Sawmilling is big business in Ireland. But as the world changes, they have to invest to keep ahead. Forestry Journal recently visited Murray Timber’s Co. Galway plant to find out how they are doing just that.
YOU’RE only as quick as the slowest point on your production line.
As far as mottos go, it’s a rather apt one for the world’s sawmills. In that side of the industry, every second, every penny, and every cubic metre counts when wheeling and dealing with the planting of the last millennium.
At least they can decide how they go about their own business. In one small corner of Ireland – where the rain seems to always fall and the locals feel more authentically Irish than soda bread (insert your own lazy stereotype if you please) – one sawmill is doing just that.
Murray Timber Group’s mill in Ballygar, County Galway, makes a great first impression. Around an hour from the west coast, it has been the epicentre of the firm’s processing business for more than four decades, churning out – by most estimates – at least 600,000 m3 of timber each year, a lot of which finds its way to the UK.
Twinned with a sister site in Ballon, County Carlow, it isn’t without its chequered past. In 2004, the plant’s production line was destroyed in a fire. While undoubtedly a disaster, the silver lining is that it gave managing director Paddy Murray and his management team the chance to adapt with the times, investing around €20 million in the last five years or so on improvements alone. It’s the fruits of that investment that Forestry Journal has been invited along to see.
After a brief discussion about the plant and the sector in Ireland (more on that later), John Ryan, Murray Timber’s forestry manager, takes us out in the rain (it’s raining, of course) and we make a beeline for one of the mill’s main attractions. The culmination of all those years of effort, the Springer sorting line still has that out-of-the-packet shine to it, but that won’t last long. Believed to be around 20–30 per cent quicker than the machine it is replacing (which just looks tired in comparison), it has cost “many millions” and was designed specifically to meet the mill’s needs. It has also been adapted for the Irish market.
“We’re very excited about it,” said John. At the time of FJ’s visit it was yet to be operational, but was in full flow since the start of 2023. “It will be a lot faster. Around 25 to 30 per cent. It will be a serious bit of kit when it’s up and running.
“The lads went all over Europe, looking at what we could put in. You can’t get the decision wrong when it’s this. This will really change and improve our operation.”
The reason for this investment goes back to the article’s intro. There was nothing wrong with the old sorting line and infeed, but John’s view is you’re going backwards if you’re not moving forwards.
The new line will allow the site to process a couple of extra logs a minute, which makes all the difference across the year.
“If you don’t keep investing in your site the whole time, bottlenecks show up. If one stage is faster but it’s not down the line, you’ll notice that. The logs will come in and down a lot faster.
“You’re only as fast as your slowest point. It has cost us many millions and will let us get a couple of extra logs a minute in. That makes a difference on a yearly basis.
“You want to be at the top of your game. You have to invest or you’ll be left behind and here they do huge investments.
“They saw one similar to it then went out to meet Springer. There are huge plans in place to get what they wanted and the design they wanted.
“It will mostly be a one-man show. At the moment, it’s two for the most part. This will run a lot smoother than the old infeed.
“Logs vary between different countries. Here they can be quite branchy, so there were some modifications made to ensure this is fit for an Irish log.”
As mentioned, every penny (or should that be cent?) counts at a sawmill. Murray Timber keeps around 20–27,000 m3 of stock at the Ballygar site at any one time, which is around five to six weeks of timber. The full capacity of the yard is 40,000 m3, with log lengths being 2.5 metres, 3.1 m, 3.7 m, 4.3 m and 4.9 m.
It’s little surprise to hear each part of those logs is used in full.
While much of the product ends up in garden decking, pallets and packaging, a kiln is used to heat the mill, feeding into a state-of-the-art boiler system that was installed in 2015.
“Nothing gets wasted,” said John. “Even the dirt on your shoes will be scraped off and used! Previously, you couldn’t get rid of sawdust.
“Roughly 50 per cent of your sawn log won’t go into products. So you need to have a market for it. We export chip to the UK.
“The boiler was installed in 2015 and it’s dumped into there about once a week. You can feed it in there and you have guaranteed supply. It will feed it out into the top of the shed and across the site.
“When the boiler requires fuel, it will pull the material out and feed it into the boiler. It’s all automated. It is very efficient.”
Automation is a constant theme throughout the visit, even if there’s something about the sound of the sawmill that makes it feel alive. Recently delivered logs tumble onto the line. Blades whizz all around, crunching through their victims before moving onto the next one. Machinery beeps by, ready to cart the freshly cut timber off to its new home.
But what you can’t help but notice is the lack of people. It’s kind of eerie. Walking through the Ballygar site, very few faces pop up to say hello, and the ones that do are too busy checking on machines to really take notice of us (understandably).
That begins to make more sense when John explains how the mill has changed since he moved into his current role 12 years ago. Back then, there could easily be more than 20 workers on the site at any one time. Now, it’s usually around seven.
Recent innovations have included the introduction of a Kuka robotic arm onto the production line, believed to be the first of its kind in Ireland. Particularly unfazed by the presence of FJ during our visit, it is doing the work of three employees.
“It’s changed so much. When I came here at first, there was probably three times that amount 20 years ago. That could change again.
“They want to continue to automate and bring in more robots.”
@forestryjournal Changed days inside the sawmills 😅 We were given a sneak peak of Murray Timber in Ireland this week 🇮🇪 #sawmill #forestry #robotics #robot#timber ♬ original sound - Forestry Journal
Whether this is a good thing or not in the wider human picture is up for debate, but perhaps it wouldn’t have been possible to fill those roles anyway.
“Efficiency is driving it. But you also won’t get lads doing a lot of that type of work. It’s hard enough to get them now.
“It’s a mix, and you’ll have local farmers coming in, lads from Europe etc. You’re not getting new lads coming out of school, wanting to work on the line for Murray Timber. Anywhere the company can take the man out – that’s been the vision. Mechanise, mechanise, mechanise.
“You’ll always have your skilled workers and your staff. But we need to adapt. We want to be more efficient about all that we do.”
Heading inside to the saw shop, where maintenance is carried out on the mill’s machinery, we meet Paul Maher. He’s worked for Murray Timber for around 30 years, honing his craft and meticulously caring for the plant’s saws. It means he is better placed than most to explain how his role in it all has changed, but his are talents you just can’t replace.
“It’s a very specialised job and much more accurate than it used to be,” he said. “Previously, there was a lot of guesswork involved.”
Now, his eye is guided by a range of Vollmer machines, which, with screens straight from a Star Wars X-Wing, provide readings so accurate they would have no issues finding a thermal exhaust port.
Paul continued: “This machine can read the blade exactly – within 100th of a mm. It’s very accurate.
“You have great consistency with the machine. I find it a very good machine. We’ve had it for around two years.
“You think you would lose your skills, but you need them. Just that little bit of knowledge. But there’s nothing as accurate as a laser.”
Before embarking on our tour, we had gathered in John’s office, situated at the sawmill’s entrance, and discussed forestry in Ireland. The striking thing is how similar the conversation is to one FJ could so easily have had in a British mill.
Take species selection, for instance. Murray Timber purchases its logs from private growers and Coillte and imports some from abroad, but prefers to stick with Sitka spruce.
“We do a bit of Norway from time to time and Douglas fir,” John said. “But it’s all Sitka. Our Sitka is fit for purpose.
“We don’t like too much of others because it starts causing us problems. If we take in a small bit of Douglas, let’s say, it shows up on the line and in the timber.
“The customer doesn’t want it, even if it’s better timber.”
Like in the UK, where Sitka makes up around 51 per cent of commercial plantations, the constant supply makes it the obvious choice. There are around 300,000 hectares of it on the Emerald Isle, but it’s not without its problems to seek. If you can imagine what that would entail here – local unrest and accusations of killing biodiversity – then you’ll get the picture of what it’s like in Ireland.
“You really want to segregate those Douglas but there’s no constant, reliable supply in Ireland. “We could do a day a week at a plant. But we’re handling the timber we’re handling.
“We have a lot of baggage in this country with Sitka spruce bashing, objections, and felling licences – a whole car crash of stuff has hit this sector. Sitka spruce has taken a fair hammering. But we need it.”
Planting – or lack thereof – is also a major issue.
The amount of land planted for forestry in Ireland in 2021 was just a quarter of targets set out by the government and has shrunk significantly in the last 15 years or so.
According to the most-recent figures, the rate of tree planting fell from 6,947 ha in 2007 to just 2,016 ha in 2021. Around 59 per cent of the area planted was conifers, mainly Sitka.
“It’s poor,” said John, when asked about planting in the country. “It was okay, but never reached the heights it was meant to, but has fallen off a cliff in the last two years.
“There is meant to be a minimum of 8,000 ha planted, but – and I am not in planting – it is looking like closer to 2,500 ha.”
Efforts to improve this have been hit by a catalogue of problems, not least long-running complaints over Ireland’s licensing arrangements, which have been described by some as “not fit for purpose”. According to the Irish Times, the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine’s inability to keep up with mounting applications and appeals came to a head in 2020, creating a shortage of timber in the Republic. At one point, sawmills estimated the backlog had delayed the production of 1.1 million m3 of wood.
Murray Timber is a member of Forest Industries Ireland (FII), which lobbies the government on issues like this, but what does John think?
“It’s improved but it’s not ideal. It’s going to need a lot of work in the future. We’ve had sticky plaster after sticky plaster over the whole thing.
“I won’t take on doing applications at the moment. You could be two years waiting, a year, six months – you don’t know.
“You can’t tell someone when their timber will be felled. It makes it hard to do business. You have no certainty. The first thing I ask before going out is if someone has a licence.
“We’ve become very regulated. Some of it was needed. That’s true.”
By their very nature, sawmills experience great highs and lows. Readers will be well aware of the peaks experienced in the UK’s mills during the Covid lockdowns that later turned into troughs. It was the same in Ireland.
Throw in the damaging effects of pests and diseases on the world’s trees, and you’ll understand why John and the mill are always trying to plan ahead.
“You have to be mindful of these things coming and keep your eyes wide open.
“We had it to ourselves for the last couple of years because the Swedes and the Germans were going to America and getting a far higher price. It was great for us. Turnover was doubled but we knew ourselves it wouldn’t last. The turn came and it came sharp. But it will come again – it’s a cycle. We had to ration our sawn timber; that’s how crazy it was.
“We are such a big consumer of logs. We can have 100 lorry loads a day if we’re busy – 50 here and 50 at the plant in Ballon.
“You have to have your stock, with your lengths and your log lengths.
“But you need to be mindful about what’s coming around the corner in six or 12 months’ time. It can be a hard thing to predict.”
He added: “You can be looking at production volumes and you can be looking at the market from forestry and you need confidence to invest in it.
“But you do really need 20/20 vision to see what’s coming down the road in the next six, eight, or 12 months.”
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