SPM to deliver online condition monitoring to sawmill Södra Wood Mönsterås
One of Sweden's largest sawmills, Södra Wood Mönsterås, has placed an order for Intellinova Compact to monitor the condition of electric motors and fans in the lumber dryer.
The lumber dryer plays an important part in the production of sawn timber. In the dry kiln, the sawn timber products obtain a moisture content suitable for the intended end use. The drying process must be kept under close control, since it greatly affects the quality of the deliverable wood. Typically, the lumber is dried from a 60-120% moisture content down to 8-18%. To minimize disturbances in this important process, a high level of equipment reliability is essential. The drying process takes several days and is the most energy-intensive process in a sawmill.
The environment in a lumber dryer is very demanding. High humidity and high temperatures are factors that put great strain on construction materials and equipment. The lumber dryer consists, among other things, of a number of dryer fans driven by electric motors. Implementing vibration monitoring with Intellinova Compact and the Condmaster Ruby diagnostic software, Södra Wood Mönsterås will now create opportunities for minimizing the number of failures caused by fan and motor bearings in poor condition.
"The lumber dryers are our bottleneck and in our efforts to minimize emergency stops and high costs, we are now trying SPM equipment with online vibration monitoring in one of our progressive kilns. Potential replacement of bearings, motors or fan blades can be carried out in a controlled manner with as little disruption as possible in the dryer”, says Per Crantz, Preventive Maintenance Manager.
Södra Wood is part of forestry group Södra and produces sawn timber at ten sawmills in southern Sweden and one in Norway. The Södra Wood Mönsterås sawmill north of Kalmar on the Swedish east coast is one of the country’s largest sawmills, inaugurated in 1999 and designed for short throughput times with cutting speeds up to 150 meters (492 feet) per minute. The mill produces stress graded studs, tongue and groove boards, packaging, joists and timber pressure for impregnation. The annual production capacity is 420,000 cubic meters and the main markets are United Kingdom, Sweden, USA and Japan.
Intellinova Compact is also used in other parts of the Södra group. At the Södra Cell Värö pulp mill, the system is used for monitoring wash presses as well as the rotary lime kiln. Measurements have also been carried out on a low-pressure feeder at Södra Cell Mönsterås.
Swedish sawmills are increasingly realizing the potential of condition-based maintenance, and more and more mills are choosing to equip all or parts of their sawlines with condition monitoring equipment. Swedish Setra Heby sawmill is now in the process of introducing online monitoring of its two reducers from sawline supplier Linck.
SPM has received a strategically important order from Swedish sawmill Södra Wood Långasjö for online systems and wireless vibration sensors for monitoring production-critical equipment.
The Holmen Timber sawmill in Braviken outside Norrköping, Sweden is one of Scandinavia's largest and most modern sawmills. Since putting the plant into operation in 2011, Holmen Timber has made several investments at the sawmill to increase the production of wood products. The Intellinova Parallel EN online system was recently installed on the Linck saw line to ensure maximum availability.
Moelven Valåsen AB sawmill in Karlskoga, Sweden is part of the Norwegian wood and building materials group Moelven. The company is now investing in a new saw line for small logs, where Finnish Veisto OY will supply the HewSaw R200 1.1 V4 saw machine. When the machine is delivered and commissioned at Moelven Valåsen in the spring of 2024, the online system Intellinova Parallel EN will also be installed to monitor the mechanical condition of the saw line.
Finnish wood products and processing company Koskisen has chosen Leonova Diamond and Condmaster Ruby as its new condition monitoring tools at the chipboard mill in Järvelä, near Lahti in southern Finland. System implementation took place in December 2021.
HewSaw Sweden AB, a subsidiary of Finnish saw line supplier Veisto Oy, is set to supply a saw machine of the model HewSaw R200 1.1 V1 to Swedish wood industry company Setra's production unit in Skinnskatteberg. The machine, to be delivered to Setra at the end of 2023, will be fitted with SPM's most sophisticated online condition monitoring system, Intellinova Parallel EN.
Following a successful test installation, Norra Timber has chosen to move forward with a condition monitoring solution from SPM Instrument for its new high-tech band saw line at the Sävar Sawmill near Umeå in northern Sweden, aiming to ensure high machine availability and long pre-warning times.
HewSaw Sweden, retailer of production lines in the wood processing industry, have chosen Intellinova Parallel EN for monitoring a saw line at VIDA Wood Nössemark.
Swedish sawmill Södra Wood Värö has placed an order for a large online system from SPM Instrument to monitor critical machines in the timber sorting, saw-line, and finishing sections.
The Braviken sawmill in southeast Sweden has recently decided to introduce condition monitoring with SPM equipment and is now investing in the portable instrument Leonova Diamond.
One of Sweden's largest sawmills, Södra Wood Mönsterås, has placed an order for Intellinova Compact to monitor the condition of electric motors and fans in the lumber dryer.
