Failure is Not an Option

Seneca Sawmill has revolutionized the lumber industry nationwide. The Eugene-based company has multiple lumber production systems, each with a large number of critical components and dedicated teams to ensure those systems operate reliably and efficiently.

As with many businesses, in a sawmill, downtime costs tremendous amounts of money in lost production and staffing. Failed components are not an option. To those ends, after some disastrous break-downs prompted by another manufacturer’s cylinders, Seneca hired Purakal to address the reliability of one of Seneca’s operations.

Our mission? To identify and implement cylinders that would withstand the grueling battery of heavy, repetitive use that characterizes a sawmill. At the time that we were called in, the company’s aggressive quad setworks system and the related cylinders that powered the equipment were regularly failing. The quad setworks and saw change cylinders were scheduled for six-month routine maintenance rotations, but the seals would often begin leaking within three months.

We’ve seen this sort of situation many times and know that when repeated cylinder failure has occurred, it is imperative that the proper research and observation of the current processes is conducted at a micro and macro level. We knew that although Seneca had simply requested that we design a cylinder that would eliminate leakage and withstand the routine rigors and stress of the timber that came in contact with the setworks system, we needed to really understand the rigors and other drivers contributing to the failures.

“We had designed and produced a cylinder that extended the cylinder’s life to 18 months, nearly 60 weeks longer than the previous equipment.”

Based on our review and the collaborative input from the maintenance and management team, we designed and produced a cylinder that would at minimum fulfill Seneca’s measurement of success: a cylinder that would function smoothly for a year without attention, allowing Seneca to follow a predictable schedule for maintenance.

Initial performance of the new cylinder was exceptional, and we were thrilled that the customer was extremely satisfied. We knew the solution would outperform and outlast the previous cylinders. But even our team was impressed when the final results were reported: We had designed and produced a cylinder that extended the cylinder’s life to 18 months, nearly 60 weeks longer than the previous equipment. Frequent replacements, unexpected downtime and lost production were a thing of the past. Neither Purakal or Seneca could be more pleased.