Digitization of the Drying Process: A Study in Data Collection, Analysis, and Visualization for Improved Production Profitability in Sawmills

There are a variety of measurement systems, equipment, and digital tools in today’s sawmills developed to create conditions for a more profitable production process. However, to fully benefit from all the metrics available, it is important to be able to link the different data streams and have access to historical data. The project reported in the following report aimed to exemplify potential benefits related to the drying process that can be achieved by collecting, linking, and analyzing data from before, during, and after the drying process. The data consisted of package data from the wet sorting, electricity and energy data from the drying process, and various quality parameters from the adjustment plant where mainly moisture content and cut-offs were used in the further analysis.

After processing the data, the following could be visualized among other things: • the utilization rate of the dryers. • the difference in wet and dry dimensions for each dryer batch or product. • the energy consumption per dryer batch or product. • the cut-off per dryer batch or product.

It can also be noted that the journey towards setting up systems that automatically analyze and visualize process data can be extensive before actual results can be achieved. This is because you need to communicate with a range of equipment that has been procured without actual requirements on what the communication protocols should look like and then ensure that data from these is of usable quality.