A free update to a US Forest Service-developed rough mill simulator program is now available for members of the wood industry.
The ROMI 3.1 simulator is a powerful tool used to model rough mill operations. Finished product manufacturers can use the software to detect bottlenecks in production. The software allows businesses to test various scenarios to improve rough mill performance, reduce costs, and find the lowest cost lumber grade-mix purchases.
The software product is the result of federal and university-funded grants totaling about $77,000. The Virginia Tech Department of Wood Science and Forest Products, Forest Service Northern Research Station and the Wood Education and Resource Center partnered to upgrade and improve the functionality of the ROMI software program.
The project, Integrating the Least-Cost-Grade-Mix Solver into ROMI Software (Award number 2008-DG-109), focused on improving the programâs ease of use. The update incorporates a new open source statistical software package that simplifies use of the application.
Read or download the user guide here.
SOURCE: USDA Forest Service
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