Industry News News Equipment Sawmilling
Valutec kiln installations tested at J.D. Irving and Pleasant River sawmills

Valutec’s Thomas Wamming, R&D manager, and John Karbin, automation manager, recently visited Maine in the U.S., where TC continuous kilns have recently been commissioned at J.D. Irving’s sawmill in Ashland and Pleasant River’s sawmill in Enfield. The aim was to carry out quality and capacity tests at the installations, both to ensure drying quality and to identify opportunities for improvement.

“A lot depends on the type of raw material dried in the kiln. There is often a need to adjust the process over time depending on what passes through the kiln. The ability to visit the sawmills provides a great opportunity to capture these types of issues,” said Wamming.

During the visit, Wamming and Karbin also had the opportunity to provide additional training to sawmill employees in Valmatics 4.0, the Valutec control system that allows sawmills to optimize their processes in terms of quality, capacity, and energy consumption.

“To benefit from the kiln’s full potential, sawmill personnel also need a picture of how the TC continuous kiln interacts with the rest of production. While it’s partly a matter of raw materials, it’s also about loading and package lengths. The sawmills that are best in these regards also tend to do really well in terms of both product quality and the bottom line,” explained Wamming.