INOVEC, Taking Optimization To A New Level By Wayne Miller
INOVEC, headquartered in Eugene, Ore., has installed over 750 optimization systems worldwide, enhancing profitability in mills from the headrig to the trimmer.
Eugene, Ore.--When a customer picks up the phone to call INOVEC’s service hotline, he knows that on the other end, a human voice will pick up the line, no matter the time of day or night.
“All of our customer service employees carry cell phones and can solve most issues 95 percent of the time without a mill visit,” said Kerry Wilson, INOVEC’s president. “If it gets to a point where we can’t help the customer over the phone, we can usually have someone at the mill within hours.”
Manned around the clock by experienced product engineers and service technicians, the “live” hotline serves as a vital link between INOVEC and its customer base, which includes numerous Hardwood mills including Baillie Lumber and Coastal Lumber. These and other firms rely on INOVEC’s cutting-edge scanning, optimization and control systems to run their mills at the most efficient level possible.
Founded in 1979, 55-employee INOVEC maintains its headquarters in Eugene, Ore., and also has remote sales offices in Quebec, Ohio and North Carolina. The company was founded by Andrew Nowak who, as owner of hydraulic manufacturer Fluid Air Components, saw the opportunity in providing linear positioning technology to the lumber manufacturing process.
To get its feet wet in optimization for the Hardwood or “appearance grade” industry, where today it does nearly 80 percent of its business, INOVEC first approached Ram Forest Products in the late 1980s.
“They bought our first Hardwood edger optimizer for their new mill in Shinglehouse, Pa.,” Wilson stated. “We worked
Shown here is INOVEC’s new production facility where each optimization system is designed, manufactured, programmed and extensively tested to ensure that installation and start-up progresses smoothly with minimal downtime.
extensively with them both in the design and onsite to make sure our optimization solutions met National Hardwood Lumber Assoc. grading standards. Once we accomplished this goal, they said, ‘You’ve met the NHLA standards. Our customers need more, we need to exceed them,’ which we then did. We took that as a lesson and, by building in plenty of flexibility to our optimization process, we have been exceeding our customer’s expectations ever since.”
“From there,” Wilson commented, “we developed optimization for all sawing machines in the mill, including gang edgers, trimmers, and headrig carriages. Any of our systems can be installed as a retrofit to existing machine centers or can be supplied as part of a package including new equipment.”
These INOVEC products include the WaneMaster G3 transverse edger optimizer, LineMaster G3 short-coupled lineal edger optimizer and the TrimMaster G3 trimmer optimizer, all of which use the firm’s patented G3 value-driven optimization software to produce the highest-quality, highest-value cutting solutions in the industry.
“Our edger and trimmer optimizers are designed to quickly extract the highest profit a mill can make from each board allowing a mill to optimize for value recovery in addition to volume recovery,” Wilson said.
Five years ago, INOVEC helped sawmill technology leap forward by introducing 3-D scanning to Hardwood mills with its StereoScan 3-D log scanner. With INOVEC’s YieldMaster headrig carriage optimizer, StereoScan provides powerful scanning, optimization and process control, all designed to meet the exacting needs of Hardwood mills.
“With over 150 systems installed, StereoScan is the best selling 3-D log scanning system in the industry,” according to Wilson. “Its laser sensors accurately measure the contours of the log’s surface.”
With the firm’s YieldMaster headrig optimizer, a mill’s sawyer now has the technology tools to complement their experience and to gain the maximum value from each log.
Kerry Wilson serves as president of INOVEC.
When it comes to Hardwoods, Mark Crossler, INOVEC’s marketing specialist, said the manufacturer adopted a different approach to optimization than that of its competitors.
“Focusing on the Hardwood industry really gives us a leg up on the competition,” said Crossler. “We have optimizers that are truly Hardwood-based or can mix softwood and Hardwood optimization together.
"We went in and built Hardwood optimization products specifically for Hardwoods, while many others just adapted their softwood optimizers to Hardwoods. As a result, we truly understand the Hardwood industry’s optimization process, and that’s really fueled our success.”
As the dominant player in the Hardwood optimization industry, INOVEC has installed over 750 systems worldwide. Its optimization equipment, which can pull up to 15 percent or more lumber from each log and also improves the average grade of a mill’s production, is used by sawmills as far away as Australia, New Zealand, South America and Europe.
Along the way, Wilson said INOVEC’s team of experienced, customer-service oriented employees have played a key role in the manufacturer’s success. In looking at INOVEC’s industry experience, for example, you’ll find that 30 to 40 percent of its technical engineering staff has put in 15 or more years with INOVEC, with some in place for 20 years or more.
“Many of our staff ‘grew up’ in the sawmill business, and three out of four salespeople have experience managing grade-oriented sawmills,” Crossler said. “We have experience not only in optimization as it applies to appearance-grade products, but in mill operations as well.”
Recently, INOVEC st
Shown in INOVEC’s production facility are Tom Chambers, customer service manager; Milton Stahmer, engineering manager; and Scott Parvin, field engineer.
epped up its business development efforts in both Hardwood and Eastern Canadian white pine applications, by hiring a Montreal-based employee who is fluent in both English and French, and who works closely with customers based north of the border. Wilson said the efforts are beginning to payoff: the company has installed nearly 20 systems in Canada.
“These mills are seeing our technology in use, and calling on us,” said Wilson. “We understand it’s all about improving the mill’s grade, yield and profits. We believe the Hardwood industry has very good growth potential now and well into the future.”
As a result, Wilson sees more research and development money going toward producing even more solutions to mill owners' problems.
“We’re heavily focused on ongoing product development, and looking to expand the capabilities of our 3-D scanning applications,” Wilson, who sees other such capability expansions – such as grade-based technologies – in INOVEC’s future, said. “These are key development efforts, and the primary direction of our company going forward.”
