For many pallet producers looking to increase production, building limitations are often a crucial constraint. Operators typically face the challenge of successfully fitting new equipment into an existing building or into a building addition. Southern Packaging, blessed with room to grow at its 55-acre location in Port Allen, Louisiana, and the financial resources to make it happen, chose to go in another direction. The company began with the idea to design its optimal sawmill system first without building-imposed limitations, and then build the structure to house it.
Southern Packaging has enjoyed substantial growth since it first started 28 years ago. The Port Allen, Louisiana location is strategically located along the Mississippi River Industrial Corridor. The company also has a second facility located in Woodville, Mississippi. The company’s investment in new sawmill capacity has made it less vulnerable to oscillations in the lumber market, enabling it to more seamlessly serve customers with the highest grade of lumber.
“Typically, most companies have a building, and they try to make a piece of equipment fit into the structure,” stated Brad Tuminello, company owner. “We didn’t do it that way. For this project, we designed the equipment first and developed the most efficient high production layout. Then we decided upon the building to put up.” The result was a 30,000-square-foot facility primarily powered by Brewco.
The decision to go with Brewco for the new mill equipment was primarily based on the company’s positive experience with its existing Big Jake Scragg mill at the Woodville site, a line formerly offered by Timberland. Timberland was later purchased by Brewco. “We’ve been running a Big Jake Scragg at our Woodville operation for 10-12 years, and we’ve been very pleased with it,” Tuminello said.
That experience helped to tip the scales in terms of vendor selection. “We went Brewco all the way from the log in-feed out to the bandsaw,” he continued.
Southern Packaging’s emphasis in recent years has been to automate whatever processes it can. “With the positions that we keep, we are trying to pay those people more and make it less physical labor for them,” Tuminello stated. Aside from the new mill, another recent investment has been in a new form, fill and seal line from Hamer Fischbein for its bagged mulch operation. It features a robotic stacker and requires only a single operator versus the semi-automated line it replaced, which required six people to run. The company still runs a second semi-automated line.
Planning and Mill Installation
Early in the new sawmill design process, Blaine Bergeron, plant manager, and Blake Bergeron, head millwright, took a few trips to mills and looked at various layouts. The three of them compared notes and began to dream about what was possible. “Then we drew a sketch of what we wanted and presented it to Brewco,” Tuminello said. “They went with it from there.”
“Southern Packaging contacted us and said they were getting ready to build a completely new mill, and they were looking for a sawmill machinery supplier to take the lead on the project design and installation,” recalled Bill Hendrix, vice president at Brewco. “We put together a layout, and we worked back and forth with them.”
The emphasis was on material flow. According to Hendrix, the project results were much better than most for a couple of reasons. Firstly, the group had the freedom to stretch out the travel between the various saw centers to create buffer areas. With adequate inventory accumulation in-flow, the rest of the system can keep working even if a particular saw goes down. “If you don’t have any storage,” he said, “if one piece goes down for one reason or another, everything in the middle stops. We were able to stretch out things and create the ideal storage.”
The second factor, Hendrix said, is that Blaine Bergeron is extremely savvy as far as understanding all of the issues that come up during a mill installation. “And his knowing that was a big factor as far as how fast it went in and how few problems were experienced.”
The planning was comprehensive. Considerations included log infeed and traffic patterns outside the new building, as well as the placement of equipment within the mill. For example, the new Eagle dip tank was placed right at the end of processing where boards and stringers come off the line to reduce travel time. One of the design intentions was to run the warehouse with only a single forklift, and the product all flows out to a single part of the mill to offer greater efficiency.
Tuminello observed that mills work a lot better when conveyors have the right length to handle the proper flow of materials, rather than being cramped between saw centers or requiring 90-degree conveyors. This approach was made possible, he said, because they were able to get together with the manufacturer first to discuss the best way to design the mill. “Then we built the building,” he said.
The project team took steps to keep the lines of communication open between the various suppliers. During the planning phase, Blaine Bergeron organized a meeting for all of the various suppliers and trades to get everyone on the same page. “I think that helped tremendously,” he said. After the meeting, Southern Packaging created a Dropbox account so that any plan revisions could be retrieved by the various participants.
During any sizeable project, it can be daunting for regular plant operations personnel to also be tasked with project management duties. The ability to utilize additional resources can help ease the strain. In the case of Southern Packaging, a key role was played by Blake Bergeron, Blaine’s brother. “He is very detail-oriented,” Blaine stated. “He was instrumental during the planning phase, and the installation phase as well.”
Post Implementation Debugging, Training and Bandsaw Selection
While the mill fired up with minimal issues, Hendrix of Brewco emphasized the importance of debugging. “You can make predictions, but, until you start running wood, you can’t completely understand how efficient everything is going to work. And that’s why we’re always on-site when the saws are actually running after the install.”
From Bergeron’s perspective, the main tweaks involved the timing of the flow to keep it in balance. “Everything relies upon everything else,” he said of the in-line design. “So, if you speed one thing up, it affects the whole mill. Getting everything in time was pretty challenging, but I think we’re to the point where it needs to be.”
Brewco also provided a week of training to plant personnel, but Blaine Bergeron observed that there was still a lot of “learning on the fly” that took place in the weeks that followed. He stressed the importance of a higher skilled group of operators needed as you move to more advanced automation. “It’s not rocket science, but it’s not the simplest equipment,” he said. Conveniently, Brewco is also hooked up wirelessly, so if there is a problem, its service team can tap into the computer system and troubleshoot remotely from their office.
One area where Southern Packaging continues to look for the right fit for the new sawmill is the best bandsaw blade. Bergeron is currently evaluating both Wood-Mizer bandsaw blades provided by Smith Sawmill Service and Kenne-Saw blades. Bergeron stated that they would like to eventually settle on a single provider, so they don’t need to keep on adjusting their filing equipment. Currently, Southern Packaging uses a saw sharpening machine from Wood-Mizer.
The Mill Layout
Southern Packaging’s new Brewco sawmill is housed in a 30,000-square-foot building and features Brewco equipment from log infeed through to the bandsaws and dedusters. After a front-end loader places logs onto the deck, they are cut to length by a chop saw before being sent to the double 48-inch head rig to be cut to 3.5, 5.5 or 7 inches. In creating a two-sided block, the two sides fall onto a belt and go to an auto-edger, which clamps and uses transducers to determine whether it can recover 4- or 6-inch material. Those pieces then go to an end trim saw and then to a three head band saw. From there, lumber is transferred downstairs and is hand stacked.
Meanwhile, the block falls on its side after going through the first head rig and is transported to a second head rig, which again clamps and automatically determines the width of the log and sets the blade to cut off the bark to create a four-sided block. It then goes to a splitter saw to reduce 7-inch blocks to a pair of 3.5-inch pieces. A double end trim saw cuts to the required length. A turnaround system then flips material upright through another splitter determining the thickness being cut, and then through a six-head bandsaw. After going through a Brewco deduster, they are auto-stacked.
Two AIT M2L High Speed Stackers provided by Pallet Machinery Group are located at the end of the line. Aside from the Eagle dip tank, the plant also features a 300 hp grinder supplied by Stringer Industries. Ground wood fiber is moved by walking floor trailers to the mulch department. Southern Packaging owns 4 M2L stackers and looks forward to adding more over time. Greg Wine, along with two new suppliers to Southern Packaging, Stringers Industries chippers/grinders and Eagle Dip Tanks, provided great equipment and service after the sale on this completed project.
During construction, a used gangsaw and notcher system in good condition was located and added to the build plan for processing stringers. Southern Packaging processes all of its stringers by gang saw, and all of its deck boards by bandsaw. While enthusiastic about gang saws, generally, Tuminello sees the kerf as an issue that limits their usefulness for deck boards. “Running half-inch and 5/8-inch deck boards on a gang saw” he said, “creates too high of a waste factor.”
In terms of species, the current Brewco mill throughput is about 95% pine, but Tuminello said that the mill is designed to handle both softwood as well as hardwood.
While this 16-month project was undertaken, Southern Packaging had to continue with the daily operations of running its sawmills, scragg mills and pallet manufacturing operations. This could have not been achieved without the dedication from all the Southern Packaging and Southern Mulch employees working at both its Louisiana and Mississippi operations. Tuminello praised his team, “From all the ladies in the offices that keep the pallets going out, bills getting paid, invoices being created, to the line workers in the warehouses cutting and building the pallets, to the forklift drivers, front end loader operators, and knuckleboom operators moving the material and loading the trucks, and to the truck drivers delivering the finished product. None of this could have been accomplished without a great group of dedicated people. I am so honored and blessed to have such a strong working TEAM at Southern Packaging and Southern Mulch.”
In the final analysis, the Brewco sawmill project was a move made to provide Southern Packaging with better control over its inbound material supply, keep its nine Viking nailing systems humming, and to ensure more reliable service to its pallet customers. “We didn’t skimp. In all it was close to a five-million-dollar project from start to finish,” Tuminello concluded. “If I do another big project, I’d do it the same way. Brewco is a welcomed member of our Team. Finally, GEAUX TIGERS !!!”
