Wood product manufacturing cost breakdown: sawing yield by volume, not weight
Costing raw lumber and panel manufacturing — the stage upstream of furniture, sawing yield measured by cubic-meter volume instead of weight, and engineered board adding a glue line and heat-pressing energy.
Wood product manufacturing (sawmills, plywood, particleboard, MDF) sits upstream of furniture in the supply chain: it turns roundwood or wood fiber into raw board/panel material, not yet an assembled product. It differs from furniture in the costing unit: furniture costs by SHEETS actually issued, while this stage costs by VOLUME, since it's the stage that produces the sheet itself.
The costing unit: ONE CUBIC METER OF INPUT WOOD sawn, or ONE SQUARE METER OF FINISHED BOARD - pick the unit that matches the product being costed and say which one you're using.
The process sequence
- Receive roundwood/wood fiber input.
- Sawing or peeling (depending on sawn lumber vs. veneer).
- Drying.
- Pressing - engineered board only (particleboard, plywood, MDF): glue mixing, heat pressing.
- Sanding, cutting to spec.
- Quality grading.
- Packaging & shipping.
Two features unique to this industry
1. Sawing yield - measured by VOLUME, not weight
The ratio of finished lumber recovered to input roundwood volume is the industry's central efficiency figure, playing the same role as material `yield` elsewhere - but it must be measured by VOLUME (cubic meters of finished board over cubic meters of input log), unlike most industries which balance by weight. Slabs, sawdust, and unusable trim are the difference - the equivalent of scrap.
2. Engineered board - a second material (glue), and heat-pressing energy as a real line
For particleboard/plywood/MDF, the material category has TWO things at once: wood input (by cubic meter) and glue/adhesive (by kilogram/liter) - don't blend them into one unit price, since they're bought in different units. The heat-pressing/drying step consumes energy continuously, so the machinery category's power cost is often more significant than depreciation alone.
Everything else
Machinery (saws, veneer lathes, presses - mostly OWNED). Labor. Consumables (saw blades, blade sharpening stones). Subcontracted work (outside kiln drying if there's no in-house dryer, anti-termite/chemical treatment service). Rework (defective board re-pressed if the process allows). Packaging. Freight (bulky, same trait as furniture - priced by space occupied, not just weight).
Overhead - building depreciation and the dust/sawdust extraction system, a notable safety-related line for this industry.
Evidence
- Roundwood receiving log by cubic meter.
- Finished board issue ticket by lot, with the resulting yield.
- Glue/chemical consumption log by pressing batch.
- Quality grading records.
Related guides
- Furniture manufacturing cost: three materials, three different units
Costing a cabinet or a chair across all ten categories. The catch is that panels, edging and hardware are each bought in a different unit, and mixing them up quietly breaks the material line.
- Forestry logging cost breakdown: harvesting rights and the cubic-meter unit
Costing forestry logging the way the industry actually works — no purchased material like mining, harvesting rights or land lease depreciated against standing volume for the cycle, and skidding costed separately by terrain.
- The Ten Manufacturing Cost Categories, in Production Order
The ten cost categories Costdown uses to price a product — material, machinery, labor, tooling, scrap, rework, outsourced processing, packaging, logistics, factory overhead — with the formula and a worked example for each.
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