A Modern High-Performance Sawmilling in Latvia

The PRO WOOD company from Latvia reports it has tripled production volume while keeping the same employee number and significantly decreasing wood waste after they started operating the Wood-Mizer WM4000 sawmilling line.

If you build or renovate a house in Latvia, you surely know the name PRO WOOD well. This company has an important niche in the lumber market. Among giant sawmills and selling their products in bulk, PRO WOOD is radically different because it offers the opportunity for customers to buy selected boards!

PRO WOOD owner Mareks Zdanevics gives an example: "We gain a client. He is building a house. He needs timber. We manufacture products for him; we load a whole truck - 45 cubes, with boards of 28 different standard sizes. We also have a warehouse store with finished material. You can choose as many as you need, even one board, In Riga, we have two shops and own transport for delivering lumber to customers."

Although PRO WOOD is very active in the local Latvian market, the company supplies timber to customers abroad. In total, it has a presence in 28 countries around the world.

History of PRO WOOD

Thirty years ago, in the place where the PRO WOOD has its production site, there was a dense forest.

Mareks Zdanevics says: "After the end of the Soviet Union, Latvians got their property back. My mother was returned the lands that belonged to our family. I was 18 years old, and I took a brand-new Husqvarna chainsaw and tried cutting a tree in our forest - it was my first sawmilling experience."

Mareks immediately ran into a problem. "Latvia at that moment was extremely poor. It was impossible to find a timber truck to take out the logs." Therefore, the first car he bought was a timber truck.

"I became a truck driver and started delivering logs. Later, I began to buy wood at auctions. And one day, someone asked - “Why don't you sawmill boards? Well, well, you can try."

So gradually, starting in 1994, Mareks developed his woodworking business with several small band sawmills on the land that belonged to his mother.


Introduction to Wood-Mizer Technology

"I learned about Wood-Mizer a long time ago", continues Mareks. "I have seen a Wood-Mizer sawmill in action at an exhibition. I remember the operator rode in a chair next to the sawing head. I was amazed at the performance of this sawmill! With the sawmills I used then, loading the logs manually and pushing the sawing head was necessary. With Wood-Mizer, the productivity was twice as high. I immediately found Wood-Mizer contacts, but at that time, the price seemed unaffordable for me."

The time to purchase the Wood-Mizer sawmill came in February 2017. Deciding to invest in a new sawmill, PRO WOOD opted for the Wood-Mizer range's most powerful and efficient industrial machine.

Preparing for a Big Investment

As Mareks Zdanevics admits, the decision was not easy.

"First, at that time, it was the biggest investment for my company. And second, no one in Latvia had such a machine – WM4000".

Together with the WM4000 sawmill, an EG300 edger/multirip from Wood-Mizer and the material transport system from a local manufacturer were purchased.

"We prepared well: we concreted the site, then made the electrical connection and aspiration," says Mareks. "When the equipment was delivered, it was installed in about 2-3 days, and a week later, we started sawing."

WM4000 Features and Benefits

"There is a new reality in sawmilling: you need more productivity, and at the same time, you need to use fewer people – this way, production costs are reduced," says Mareks Zdanevics.

The WM4000 sawmill provides a high-efficiency performance thanks to the following design features:

1. The sawmill operates with narrow band blades, which are easy to maintain, cost less than wide blades, and require less power (the WM4000 is equipped with a 22kW main motor)
2. The powerful hydraulic log handling system performs such labor-intensive operations as log loading, rotating, leveling, and clamping. Before a WM4000 was used at PRO WOOD, people were required to complete these tasks, and when they got tired, their productivity dropped sharply.
3. The material transporting system feeds the sawmill with logs from the log loading ramp, and the ready boards are removed from the mill automatically through the built-in belt conveyor. These operations do not require manual labor.
4. The innovative WM4000 control system allows one operator to work in the elevated control station with a good view of the processing area.

How the WM4000 Sawmilling Line Operates

Wood-Mizer reports that the WM4000 sawmill provides all the benefits of thin-kerf (high yield, low energy consumption, easy blade maintenance) and high performance comparable with the characteristics of wide band blades.

"The WM4000 productivity is three times higher than simpler and cheaper sawmills," says Mareks Zdanevics.

Here is what the WM4000 operation looks like in PRO WOOD.

The logs are stored on a loading ramp outside the workshop where you can unload a day's material supply at once. The chain drive moves the logs inside the shop and unloads them one by one onto the WM4000 bed.

The operator is in the control station. He controls all the sawmill functions using two joysticks. He receives information on the touch screen, which displays data on the board dimensions, the position of the sawing head vertically and horizontally, and the power on the blade. An electronic Setworks helps him set the board thickness.

As in most Wood-Mizer sawmills, the WM4000 has a cantilevered head, which makes it possible to cut big logs. "The best of this machine for us is that it can cut large diameter logs," explained Mareks. "The sawmill can easily cut 50-60 cm diameters from the thin end and produce large beams."

After the log is loaded on the bed, the operator begins log rotating with a hydraulic chain turner, log leveling with the help of hydraulic toeboards, and, finally, clamps the log securely.

"No need to manually rotate a log. After all, you imagine, a 40 cm diameter log is about one cubic meter of wood, that is, 700-850 kg. The sawmill rotates it easily, and after the board is ready, it automatically removes the material from the sawmill."

The operator starts sawing when the log is positioned correctly and clamped to the bed. The sawing head movements are controlled by servomotors, which respond quickly to the operator's commands, that also increases productivity.

The sawmill produces a board when the sawhead moves towards the operator station. When the head moves back, it removes the finished board from the mill and transfers it to the in-built belt conveyor behind the machine which turns on automatically (the conveyor does not run continuously to save energy).

Then the board goes to the Wood-Mizer EG300 multirip.

"The multirip is a great machine!" Mareks says. "I used to worry that it would not be possible to produce the boards with accurate required dimensions. But, in my almost thirty years of practice, the EG300 multirip with its affordable price is one of the most valuable pieces of equipment."

The EG300 multirip can have up to five circular saws. The blade position for the required board width is set from the movable control panel.

"In terms of personnel working with the machine, we have: a WM4000 operator and a multirip operator. Behind him, there is one auxiliary worker and two people on the packaging line who stack the finished product."

"We work in 8 hours shift, and we process approximately 40 cubic meters of logs daily," said Mareks. "We've got a lot of comments, saying, yes, of course, you are great for installing new technology, but how many people did you release? There was no need to let go of anyone. Instead, with the same team, we tripled the production volume."

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