SAATECH Engineering Pty Ltd was formed in 1987 to provide an engineering consultancy service to the plantation-based sawmilling industry. Saatech Engineering has undertaken a variety of capital works programs on behalf of it's clients. The projects range from relatively small design assignments, to major capital works projects for new sawmills, or major upgrades to log yards, greenmills, sorting and stacking systems, and planermills.

In addition, Saatech Systems Pty Ltd markets other Saatech developed products such as PowerSAW, cutting pattern simulation & analysis software; SawCAM, a new technology sawmill simulation program, and a range of specialised mechanical handling and processing systems for sawmills, including the company's new drymill sorter-stacker system, the M-Sorter.

Saatech has represented several Eastern Canadian companies since 2004. Although the economic crisis has hit many suppliers hard in the industry, the high quality of their products, combined wilh very competitive pricing, makes products and systems from TS Manufacturing (Ontario), Autolog Production Management Inc. (Quebec); and SawQuip International (Quebec) particularly attractive to Australian and NZ sawmillers.

TS Manufacturing, Autolog and Sawquip are amongst the leaders in their respective fields. TS Manufacturing supplied the complete greenmill, high-speed board sorter and the residual wood system for the Pinetec pallet wood sawmill, built in 2005. Autolog supplied the scanning and automation system for the complete sawmill, and Sawquip supplied the high performance reducers.

Please note that our long-standing relationship with LMI Technologies continues as it has for over 13 years. Call or email Saatech for the sales of new and replacement laser sensors. We can facilitate sensor repairs for customers using LMI DynaVision products.

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We are technical sales agents in Australia & NZ for the following leading Canadian companies.

March 2008 - M-Sorter system operational in Gunns Auspine-Frenchpine Sawmill for over 3years

The first M-Sorter Sorting System is operational in a Tasmanian Sawmill after more than 5 years of intense development. The system was installed by Frenchpine in their new (2005 completed) planermill at Scottsdale. Although this was the first installation of an M-Sorter system, startup was smooth and within 2 weeks the system was routinely sorting and stacking in excess of 90% of planed throughput.

The M-Sorter system has been installed for 41 months as of March 2009. Although an assembly of two slightly different prototype units, the installation has proven to be extremely reliable in operation, featuring very high up-time. Very valuable feedback from the Gunns Timber (ex Auspine-Frenchpine mill) operations personnel has already led to many subtle equipment improvements. These coupled with the post prototyping developments (but not featured in the prototype Gunns Timber equipment), will ensure the immediate next generation M-Sorter systems are even better than the original.

As a direct consequence of the Gunns Timber experience the lath placer magazine system will be improved, while the board and layer indexing drives will become servo-electric (or vector-positioning) to provide better control, more accurate positioning and indexing, and a higher speed response. Site improvements by Gunns engineering personnel have been made to the tyne design, which has led to even better system reliability.

For more information contact John Reid at Saatech.

With over 3 years continuous operationla experience with the M-Sorter at the Gunns Timber Scottsdale sawmill, we are now turning our attention to an M-Sorter specifically to sorting and stacking of random length, high value, appearance grade hardwood products. While this will require many design detail changes, the principles of the basic M-Sorter will remain unaltered.

Saatech are working with an NZ based company who have developed a special infeed system for the project.

Released at AusTimber 2008 in Mount Gambier, Saatech's new PowerSAW cutting pattern simulation software is taking over from where its predecessor Calculator V4 left off. Over the next year we plan to add a number of management and reporting enhancements to the PowerSAW software.

We welcomes BOSKOR Kleinbos in South Africa as new users with their recent PowerSAW ( 3 licences), and also Dr John Moore of the Centre for Timber Engineering, Napier University, Edinburgh, Scotland (2 licences).