Software system "ASC: Plywood"

Key facts

Plywood is made from thin sheets of wood veneer, called plies, which vary in thickness 2.5 - 4mm. Usually, 3, 5 or 7 plies of dimension 1.2 by 2.4m are glued together with grain at right angles to each other to form the plywood panel, which can then be refinished. 4-5 quality grades of panels exist.

Plywood has serious advantages over solid timber and has been made for thousands of years (the earliest known occurrence was in Ancient Egypt around 3500 BCE). It is used in many applications that need high-quality, high-strength sheet material.

The challenge

With hundreds of production orders received, thousands of plies already available (as well as timber logs for making new plies, if needed), there are thousands of feasible ways to obtain the sheets of required quality. Due to various limitations on the equipment operation, the planning must be made very carefully to meet the production and economical targets.

The solution

The software system for plywood mill optimization uses mathematical methods and optimization algorithms to plan the operation of the mill equipment to meet the production and economical targets. System functions include:

• Optimal planning of the use of existing plies;
• Optimal planning of assortment and volumes of produced plywood panels;
• Optimal planning of equipment operation;
• Documentation and reporting;
• Connection with other systems.

Planning can be optimized by profit or production volume.

ASC specialists are ready to customize the software system according to specific demands of the Customer.

The benefits

The use of the software system can increase the mill profit by 1.5-2% per month. The other significant advantages are - reduced time for production planning and better reporting documents.

Example screenshots of the software system

(click to enlarge, opens in new window)

"ASC: Plywood" demo

Download "ASC: Plywood" demo (in Russian): ftp://pmasc.karelia.ru/pub/ASUP/PlywoodMill/PlywoodMill.zip

Certificate of the Foundation of algorithms and software of the Russian Federal Agency for Education

For the software system ASC has Certificate of the Foundation of algorithms and software of the Russian Federal Agency for Education: