June - July 2001 - Logging and Sawmilling Journal -

A new camera scaling system at Weyerhaeuser's Dryden operation is saving truck drivers a lot of time.

Doug Hammond does his banking and his wood hauling the same way-with the simple swipe of a plastic card. The 34-year-old truck driver for Fenwick Contracting, based in Eagle River, Ontario, says he's cashing in on Weyerhaeuser's new camera scaling system with an extra trip a day to the mill yard in Dryden. Digital Remote Scaling (DRS) was recently installed at the Weyerhaeuser operation in Dryden where an average of 60 loads of logs arrive at the facility each day-for a total of 750,000 cubic metres of timber a year.

The camera/card system was installed in the spring of 2000 in conjunction with a new automated weigh scale system. The new system allows truck drivers to enter the yard at any time of day or night without any personnel required on site to process the load. To say the least, haulers like Hammond haven't been camera shy so far. "It's working really well," says Hammond, who hauls timber from the local Crown unit, within about 75 kilometres of the mill. "It speeds up our waiting time-our transitions."

Prior to the installation of DRS, Hammond says there were costly delays while a driver parked and went inside to find someone to input the load-with every fifth load measured with a stick scale. "Now this is all done with the camera," Hammond notes. "It's just a matter of swiping it and punching in the card. A quick turnover is everything when it comes to running out of time in your log book. I'm working for a contractor that can be in there five times a day. In some cases, it adds an extra trip a day." Dryden's 2x4 stud mill produces 300,000 board feet a day.

The camera scaling system set up at the Dryden operation takes two photos of each load. One shot is taken of the front half of the load and another is taken of the back half of the load, using digital cameras mounted at the height of a loaded truck.

The facility is also attached to a large pulp and paper mill. Timber is harvested from Weyerhaeuser's Crown limit in the Dryden area as well as purchased wood from private and other Crown land. All logging and hauling operations are contracted out. For Weyerhaeuser, installing the system -produced by the Strong Engineering Company, based in Gander, Newfoundland-went hand-in-hand with the move to an automated weigh scale system which is now the trend among forest companies, says Terry Ollerhead, wood measurement coordinator at the Dryden scales. Ollerhead says he couldn't see the company automating the weigh scales without adding the camera system.

"Because we've gone automated, one of our concerns was we might not have a person in the building to see each load. But now we've got a camera that takes a picture of the load, and if we're not in the building we have something to look at. We now know, with no one there, what we're buying." With a swipe of a card by the driver, the weigh scale system is activated. A second swipe activates two digital cameras that take photographs of the load. The whole process takes less than two minutes, saving an estimated five minutes per truck pulling into the yard. With an average of sixty trucks per day, that translates into about five hours less waiting time for drivers each and every day.

Weyerhaeuser has configured the camera system so that two photographs are taken of each load-one shot of the front half of the load and another photo of the second half of the load-using separate digital cameras mounted at the height of a loaded truck. The cameras are housed in weatherproof stands at the entrance to the mill yard. A computer merges the images, presenting a picture of a load of eight-foot roundwood logs loaded crosswise, which can then be measured to obtain the stacked volume in the load. "We wanted to get up fairly close. To do that we had to use two cameras," Ollerhead explains. "That's now a measurable picture-it's all to scale. And by outlining the load-taking your mouse and clicking around the load, it gives you a measure of how many metres are on the truck." There's no more scale stick and the computer quickly calculates a load size so that the scaler doesn't have to perform manual calculations.

Previously, a person had to stick scale the supplier's first truck to come up with a weight factor and then scale every sixth truck by hand to renew that figure. "It has added value to our people, freeing them up for other duties," says Phil Gardner, Weyerhaeuser fibre team leader. "You can imagine the person sitting there at two in the morning waiting for a truck. They were chained to the desk before." The scaler also gets a better look at the load-including the crowning of the load- than a person did at ground level. By installing the camera slightly higher than a loaded truck it can shoot down-allowing the scaler to determine if the safety chains are touching the load all the way across the top, as required. "We find that we see the crown a lot better using the pictures, even than we did looking at it in person," Ollerhead says. "It's very obvious and it wasn't before."

Looking at the pictures, the scaler can identify problems such as loose logs and logs that are not trim or flush with the rest of the load. There are plans to add a zoom feature that would allow the camera to view loads close up, either as an option or by taking an additional photo with a wide-angle lens every fifth load as a random quality check. A lot of time was spent calibrating the system with four licenced scalers working on the same truck, and then comparing the measurements to the same load as scaled by the camera.

"The numbers we were getting from scaling the photograph were more consistent than from having four different people actually go out and physically measure the truck," Ollerhead recalls. "It's because we had such a good look at the top of the load to obtain average heights, which I think is where most of the errors come from when you're measuring." Digital images are in a jpeg format; individual photos take up 350 to 450 K of memory and merged photos are 2.7 megabytes each. The company's large hard drive can store up to 14,000 photos and there is an option to burn images onto a CD ROM and file them by supplier. "It's hard evidence," Gardner says. "It really helps if we want to talk to contractors-if there's an unsafe load, for instance." An unexpected but welcome bonus has been the ability to identify on photographs persons not wearing proper safety equipment, or engaging in unsafe practices, which is captured by the cameras and quickly brought to the attention of the persons involved.

Weyerhaeuser is working on an interface between the automated weigh scale and camera systems. Instead of the contractor swiping a card twice -once for each process- one swipe will take care of the weigh scales and scaling so that trucks won't be able to enter the yard without having a picture taken. The brand new camera technology has been installed at only one other facility-a small sawmill in Newfoundland where Strong Engineering is based. Weyerhaeuser Dryden represents the first major commercial installation of the system.

The camera system has, more than anything, given company officials peace of mind, says Phil Gardner. "I don't think that you could really sleep well at night knowing that you have an automated weigh scale system that is allowing people to deliver wood with no eyes looking at it," he says. "If it was me, I wouldn't go automated without it."

He adds while pre-scales are done in the bush, the camera system allows the company a second look "truck load by truck load." Ollerhead adds that the system has resulted in fewer disputes with contractors at the scales. "If the owner disagrees with the scale he got on the wood during the night or that day, he can come to us and we can show him: 'Here's your load, here's where it doesn't meet our quality specifications'." Doug Hammond, one of the most frequent visitors to the mill yard, agrees the new system has resulted in fewer disagreements at the scales. "It's made scaler/driver relations better," Hammond says. "It's taken the pressure off everybody."

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