Best Practices
Thin Kerf Is Best Practice For The Sawmill Industry
The term "best practice" implies a particular process exists that more efficiently delivers a desired outcome than any alternative process is capable of delivering. For the lumber producer, thin kerf, band sawmilling represents the sawmill industry's best practice.
In a lumber processing operation, value, yield, productivity and control of costs are the keys to profitability and environmental improvements. The long term success of the lumber processing industry also requires mill owners pay attention to environmental enhancements as they ply their trade.
The very thin kerf technology employed by AWMV through the company's product line provides:
Value Uplifts - In hardwood applications especially, thin kerf sawmilling can provide for more grade lumber as less fiber from the most valuable portion of a log is converted to sawdust. Even small increases in grade can result in significant improvements to profit.
Yield Enhancements - Sawmill owners switching from conventional technology to AWMV thin kerf approaches typically report double digit increases in total yield from their timber resource.
Productivity Upticks - Depending on the goals of ownership and the kind of product being processed, most AWMV sawmills are producing between one and six million board feet of product per year with three to five employees working one shift per day.
Cost Control - An entire AWMV sawmill can be set up for less than the cost of a single machine in a more conventional operation. Blades can be changed out in ten to fifteen minutes. Labor costs are lower. Many of America's best known hardwood producers can attest to the cost controls AWMV makes possible in their mills.
Environmental Enhancements - Increased yield, energy efficient operation and the ability to mill lumber from logs many sawmills would turn away result in reduced carbon emissions to the atmosphere and reduced harvest in healthy forests.