National Hardwood Magazine - September 2020

AUTOMATION & ELECTRONICS

AUTOMATION & ELECTRONICS Continued from page 32 80 percent shareholding in Automation & Electronics but instead of being a “corporate takeover” it’s more of a partnership, enabling and supporting Automation & Electronics’ independence and relationship with their OEM customers and direct customers, but with added resources for Optimization, Controls and R&D. The end result is that Automation & Electronics now has personnel stationed in New Zealand, British Columbia, Canada, Ontario, Canada, and its USA headquarters in Asheville, North Carolina. Joe Korac, president of Automation & Electronics USA, said, “Our customers enjoy working with us because we’re small enough to be approachable, but have been big enough to have support. If you have a customer that breaks down while you’re doing another startup you can’t tell someone they’re going to have to ‘wait’ to get running; and we’ve always been able to accommodate that with our USA and New Zealand staff. With the growth that this partnership has brought us, now we have Software guys in three time zones, and they all work together; so if you have a problem at 6 a.m. in Georgia, you don’t have to wait until 9 or 10 for someone on the west coast. We have people local to your time zone ready to help.” As part of this partnership growth, Allen Larsen has joined the team and brings over 20 years of product development experience in Optimization. Riley Smith said, “When we were finalizing the deal with A&E, it was our goal to make sure that we reinforced A&E’s core strengths of approachability and support, but couple it with a strong R&D focus. One aspect of that was consulting with and hiring Allen Larsen to lead the Optimization Development team to ensure our offering delivered true optimization with long term supportability.” As a result of Allen’s leadership A&E has made some dramatic improvements to its Optimization and Software platforms, leveraging the latest Scanner Heads from JoeScan and LMI, as well as making the software ‘Web Friendly’, so Windows Compatibility / Upgrade issues are a thing of the past, since from the user’s perspective – the software runs on a web browser. This enables Mill Managers to monitor, get reports, and make changes from their current desktop for any Optimizer or Tally system in the mill. Allen stressed, “Software has come a long way since the invention of the internet, yet sawmill systems seem stuck in the past. We are excited to be able to take advantage of these technologies to provide systems that work the way people have come to expect software to work. The interfaces run in web-browsers so you can access them from anywhere using any device, meaning that Windows updates are no longer an excuse to sell customers an up- Celebrating 40 Years of Setting the Gold Standard in American Black Walnut 4/4 thru 16/4 Walnut Proudly NHLA Grade Certified Phone: 660-248-3000 MOPACLumber.com inquiry@mopaclumber.com 50 SEPTEMBER 2020 n NATIONAL HARDWOOD MAGAZINE

grade. We're also playing with the ability to use the cloud for backing up and monitoring the health of our customers' systems and to allow them to access large amounts of historical data without requiring expensive servers.” This mentality extends to more than just the computer, it applies to the Scanning Technology as well, with new systems going in with JoeScan JS-50s, JoeScan JS-25s, LMI Gocator’s, LMI Chromascans, and Scanmeg CV12’ scanner Glen Thompson heads, and the Tommy new platforms Stiles, A.W. are Stiles Contractors Inc., Matt Taylor, U-C Coatings LLC, Buffalo, NY; Damon Graf, DR Graf McMinnville, TN Lumber Co., Lexington, KY; and Tom Johel, U-C Coatings LLC clearly designed to be versatile and offer cost effective upgrade paths as well as whose topic was Growing the Global Pie. 2nd vice president. leading technology for new installations. Joe At Korac this year’s added, IHLA “A Convention, large project multiple that networking opportunities demonstrates were the offered, flexibility and of the this association’s plat- board of di- Fellowship of Christian Lumbermen held a brief meeting. Additionally, in conjunction with the IHLA meeting, the rectors form is held being a business installed in session. Alabama. The On 2017 board president IHLA is a non-profit trade organization comprised of sawmills, wholesale brokers, equipment vendors, secondary for this IHLA site A&E is Shaun will have Cook, a 3D of C.C. Merchandiser, 3D Primary IN. Tom Breakdown Oilar of Cole with Resaw Hardwood, located in Lo- manufacturers, loggers and landowners, among others in Cook & Son Lumber Co., of Reelsville, gansport, and Gang IN, optimization, is the 2017 1st 2 - vice 3D president Lineal and A&E Brett is committed Franklin, of Tri-State Timber LLC of Bloomington, its IN customers is the IHLA with detailed Learn HMI’s more allowing at www.ihla.org. the customer nto self-diagnose most occur- to the providing industry. its customers with 24/7 support. A key to the success is having engineers in-office over three different time zones. A&E also aims to provide rences as seen in the picture above from one of their Edger HMI screens. Please turn the page Additional photos on next page NORTHERN & APPALACHIAN HARDWOOD [ WWW.SIMONLUSSIER.COM ] NORTHERN & APPALACHIAN HARDWOODS [ WWW.SIMONLUSSIER.COM ] NORTHERN & APPALACHIAN HARDWOOD [ WWW.SIMONLUSSIER.COM] MATHIEU LUSSIER - Export Sales Manager m2lussier@simonlussier.com 450.435.6591 - 16 BOUL. DE LA SEIGNEURIE EST, BLAINVILLE, QC CANADA J7C 3V5 SEPTEMBER APRIL 2017 2020 n NATIONAL HARDWOOD MAGAZINE 51