Neural Grader Scanner now live at Northern Hardwoods providing Advanced Color Sorting & Defect Detection

Northern Hardwoods, a company, based in Atlantic Mine, Michigan and owned by JM Longyear, is proud to announce that its Neural Grader is now live grading its Red Oak, Hard Maple and Soft Maple lumber.

“Northern Hardwoods has a very strong quality focus. We want to provide the best possible quality to our clients. One of the hallmarks of our company is our Ultra White Maple which is the result of careful color sorting. We know how tough the job of a line grader is and especially at a company like ours which has complex proprietary grades and color sorting rules. We have been looking for some time for a solution to automate grading work and improve the grading quality we provide to our clients. After comparing various solutions we chose the Neural Grader because of their innovative approach to scanning. We have done tests over thousands of boards with the Neural Grader to compare grading accuracy against experienced line graders. The results show the Neural Grader performing significantly better and we are confident that we will be able to offer a better product to our clients using it. The Neural Grader is also much better at taking upgrading decisions which has been instrumental in making a better use of our remanufacturing capacity. ” said Shane Raffaelli, Production Supervisor at Northern Hardwoods.

“Northern Hardwoods has extremely high-quality requirements in grading and sorting. They have one of the best team of graders we have seen in the industry. Their color sorting requirements and proprietary grades are extensive. A few years ago such a project would not have been possible. We are proud to have demonstrated what our cutting-edge AI technology is able to deliver“ said Bruno Nieuwenhuys, CTO of the Neural Grader.

This marks a major milestone for Neural Grader’s expansion into the North American market and underscores the growing demand for smarter automated grading systems to deliver the color and grain sorting which can add value to clients.

The Neural Grader scanner at Northern Hardwoods is installed on the company’s planer line. The line is designed to run up to 3 boards in parallel on the line. A major competitive differentiator of the Neural Grader is that it can run multiple boards in parallel through its scanner accurately managing splits in boards or boards running next to each other.

Another key reason why Northern Hardwoods chose the Neural Grader is that it could be installed on its existing planer line without major changes. Thanks to its robust image acquisition technology and small footprint the Neural Grader is able to retrofit on most lines, in a few days, avoiding costly line changes and the associated downtime.

Northern Hardwoods and its parent company JM Longyear own and operate timber land, processing equipment, sawmill, kilns, and a planer & rip department, as well as a distribution warehouse. The company has 100 employees producing 17 million board feet in their sawmill and 13,5 million board feet on their plane line. The long and cold winters in Northern Michigan produce dense timber of unmatched clarity providing Northern Hardwoods with one of the best hardwood in North America. The company ensures and uphold some of the highest quality specifications in the hardwood industry.

The Neural Grader is part of the Fordaq group of companies which also owns Fordaq.com, the leading B2B marketplace for wood products created 25 years ago, which counts over 90.000 members worldwide, and Tally Express the leading bundle measurement application.