An African hardwood mill ran at half the global recovery benchmark — with no per-log data to understand why.

In their words

African and tropical hardwood mills run at 35–45% recovery against a 50–65% global benchmark, leaving seven-figure value on the table annually. The mill lacked per-log data to identify where value was lost, approved orders without verifying if the available log mix was profitable, and faced a December 2026 EUDR deadline requiring per-log geolocation and traceability.

One operating system around the risk pattern

• Deployed yield prediction using log dimensions and defect data to forecast recovered volume and grade outturn
• Instrumented mill and team telemetry to measure OEE, throughput, and downtime per production line
• Built an order-mix optimisation engine using MILP to generate accept/reject/quote signals against live log inventory
• Designed EUDR-compliant per-log traceability architecture covering geolocation and chain-of-custody