An impeccable outcome!

• A small Finnish sawmill invests in X-ray scanning technology to improve log sorting and ensure end-product quality
• The system has worked impeccably and raw material savings very soon exceeded expectations

The Mustola Timber sawmill in eastern Finland has 11 employees and a yearly production volume of 50 000 m3. Their goal is to steadily increase production. To achieve the full growth potential, they need to maximise the recovery rate of valuable raw material in production.

Due to special features of their production line, which is very straightforward with fewer trimming stages than usual, accurate sorting of logs is critical for Mustola Timber. Accurate top diameter measurement and sorting out certain quality issues are the most important sorting criteria.

To achieve this, they invested in X-ray scanning technology in 2017; the first small sawmill in Finland to do so. The technology was provided by Finnos, a Finnish designer and manufacturer of machine vision and quality control systems. The system delivered included X-ray, 3D and colour camera technologies.

The better results with the new scanner were immediately noticed at the sawmill. After half a year of operating the new system, it was clear that the raw material savings were exceeding the 1 % promised by Finnos. The scanner had operated impeccably regardless of the weather and needed no further adjustment.

Mustola Timber will be further developing their production line to reach the full potential benefits from the scanning system. They are planning to modify their measuring conveyor and install an X-ray based system to optimise log rotation to further improve the scanning of log properties.

Key benefits

• The scanner allows Mustola Timber to accurately sort logs into classes, ensuring end-product quality and improving productivity
• Raw material savings have exceeded 1 % - even for a small sawmill, the cost savings are remarkable
• The investment also created further potential to improve and develop the production line in the future