Sawmill: Timber Yield

A sawmill poses a problem with no honest optimum: maximum yield in percent and maximum revenue are different cutting patterns, and the choice is made before the first cut.

The log arrived round and defective. Diameter, sweep, rot, blue stain are all already inside, and the player does not improve wood, he only decides which category it becomes. Thick square timber brings a price per cubic metre but eats a layer that otherwise would have been fast-selling board; thin edging adds percent but stacks into a grade that sits on the yard through winter.

The second limit is the machine. The pattern is set by stops, and moving the stops costs minutes while the whole line stands. A pattern per log is impossible in practice: logs are gathered into batches by diameter and sawn one after another, so the player keeps the price of a changeover in mind.

The third is drying and storage. A kiln charge and a stack take only their own grade and their own moisture: wet board does not join a dry pile, and a returned batch means a second drying run, an occupied slot and a lost shipping day.

The score counts recovery in percent of log volume, tonnes dried per grade, idle minutes on the stops and cubic metres of slow residue on the yard. The batch debrief shows the main thing: the pattern that looked most profitable on paper usually left behind what nobody buys.