When Doug Wentworth purchased Taylormade Timber Products in 1995 the sawmill was cutting around 350m3 a week of UK softwood for the mining, pallet and fencing markets, there was no on-site treatment capacity, and turnover was £3m.
Today the Durham mill produces almost 2,000m3 a week, about half of which is treated through the four vacuum pressure vessels installed since 1999, and last year’s turnover was £11m.
These facts alone make impressive reading, but the achievement in building Taylormade into what is now the second largest sawmill in England and the biggest producer of fencing materials is all the more remarkable because of the series of obstacles – including a major fire and serious bad debts – that had to be overcome.
The problems started almost immediately. When Mr Wentworth bought the company the market was good and selling prices were high. However, this soon changed with the rapid emergence of Latvia as a supplier of cheaper imported timber.
“Our first priority was to increase volume, so despite the sudden reduction in margins, investment was essential,” said Mr Wentworth.
“Although the site had two mills, one housing a canter line and the other equipped with two quad saws, the power supply was not enough to run both mills at the same time so we had to put in a new substation. In addition, the canter line was not efficient as there was no machinery for recovering the side boards, so we needed to add resaws and edgers.
As a result the company increased its staff, but higher production brought new challenges as imports from Latvia rose quickly and Taylormade had to react to changing circumstances in the markets.
Key decision
One of the key decisions was to move out of mining timber – the declining industry was able to find imported material at cheaper prices than Taylormade was prepared to compete with – and focus on fencing, pallets and packaging.
In September 1997 a major fire destroyed the main mill. Although devastating at the time, this led to an opportunity to increase productivity and efficiency.
The damaged mill was replaced by an AK Eriksson canter line the following year. A second canter was added two years later to double capacity, and more recently an automatic drop sorter has eliminated manual handling and given a further boost to productivity.
The original canter machinery in the smaller mill has since been replaced with Brodbæk automated handling equipment integrated with a seven-head Stenner horizontal resaw line including the new Stenner vertical twinsaw. This configuration has an immense capacity for producing featheredge boards and panel battens.
The final piece of the jigsaw came with the introduction of an AK Eriksson optimising edger. This state-of-the-art engineering uses infra red scanning to grade timber to achieve maximum yield from the logs.
Preservative treatment
“Along the way we had regular visits from the representative for Hickson [now Arch Timber Protection] who said we were unusual in not having our own preservative treatment plant,” said Mr Wentworth.
“We were sending perhaps 70m3 a week of fencing timber to an outside company for treatment. This volume was enough to justify investment, and we installed our first vacuum pressure vessel at the end of 1999. By actively marketing this service we won new business with national, regional and local builders merchants as well as major fencing contractors.
“Having our own treatment facilities also allowed us to improve our delivery performance.”
As demand increased, the company invested in a second treatment tank in 2001 and a third in 2003 – and in December of that year the operation converted from traditional CCA preservative to Arch Timber Protection‘s Tanalith E.
“We’ve had excellent technical and marketing support from Arch,” said Mr Wentworth. “The company kept us informed about the legislation restricting the use of CCA and we were among the first to switch to the new generation product.
“This was a big decision because by then we were treating around 50,000m3 a year and this was therefore a significant part of our added-value offering. However, I could not see any downside to Tanalith E.”
“Tanalith E gives the timber an attractive green colouring, and we also use the Tanatone brown colour additive. At present our market is split equally between customers who prefer green and those who require brown.”
Total production from the sawmill is now around 2,000m3 a week. Twenty per cent is pallet and packaging timber and the rest is fencing material – of which more than 1,100m3 a week is treated, with capacity to do more.
“Last year we installed our fourth and largest vacuum pressure vessel – 50ft long by 6ft diameter – which allows us to offer service treatment for 1.2m-wide timber packs,” said Mr Wentworth.
Flexibility
“Our whole treatment set-up gives us complete flexibility in offering Tanalith E treatment to different solution strengths and colours to suit the various end-use applications specified by customers.
“It has been quite an experience since the early days. We’ve experienced severe competition, a major fire and a massive bad debt but we held our nerve. The support of our customers and suppliers, including the bank, has been crucial to our success and I am very grateful to them all. My biggest thanks, however, go to my staff. They deserve the credit for what has been achieved at Taylormade.”
