.

Most primary breakdown machines at that time used ball screw type systems for controlling cutting devices. Seeing a need for better control of sawing systems than ball screws, Andy began experimenting with hydraulic setworks. This led to the founding of Porter Engineering in 1971 in Richmond, B.C. The early years of Porter Engineering revolved around providing consulting and hydraulics for setworks systems. With only a couple of employees, Andy was not only president and chief salesman, but also a key start-up person going out in the field on installs. There are stories of Andy working through the night repairing hydraulic servo valves in motel rooms in order to meet the promised start-up time of his systems.

Realizing that computers could make decisions much faster than people, Andy began to experiment with rudimentary scanning and optimization systems for

primary breakdown machine centres, and in 1978 began selling the first optimization systems. Those first Porter scanning and optimization systems were based on Digital Computer PDP series with Reticon cameras for scanners. The programs were loaded into the computers by paper tape! Machine control systems were still mostly hardwired and controlled by series of relays. The optimization computer would output solution sets by hardwiring in parallel with the operator’s console set buttons.

By 1984, Porter Engineering had grown to 14 employees and was a trusted supplier of scanners and customized optimizers to sawmills throughout Western Canada.

One of the reasons for Porter’s success was Andy’s insistence on rigorously testing the optimizers and scanners before they ever went into the field. With a background in research, Andy established a test lab at the Porter facilities where each system could be completely tested with software and hardware completely integrated.

Andy could never quite leave the research field behind and R&D was an important part of the early days of Porter Engineering—and that continues today.

In the 1980s, Porter branched into scanning cans of food, scanning and finding defects in plywood, as well as an MSR testing machine. Relationships between the company and the universities were important and were fostered by Andy.

In the mid-1980s, PLCs began to take root in sawmills. Since PLCs were essentially specialized computers, Andy saw an opportunity for better control of machines, and ultimately better implementation of the optimizer solutions. He added an engineering controls group to the company and Porter began supplying a much larger component of complete systems to sawmills—setworks, hydraulics, scanners, optimizers, PLC-based control systems, operator consoles and operator cabs.

In 1989, Andy returned to New Zealand for a reunion of those scientists that had spent time in Antarctica. He fell in love with the country and decided that he wanted to return to his first love of studying plantation forests in New Zealand. A two-and-a-half-year process of selling Porter Engineering to its employees began, and on June 30, 1992, Andy and his wife Anne completed the sale of the company to the then-employees.

Andy and Anne went on to purchase a forest in New Zealand where Andy spent a number of months each year studying tree growth combined with developing new optimization methods in the forest. He eventually sold his forest in New Zealand and purchased his “woodlot” near Qualicum Beach, B.C. It was in this woodlot that Andy spent the last decade doing research and cultivating his forest by the Pacific.

Andy leaves behind his wife Anne, son Ken and two grandchildren.

Logging & Sawmilling Journal - June/July 2015

51

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Check out Logging & Sawmilling Journal at www.forestnet.com

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Logging & Sawmilling Journal - June/July 2015

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INDEX JUNE/JULY 2015

NAME:________________________________ TITLE/POSITION:__________________ COMPANY NAME:_______________________________________________________ ADDRESS:____________________________________________________________ PHONE: ______________________________

FAX:___________________________

EMAIL:______________________________________________________________ WEBSITE:____________________________________________________________

Ac# Advertiser Page AFPA ....................................................48 Andy Porter........................................50-51 Brandt Tractor.........................................25 Caterpillar...............................................23 Cleanfix NA...............................................6 Connexus Industries..................................2 DK-Spec..................................................47 Dodge Ram.............................................13 Flexxaire..................................................15 Globalstar.................................................5 Groundworx Co......................................43 Hangzhou Quiri......................................22 Hultdins Inc............................................35 John Deere.............................................17 Magnum Trailer & Equip..........................21 Metropolitan Printing...............................49 Motion Industries....................................31 Murray Latta Progressive Machine............16 Olofsfors Iggesund...................................11 Peterson..................................................19 R James Western Star...............................22 Sennebogen............................................36 Shiloh Enterprises Ltd................................6 Smithco Mfg............................................34 Springer Microtec......................................7 Terex Fuchs.............................................10 Tigercat...................................................56 Waratah..................................................55 Williams Engineering...............................18 Wood-Mizer............................................18 Woodland Equipment..............................29 Wallchart Autolog FinScan JoeScan Nelson Engineering Porter Engineering Raptor Integration USNR

#

Logging & Sawmilling Journal - June/July 2015

Comact FPInnovations MPM Engineering PMP Solutions Prologic+ Springer Microtec

Insert Fortis — Tamihi Logging/Dorman Group

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thelastword

Time to refresh R & D priorities to make sure the needs of Canada's forest industry are being met

By Tony Kryzanowski

T

here is an old Monty Python comedy sketch called, “the 100 yard dash for people with no sense of direction.” As the starter fires the pistol, the competitors scatter in random directions. That’s my impression of the current relationship between Canada’s forest industry and the many research and development groups mandated to serve it.

There’s no doubt that R & D organizations want to do a good job, but the question is whether they are properly aligned and networked to serve industry’s immediate, medium, and long-term needs.

Given the massive changes that have occurred in Canada’s forest industry over the past decade and what’s in store in the near term, there’s no doubt in my mind that the relationship between Canada’s various forest industry sectors and the research and development organizations that cater to them definitely needs a ‘refresh’.

Is industry getting the best bang for its buck? Have R & D groups swung the pendulum too far away from delivering on science and technology with tangible deliverables in favor of support for more academic, less immediately tangible research? Are R & D groups doing the type of priority work that should be done to help position the industry for the next 20 years? Is their role to assist in marketing commercially-ready technology clearly defined? Should they be involved in its marketing at all?

The answer for me is, I don’t know, and I’m quite sure that is the same answer that most forest industry executives and government policy advisors would give today. Recently, I’ve noticed that the R & D groups themselves seem to be struggling to find their footing and purpose, and would likely appreciate some feedback from stakeholders like industry and government to help set clear priorities.

What’s needed is a detailed inventory of all research being done to assist the solid wood, pulp and paper, and bioproducts sectors, to determine just how close to commercialization or market-readiness each project goal is, with the objective of setting clear short, medium, and long term deliverables for each project.

Industry change is being driven largely by three forces: markets, technology and the environment.

Firstly, from a market standpoint, there are several new industry players in Canada’s forest industry. EACOM Timber is a new entry in the solid wood sector.

Resolute Forest Products has been reinvigorated with its major investments in northwestern Ontario. Paper Excellence is a new entry in the pulp and paper sector, and the massive Alberta-Pacific Forest Industries (AL-PAC) pulp mill has a new owner.

Furthermore, the bio-energy sector is a growing force within forestry, with companies like Rentech and Resolute showing the way in Ontario, and Active Energy Group working with Métis communities in Alberta. New markets, such as China, have brought greater solid wood industry diversification, and with the prospect of a free trade agreement with the European Union, what was unthinkable a decade ago now seems entirely possible. Canadian wood products could soon find new markets in fortress Europe.

Second, technology continues to advance by leaps and bounds. For example, a British company called BioCarbon Engineering is currently demonstrating its aerial drone tree planting technology, which it claims is capable of planting a billion trees per year at only about 15 per cent of the cost of current tree planting methods.

While it will likely find limited use in natural forest regeneration, where it will

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Logging & Sawmilling Journal - June/July 2015

shine is in afforestation to establish tree crops on cultivated land at a fraction of the time and cost. In other words, the cost of producing fibre of all sorts for a variety of uses has just fallen through the floor.

Imagine how cheap it could now become to grow specialty crops of all kinds for specific bio-energy and bioproducts.

And why stop at seedlings, when this technology could also be used to fertilize and apply herbicides and pesticides. As far as adopting new technology like this, take the example of computer-based, lumber grading systems. About a decade after it first broke onto the scene, it has become standard in most Canadian planer mills. The same scenario could develop with this type of tree planting technology because novel new uses for aerial drone technology are being discovered on a regular basis.

Third, climate change will create both challenges and opportunities over the next 20 years for the Canadian forest industry. The issue of human-assisted migration will preoccupy industry over that time to ensure that well-adapted tree seedlings are used to combat the retreat of the Canadian boreal forest further north. On the flip side, there could be increased demand for biomass-based power to replace fossil fuel sources, creating greater demand for bio-energy from wood-based materials. Many of Canada’s forest companies are already in the power generation business.

So… are Canada’s R & D organizations at all levels sufficiently tuned into these industry priorities to help the forest industry survive and prosper in a cellulose-driven world? It’s time to take stock and find out before we lose any market advantages we have already created through R & D efforts to date.

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