Over the three summers I worked in the forest industry I gained an extraordinary amount of new knowledge. Something I learned and exceled in the most is quality, and the importance quality has to our operation. Summer of 2022 and part of Summer 2023 I worked for the Technical department. This department has an extreme importance towards the mill and making a profit.
A fellow co worker of mine once explained quality in an easy way to understand why we stress the importance of it so much. 7/16 is one of our most popular products we make. However, the price for the product is set in the market. Meaning we and no other company who makes board gets to choose the price we sell to our customers. When thinking about that imagine this scenario, you go to Home Depot looking to buy a bundle of 7/16, there is two different brands, but both are the same price and theatricality the same thing besides the company who produced it. Imagine one company has missing paint, a messy logo painted on or the bag on the bundle is not on properly. Now imagine the other company has a perfect looking bundle. Since they are both the same price you will obviously choose the bundle that looks better. This is one reason why quality and appearance of bundles is an important part of our operation and why we put so much time and effort into it. A nicely wrapped bundle is shown in the photo below!
Even thought the technical department main role is quality, quality is everyone’s responsibility who works at the mill. When it comes to appearance the finishing end takes a huge part of it. When they are wrapping the bundles, they do quality checks in order to make sure the bundles look correct before wrapping and sending out. Other employees are checking and looking for issues within the mill that can change the quality of our board.
One of the main tasks we do in the lab is daily testing. To make and sell boards we have to met APA (American Plywood Association) standards, some of the standards put in place by APA have to be checked by daily testing. We do a variety of test to make sure our board strength is within APA standards. This can include testing how much the board swells in water within a 24/hour time, how much weight it takes to break the board and how much strength it takes to pull the board apart. APA put these standards in place in order to ensure quality and safety for the customers purchasing the board. In our mill we have daily lab and shift lab employees. The shift lab has a responsibility of doing daily testing on the board. They do a minimum of 3 test a shift because they must do testing every 4 hours or if the mill does a product change. All though we have many different tests to ensure our board meets APA standard, below is two examples of the testing machines. Photo one is the thickness swells tanks. You take the measurements of a board before and then soak in water for 24 hours. After the 24 hours you measure the thickness again and see how much it swelled. The second photo is the CSL (Concentrated Static Load) machine. This machine is for testing how much weight it takes to break the board.
Although appearance is important, even more important is how the board is made and how it performs. Another huge part of the lab is doing trials to improve our quality and strength of our board. The day lab employees are most focused on this part of the technical department rather than the shift lab. When the mill decides to do a new trial, we must do testing before sending out the product with the new change. An example can be when making board we have a recipe for how much Wax, Resin and MDI we put in the board. These chemicals are what hold the board together. Therefore, you want the correct recipe that passes APA standards and makes your bundle look presentable. When the lab decided to do a recipe change the day lab must do testing to ensure the new recipe is passing APA standards before selling to customers. The below photos are an example of a potential problem our customers would see if our boards were not performing.
My experience while working in the technical department was very educational. I participated in big trial that consisted of grabbing samples from our primary screens to help screening optimization which will in return make our board better and more efficient. While working in the lab I also helped with some of the daily testing and testing new board after changing the recipe. I have appreciated working in the lab and gaining all the knowledge I have.
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