EFFICIENCY OF NORDIC SAWN TIMBER PRODUCTION

Abstract

Introduction. The North-West regions of the Russian Federation including Arkhangelsk sawmills produce exportable sawn timber in compliance with the National State Standard GOST 26002-83 and ship it mainly to Europe and Asia. In order to boost the profit margins and develop marketing, sawmills should start producing sawn timber with different consumer characteristics. One of the possible directions may be the production of sawn timber with different quality characteristics. Goals and objectives. The work is aimed at the research into efficiency of sawn timber production from coniferous raw wood supplied to Arkhangelsk sawmills. Materials and methods. Heavy sawn timber is obtained from Pythagorean zone of the log with typical defects. The visual estimation of the quality of board drying was carried out based on the National State Standard GOST 26002-83 and then the same characteristics was validated against the Nordic Timber rules. Research results. The research results showed that the assorted timber roughly comply with the quality of Nordic sawn timber of sort A, the saw timber of the Northern assortment of the 4th sort comply with sort B, and the 5th sort comply with sort C. The yield from the assorted heavy timber roughly complies with sort A, however the yield from the sawn timber classified as 4th sort is higher than sort B by 3.6 %. In terms of the 5th sort board output (GOST 26002-83) and the corresponding Nordic timber of sort C differ by 0.4 %, i.e. practically identical. Sort D by the Nordic Timber standard refers to extra in-demand production with lower quality characteristics. Conclusion. The weighted average price of 1 m3 of sawn timber of the northern assortment taking into consideration both qualitative and quantitative output is by 882 RUB lower than the sawn timber of the Nordic Assortment obtained from the same thick boards. Thus, the production of Nordic standard thick boards by Arkhangelsk saw mills is cost-effective.