Isojoen Saha is a family business that, during its more than 60-year history, has become a major operator in the forest industry, both in Finland and internationally. Isojoki relies on Pinja’s expertise as a partner in the sawmill industry, and the Novi by Pinja system was acquired for maintenance needs.

Isojoki’s sawn timber production is customer-oriented, and the production is controlled by anticipating the need and the capacity in use in the various areas of production in such a way that the agreed delivery schedules are kept as well as possible. To meet this need, the company’s maintenance is increasingly shifting its focus from corrective maintenance to preventive maintenance.

A key goal at Isojoki is to try to prevent faults or detect any emerging fault before they occur. This makes day-to-day operations more systematic and thoughtful, and maintenance is spared from emergencies.

Efficiency into cost tracking and work supervision

Previously, the sawmill had another maintenance system in use, but its use was limited and the benefits were marginal. The acquisition of a new system started from a clean slate, with the goal of finding software that best serves both business and maintenance needs.

– What is important from the perspective of the business is cost monitoring; maintenance work and that events can be monitored directly in the system. In the future, we will see in more detail, for example, which machinery or equipment causes the most costs, says Juha Pynnönen, Maintenance Manager at Isojoen Saha.

According to Pynnönen, Novi will also improve the work supervision in the future. Maintenance work can be clearly scheduled on a timeline and thus visually outlined at what stage each task is performed. On the other hand, the aim is also to intensify cooperation between maintenance and production. In the future, it will be possible for production employees to prepare fault or repair requests to the system, which will enable responding to them more quickly and efficiently.

– With the help of Novi, we get up-to-date and accurate data for our weekly meetings and an open and transparent management culture. In the future, we will know even better which tasks require maintenance attention and what is being done now and in the future.

The possibility of real-time and accurate information about spare parts and their criticality classification was also considered relevant in connection with the system acquisition.

– We cannot keep everything on the shelf all the time, but the criticality rating allows spare parts to be managed so that production-critical parts are always available and easy to find at our own warehouse. This shortens the repair time as we do not have to wait for parts from the supplier.

Pynnönen sees a bright future for the sawmill. After the introduction of the system, it is known how well it meets the expressed wishes and needs. There are also plans to expand Novi’s use in the future if all goes according to estimates.

Juha Nyholm, Pinja’s Sales Manager is grateful to Pynnönen for the successful cooperation. According to him, the cooperation took place in an open and development-oriented atmosphere.

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