Sawmilling Industry in State Timber Corporation

Asha Dissanayake

State Timber Corporation is a government corporation responsible for harvesting and marketing wood from State-owned forests and forest plantations. The corporation is involved in the extraction of timber from forests, conservation of such timber, maintenance of finished products, sale of logs and sawn timber.

Sawmills are the primary processor of the raw wood, logs. A sawmill take the log and turn it into a product that is desired by the secondary industry. This product is usually a board, but it could be chips, sawdust, excelsior, or even firewood. Each sawmill has their own customers. These customers are the secondary industries, they all produce different products that the consumer purchases.

Kaldemulla and Ratmalana are the major sawmills operated by the State Timber Corporation. The STC have number of sawmills all over the country. Kaldemulla Saw mill produce lumber for manufactured furniture for their own furniture show room. However in Ratmalana sawmill, saws not only STC timber they also provide services to the private customers. Furthermore there is a timber depot centre to sell the timber.

These two sawmills have horizontal band saw machines. Bandsaws are the most widely used cutting tool in the primary breakdown of logs. Band saws result in less sawdust and more lumber due to a smaller kerf.

Logs brought into the sawmill pass through a process to produce the finished product. First the logs are debarked. Removing the bark removes the dirt and debris in the bark. Next the log is cut into boards. The boards may pass through several saws, edged and cut to length to produce the finished product. Then the lumber is stacked and dried in large kilns. Boards are graded and sorted to be bundled and sold to the markets.

Proper maintenance of the bandsaw blade is very important for the efficient sawing of lumber products. Punching, tensioning, straightening, leveling, swaging, setting, and sharpening are major processes that should be carried out in bandsaw blade maintenance. In these two sawmills there are specialised saw doctors to maintain saw blades and there are automatic feed mechanism to perform saw setting. Kaldemulla and Ratmalana sawmills use two different saw setting methods.

There are so many problems associated with sawmilling and wood product manufacturing. There are environmental problems, employee safety problems and maintenance problems of both machines and workers. Sawmilling industry is a profitable industry for the State Timber Corporation. However due to political interference, inefficiency of some workers and lack of new technology the sawmilling industry in STC is not performing well.

Timber Depots in Sri Lanka – Development options

D.K. Lakmini Senadheera (contact author)

Timber Depots are the places where the swan timber or logs are stored and sells. There about 397 timber depots are distributed in all over the country. The majority of them are medium and small scale. State timber cooperation (STC) was established in 1968.It is the Government Corporation responsible for harvesting and marketing wood from State-owned forests and forest plantations. STC has several timber depots distributed all over the country. Kaldemulla, Orugodawatta, Pannipitiya, Moratuwa are some of them.

Timber depot at Kaldemulla mainly obtain timber by Logging from state –owned forests and plantations Timber get from State owned lands currently under going development programmes , Timber get from, construction of highways, proposed electricity programmes, removal of dangerous tree, illegal timber capture from forest department. Demand for timber is very high. At kaldemulla, annual demand and supply may vary.

Development of this industry can be done by doing SWOT Analysis, Pest Analysis and 4P’s concepts. In my presentation I have mainly discussed about SWOT Analysis, Some of the Strengths are providing good quality timber, availability of timber at any time. Supply different sizes of swan timber customer needed. A good way of utilization of timer obtain from situations such as constructing/development projects, trees damaged due to accidents, having a continuous demand in whole year. Some of the Weaknesses are lack of skilful workers, Increasing the prices of the sawn timber and logs, Having a high production cost such as, labour cost material cost Due to less economic stability most of the depot owners can not adopt advance technology and use of multipurpose machines, In proper waste management, no job security in the industry. Some of the opportunities are high local demand for sawn timber and logs, the manufacture of various wood products such as toys, wooden components, crafts, parquetry, carvings, etc are the most important wood-based export industry, availability of timber in Sri Lanka is very high. Treats can be identified as Political interference in distribution of timber. Providing low quality timber to the customers at a lower price, Difficulties may be arise transporting timber logs.

Developing the industry can be done by introducing the new technology to the existing. It will increase the efficiency and reduce the generation. Improve the of saw dust. Storage of timber should be managed in proper way which will lead to reduce the waste. And they can improving the sales by advertising and increase the profit, by having good customer relationship and develop the exporting of Sri Lankan timber.

Development of the Pantry cupboard Industry in Sri Lanka

Randika Jayasinghe

The pantry cupboard industry has become a new trend in the Sri Lankan society. It is one of the most requested features in many of the middle and high income homes today. The pantry cupboard industry can be seen as a small scale industry such as self-employed carpenters and medium scale and large scale such as export oriented companies such as Damro and Singer. Works of self-employed carpenters are very popular among individual households and ready-made pantry shelves are popular in apartments and hotels.

Teak, Nadun, Jak and Mahogany are some of the widely accepted timber for pantry cupboards by local carpenters because these species have a good texture and an appearance. However due to high price and lack of availability of those species, Pine wood and Rubber wood is highly used for pantry cupboards in the local market today. Wood preservation and seasoning techniques should be carried out for these species in order to increase the quality of the final products.
There is a good market for wooden pantry cupboards locally and internationally compared to metal and plastics. Also there is a good demand for pantry cupboards in the domestic sector (for houses, apartments etc.) and in the commercial sector. (Hotels, Restaurants etc.) Availability of suitable timber species in Sri Lanka, availability of workers, high price that could be obtained for the work and high demand from customers due to maximum utilization of space compared to cupboards, drawers are some of the opportunities of the industry.

Fewer facilities for most small scale carpenters and craftsmen, failure to create new designs and develop new products, uses of out dated machinery are some of the drawbacks of the industry. However there is a growing demand for pantry cupboards in all levels of the society and a good demand for new products and designs. Therefore it is important to improve the product quality to meet the customer requirements.

A proper development plan should be adopted for the improvement of the industry. Introducing innovative designs, use of different accessories and colour schemes to capture the customer’s heart, introducing new market places and improving advertising and promotion about the products are some of the steps that should be carried out. Use of alternative low priced timber species instead of high priced timber, reduction of import duties on accessories and fittings, introducing new loan schemes for small and medium scale industries and introducing attractive prices for different designs and new products are also important in regulating the price of the products.

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