BOISmag 227-228
AI, wood, and investment: the sawmill enters a new era
With the rise of AI and new technologies, French sawmills are changing—fast. Behind the machines and stacks of timber, a new toolkit is increasingly visible: sensors, software, scanners, algorithms. Artificial intelligence is making its way into workshops, large and small, and with it comes a new way of producing. More than a passing trend, it offers concrete answers to the sector’s challenges: optimizing yields, anticipating blade wear, adjusting production to real-time demand, reducing waste…
AI does not replace operators; it supports them, saving time, improving accuracy, and enhancing safety. Still, this transition doesn’t come for free. It requires major investment, upskilling, and a long-term vision. Nor is it limited to large groups. More and more independent sawmills are equipping themselves, adapting, and innovating, because it’s becoming clear that competitiveness depends on it. But beware: investing in “tech” does not mean turning our backs on wood. Quite the opposite—it restores its full value by avoiding waste, improving traceability, and responding more precisely to market needs. It is also a way to combine tradition and efficiency and, above all, an opportunity for the forest–wood sector to be simultaneously more technological, more sustainable, and more competitive.
The sawmill of the future will not be a dehumanized factory. It will be both connected and grounded in material and in place. And it is by investing today that we will make it real tomorrow…
Adèle Cazier