Bergkvist Siljan-Insjön

Bergkvist Siljan is a sawmill group with three sawmills in central Sweden. One of the mills is Insjön with 112 employees. The raw material is gathered from the surrounding forests. At Insjön Idus is maintenance software is used to plan, manage and follow up on maintenance activities.

One of Swedens biggest sawmills

Johan Farth works as a technical resource at Insjön with his colleague and maintenance coordinator Joel Näs. 

-We are one of the larger sawmills in Sweden, says Johan.

-Here we saw fir trees in pre-ordered dimensions, especially for building materials, most of it is exported to Asia. The sawmill has been in use for almost 100 years.

-Production is running every day of the week – with stops for maintenance at night and on weekend evenings.

-We carry out maintenance around the clock, all year round. We are about 30 maintenance craftspeople with everything from mechanics and electricians to truck workshop and store personnel.

The goal is high availability

-We strive for a high level of availability, says Joel. We need to ensure that the equipment is always in good condition to be operational. We often switch between different dimensions and then it’s essential that we take time to inspect and clean the machines, those routines are in place says Johan.

Maintenance Store at Bergkvist Siljan-Insjön
Bergkvist Siljan-Insjön Sawmill

We clean the machines properly to avoid problems such as overheating and other functional losses and at the same time, we do inspections to detect other faults early.

-It gives positive consequences in several stages, we extend the equipment lifteime, we do things at the right time, we shorten the time per maintenance work and make sure that we have the right material at home at the right time, says Joel.

Documentation and actionable information

– In Idus, we have instructions on how to measure wear on our machinery. It’s important that everyone measures in the same way. We have well-trained staff who understand the importance of the right knowledge transfer.

– On the planning side, we want to know what work is needed, level of wear and when parts will undergo replacements, says Johan.

– We have good control of our work order backlog and we can prioritize based on that backlog and the mergency work that comes in.

Joel also takes time to emphasize the importance of documentation in the maintenance system.

-We have invested a lot in documenting the mill so that actionable information will always be a few keystrokes away. The electricians need to know a lot in advance before they start to disassemble a machine, all that information is available Idus, they go through the information together before they start.

-When it comes to corrective measures, it’s easier from several aspects to go back and open old work orders to see what we did back in time, says Joel.

-It’s important information to collect in a memory bank and everyone in Insjön understands the importance of it. When we are planning, it may be enough to check how the work went last time, checking notes and the hours spent, it  gives a good indication for an upcoming maintenance activity. Everyone understands the importance of collaboration and knowledge transfer, we have used Idus for more than 20 years and it gives us a lot in return, says Joel.

Effective corrective maintenance

-The machine operators go in and report faults, electrical faults go to the electrical department and mechanical faults go to the mechanical department. Sometimes the errors can be solved quickly and then there is no planned stop, says Johan. In the case of major interventions, we make solid planning. We always have a number of break in jobs we take the opportunity to do when we still have to stop the productionline, then we take the opportunity to sync several jobs at the same time. We put work order numbers on pallets and plastic containers to be prepared.

– Sometimes we receive photos of various faults from the production, it can be much easier to see how, for example, a wear looked like on a conveyor when the belt stood still, says Joel.

Quick snapshot

– We have a dashboard in Idus where we quickly get a snapshot, says Johan. 

Dashboards in Idus provides a quick snapshot.

-It doesn’t matter if you have been away or on holiday for 6 weeks, you can still see how we are towards the goals and how things have gone lately and how the trend is right now.

-When we talk, we can use Idus to understand the situation, errors that occured and what we need to focus on, both in meetings and in informal conversations, Johan states.

A well organized store

– We also have very good control of the storage, says Joel. It is reassuring to know that we have the parts at home when there are long lead times for spare parts and materials.

-We have about 11,000 items and 650 withdrawals each month Johan says. Everyone on maintenance are trusted to go in and take out material, everyone understands the importance of documenting withdrawals before things leave the storeroom. All in all, it can be said that we have control of the operations and we have routines that everyone understands and are happy with.

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