The appetite of the new sawmill at Balcas Enniskillen is awesome – and so is the growth of this Northern Ireland company.

During the 1960/70s the privately owned concern, then trading as Ballycassidy Sawmills, was involved primarily in the manufacture of agricultural and fencing products. Then, in 1992, the company decided to move up a gear, adopting the name Balcas as it did not want the growth of the business to be held back by its old image.

Managing director Ernest Kidney said: ‘The change in the way we did business was brought about by the changing log supply in Ireland. There was significant log planting throughout the century and our business grew in line with that between 1960 and 1980, moving away from the agricultural market into areas of construction and pallet packaging.’

Ten years ago the company had a turnover of £10m on its 70-acre site at Enniskillen. Today the Balcas group of companies has a turnover in excess of £40m and employs around 650 people, 200 of them at Enniskillen which is unique in that it can handle the whole of the tree from the smallest to the biggest grown in Ireland. It processes rounded agricultural fencing, has a dedicated pallet wood line, specialises in logs from 12-18cm, and also has a band mill and a carriage line up to 7.2m.

The new £15m sawmill, which is housed in a 4,000m² building, sees around 1,750m³ of timber coming in a day – about 70 truck loads. The amount of product going out daily is around half that. In terms of resources, Enniskillen is right in the middle of the growth area of Ireland so there is no danger of supplies running short.

Acquisitions

In 1988 Balcas acquired a company at Kildare where it pioneered the manufacture of architectural mouldings from MDF. This business now produces nine million linear metres per year.

In 1993 Balcas bought another sawmilling business in Magnerfelt, Co Derry. Ernest Kidney explains: ‘We were trying to grow the business and create a critical mass to make us a more credible supplier in the market place. We always knew that to succeed there would have to be very significant capital investment.

‘The acquisitions were a calculated cautious way to acquire that critical mass. The same logic applies to two other acquisitions at the end of 1995 – the family-owned sawmilling business AS Richardson in the Republic of Ireland and a pallet manufacturing business.’

The pallet business had been sold to a multi-national but, according to Mr Kidney, was not going anywhere. ‘Our business in Enniskillen had been supplying about 40% of its wood and another of our businesses had been supplying a further 40%. By acquiring the business we secured an outlet for the lowest grade wood we produce. We were the more logical owner and the business has been profitable ever since.’

Looking abroad

The physical characteristics of Irish wood give it limitations so Balcas decided to look abroad when it wanted to produce products with the strength of European timber.

Ernest said: ‘We settled on Estonia, identifying a business that now produces 80,000m³ – half for Ireland, half for Britain. Balcas Esti was formed and 85% of production is truss material TR26 in grades we couldn’t achieve here, plus scaffold planks.

‘The driver for all this activity was critical mass, although we didn’t know in 1995 how the supply and demand situation in Ireland was going to work out.’

In 1996 Balcas began to look at creating a new sawmill at Enniskillen, compelled by the need to be more competitive.

Works director Andrew Kidney explains: ‘We started with a detailed forest resource study about trees – what they would be like and what size they would be. This involved analysing all the raw material that was available by taking a statistically representative sample and, with the use of laser technology, modelling the exact profile of the logs.

Virtual log supply

‘We brought technology over from North America which allowed us to have a virtual log supply. We were then able to simulate the various sawmill technologies available worldwide to find the one most suited to our log supply and market.

‘The majority of the sawmill installations in the UK are Scandinavian and German but we felt the North American style was more appropriate. It was great to be able to try all these things beforehand instead of learning the hard way.’

Construction started in August 1999 and the sawmill was commissioned in June last year.

Ernest said: ‘We produce 350,000m³ in total, 200,000m³ from Enniskillen and the new sawmill is currently at about 95% of capacity.

‘It is part of a phased development which will include down-line things at Enniskillen such as a new stress grading line and finishing lines.

‘The sawmill is the only one of its type in Europe. The reason it is different is because at every stage in the process where a decision needs to be made with regard to the breakdown of the log there is a process of three dimensional high-density scanning and optimisation. It is not uncommon in Europe to have some degree of optimisation, but this one is special because there is optimisation at every stage where log placement has to be made. We are maximising the value of each and every log.

Maximising value

‘We have to process square straight things from irregular shaped round things and we are trying to maximise not the volume but the value. It is something that has only become possible as computers have become advanced in the last decade.’

The logs are scanned with such accuracy that the computer has a full three dimensional picture, and at each circumference there are about 1,000 data points.

Andrew said: ‘We take another circumference every 30mm along the log’s length, so we have the buzz word of "high scan density" which gives the computer a very accurate picture of the surface of each log.

‘Before the log is sawn, it is scanned twice at high density. The computer has a list of the values and products we wish to cut and it will fit those products into the log to get the highest value out of it – it is better to optimise the value rather than the volume.

‘The next process is optimising rotation, and this takes place even though the log is going through at 120 linear metres per minute. The log is rescanned and positioned and aligned longitudinally to allow the highest value of each product from it.’

Each individual log requires a unique setting of the first primary machine – a canter quad bandsaw. The cant progresses to an optimised CNC controlled canter gangsaw unit where again the cant is rescanned at high density and each cant is individually processed for maximum value. The cant is then broken down further with three curve sawing twin band saw machines.

Andrew said: ‘The boards are processed through two optimised edgers where each board is scanned at high density at 330 linear metres per minute, and again the best value is extracted from each board.

‘All the timber is processed through an optimised trim saw and pieces are scanned individually at 120 pieces per minute and cut to length. It is followed by an automated J-bar 100 bin sorter which collects the timber by dimension prior to automatic sticking and stacking.’

Ernest says: ‘It has been a learning curve which we are happily well up. It involved sending a lot of our people to Canada for technical training and there was also a huge training programme here.

‘We now need to bed this sawmill down – there is great potential for it. Meanwhile, we are starting to look at product development because if we are to grow market share we have to provide solutions rather than commodity.’