Exporting timber from Cameroon: How this sawmilling company grew its business
The Wood-Mizer HR115 Resaw cutting accurate and high value boards.
Press Office: Wood-Mizer
A very successful sawmill in Yaoundé, Cameroon grows their business even further with Wood-Mizer.
Bois d’ Afrique SARL BDA is a profitable sawmill in Ahala outside Yaoundé in Cameroon.
The sawmill was started in 2016 by the late Mr George Essala.
The sawmill started off with swing blade sawmills to produce sawn timber. The sawmills were also rented out to private sawmillers who wanted to produce sawn timber.
The sawmill first only produced sawn timber for the local market. As it grew exports also rose. By 2018 the sawmill was earning most of its money from timber exports to Europe.
At the same time, Mr Essala contacted Wood-Mizer’s dealer in Cameroon, Smeets Import-Exports. He wanted to know how Wood-Mizer’s thin-kerf narrow bandsaw sawmills can improve his business?
Wood-Mizer Cameroon’s director, Merlin Lagouo said that Mr Essala was very impressed with how little wood Wood-Mizer sawmills wasted and how precisely the range can cut.
“With Wood-Mizer only 2 mm is wasted per cut. The swing blade mills wasted far more. Less waste means more timber to sell.
“Overseas markets also want precisely cut timber. Wood-Mizer mills can do this and earn more money from exports. With this, precision manufacturing at the sawmill could also start,” Merlin said.
Wood-Mizer is a winner
In 2018, Bois d’ Afrique added a Wood-Mizer LT15WIDE sawmill and HR115 resaw to their business.
The LT15WIDE is a very affordable sawmill that can cut thick and heavy tropical hardwood logs into sawn timber.
With a 910 mm cut and 5.4 m+ sawmill bed, most of the large logs at Bois d’ Afrique could now be cut on the LT15WIDE. The sawmill’s output shot up and wastage dropped.
Output and cut quality also improved when the Wood-Mizer HR115 single head resaw started. Soon after that the sawmill bought a second HR115 resaw to improve production even more.
Swing blade mills were now used to only cut blocks with the resaw producing precisely cut boards for exports. The correct sizes, good surface quality and speed of the resaw added a lot of profit.
Bois d’Afrique could also start manufacturing products with their Wood-Mizers. This has grown their profits and made their future bright,” Merlin said.
Good service
Bois d’ Afrique found it very useful to have a branch of Wood-Mizer near them in Yaoundé,” Merlin Lagouo said.
With Wood-Mizer’s showroom near to the sawmill, Mr Essala could see the machines in action and compare products. This made it easy and convenient to get the right sawmill for the job.
With spares, blades and mechanics close by, the sawmills are always running and making money. Training and assistance to install sawmills also made it easy to get the mills up to full production.
Wood-Mizer’s new store in Douala will give sawmillers in that city the same level of service.
“The service from Wood-Mizer at the Yaoundé branch was an important reason why Bois d’ Afrique chose Wood-Mizer,” Merlin finished.