Are there market changes in the wood/lumber industry that are driving the adoption of machine vision?
Juha: Profit margins get tighter meaning sawmills must pay more attention to optimizing the use of raw material by minimizing target sizes and by producing highest value lumber from logs. Labor costs continue to increase and automation in size control and grading is a way to minimize them. Rick: The most important reasons for the adoption of machine vision technology are the changes in the market. Consider: • a) Productivity: Directly related to volume per time available. Mills must produce more in the same amount of time, with fewer people. Conversely, they must get better utilization of their resources, both human and machine. For example, in North America, the number of man-hours required to produce a m of plywood is between, say, 2.4 and 3.4 (typical softwood plywood only). At a mill in Finland, which makes plywood based on 8×8 veneers, the same m of plywood is produced in 1 man-hour. Calculate the cost of a man-hour, do the math, and then see how much money goes to the bottom line
