- Monday was a very touching moment for us, as we were able to launch the final phase of the project — commissioning — after completing the design, construction and equipment installation phases. At the same time, it meant jumping into a completely new role for both myself and my staff,” Kyröläinen says.
In early May 2022, the ground was broken for the construction work. The project has progressed on schedule since then, and the first log went through exactly as planned. The log sorting system was put into operation three weeks ahead of schedule — which gave our staff a better opportunity to focus on the sawmill’s commissioning phase. The challenge will be the overlap between the different parts of the process.
- Monday went even better than expected, both for us and for our suppliers. Someone playing devil’s advocate jokingly said “one log and that’s it”, but we sawed well over a hundred logs during the day and got to grips with the challenges of the future at the same time. It was a very positive start, and we want to thank both teams for excellent work. Our staff and the equipment suppliers have worked well together, both sides have been flexible and adaptable. We would not have kept to the schedule if we had not worked so well as a team,” Kyröläinen says with satisfaction.
The project is currently progressing rapidly towards the ramp-up phase, with the aim of being in production by next summer. In addition to the new equipment, new employees will be starting work, so the next six months will bring a lot of training and learning for operators, production planners, supervisors and the whole organisation.
- But it’s not over for anyone yet. For equipment suppliers, the transition to the next stage — deployment — is now beginning. Mechanical challenges are starting to give way to the automation side, so there are a lot of programmers and coders on the ground, and the next step is to finetune the equipment,” Kyröläinen says and continues:
- We come to Oulu with a world-class facility, and we aim to get out of it what we have planned — that’s the focus and goal for the start of the year for all of us. In March, we might dare to start thinking about other things,” Kyröläinen says with a laugh.
