Abstract

Roundwood receiving and sorting are the first in a long series of operations which require coordination to ensure high capacity utilization for sawmill. Variation in these operations can also cause queuing and reduced capacity utilization for wood transporting companies and delays in measurement and payment for suppliers. Two factors - sourcing and delivery scheduling have potential for reducing variation in roundwood receiving.The aim of this study is to estimate the effects of roundwood sourcing and delivery scheduling alternatives on roundwood handling at a Lithuanian sawmill. The study was done with discrete-event simulation and focuses on the unloading and sorting operations. The model was built in the ARENA simulation package.Based on the modelling of present delivery volumes (21,000 m(3)/month), better roundwood sorting and handling operations can be achieved by replacing some unfavourable import sources (giving an increase in sorter productivity from 620 to 678 m(3)/day) and by improved scheduling of wood arrivals (reduction of extra log handling from 34% to 21% of loads).Based on the modelling of planned delivery volumes (30,000 m(3)/month), replacing unfavourable import sources with domestic supply gave an increase in sorter productivity from 697 to 901 m(3)/day. Improved scheduling of truck arrivals reduced the percent of loads requiring extra handling from 49% to 36% with present sourcing and from 38% to 18% with increase in domestic sourcing. In most cases improved scheduling reduced truck waiting time by 50%. Both additional loader capacity, improved sourcing anti improved scheduling are necessary to reach the planned production volumes of the future.

Keywords

sourcing; delivery scheduling; discrete-event; queuing time; intermediate storage; sorter production

Published in

Baltic Forestry
2008, Volume: 14, number: 2, pages: 163-175
Publisher: LITHUANIAN FOREST RESEARCH INST

SLU Authors

• Fjeld, Dag

  • Department of Forest Resource Management, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

UKÄ Subject classification

Forest Science


Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/78200