With nearly a decade at Canfor Southern Pine, Corporate Reliability Manager Brian Gonzalez had seen it all. Mills running equipment to failure. Technicians scrambling during emergencies. Parts being overnighted at thousands of dollars in shipping costs. Workplace accidents spiking during crisis repairs. And always that underlying tension of wondering when the next catastrophic failure would strike.
“Most mills were consistently in firefighting mode,” Brian explains in a recent webinar. “Running machine centers to failure and repairing once they failed.”
At $4,500 per hour of downtime, every failure hurt. But the nine-day disaster at one mill changed everything.
The $972,000 Wake-Up Call
Drive lines degrade slowly, but when they fail, they fail fast. So when one mill’s unmonitored drive line failed, the results were nothing short of catastrophic.
“The mill could not run at all,” Brian remembers. “Due to the size of the location and machine center, the roof had to be removed, a crane had to be brought in, and the machine center had to be pulled from the production floor.”
Ultimately, this failure took down the mill for nine days, resulting in $972,000 in lost production.
Lesson learned. Today, every critical drive line across all 16 mills has monitoring coverage.
“Anytime we get a big catch, or in this case, a big miss, I tell the other mills about it so they know to look out for these types of downtime events,” he says. Brian ensured that the negative experience at one mill turned into an opportunity for improvement at all mills.
Breaking the Quarterly Bearing Replacement Cycle
As Canfor began relying more heavily on predictive maintenance, the wins started piling up: like the 100% elimination of unnecessary bearing replacements at one mill, saving thousands quarterly.
Brian’s team deployed Machine Health on equipment that had been consuming bearings every three months like clockwork. The data revealed what no one had seen: the bearings were fine. The lubrication system was failing.
“Once the lubrication system on the drive lines was corrected, the machine center no longer needed to have these bearings replaced,” Brian notes.
Converting the “Old School” Skeptics
Big wins aren’t limited to machines. Some are cultural and change the way people work—like the veteran technician who became a data advocate after preventing a double failure.
During a routine hardware audit, Brian faced the ultimate test. A boiler drive motor was vibrating so badly that it was visibly shaking. The experienced technician diagnosed the issue instantly: broken mounting bolts and bearing failure in the motor. Replace the motor. Case closed.
But Brian asked one question: “What is the monitoring system showing as the source?”
The data revealed the truth: a bearing on the opposite end of the drive shaft had a loose lock ring, allowing half an inch of shaft movement and causing the misalignment.
After seeing the data, “…the technician said he was now a real believer and would trust the data going forward,” Brian recalls. “Had the drive line not been monitored, the technician would have just replaced the motor and mounting bolts, not knowing the lock ring had come loose. This would have meant damage to the new motor and having to take down the system a second time.”
This story spread through Canfor’s mills faster than any directive could travel. When the most experienced technicians embrace data-driven decisions, everyone follows.
Eliminating the Hidden Hemorrhage
Reactive maintenance is expensive. Some of those costs are clear, but many are “hidden costs”, as Brian explained further.
“When a mill has an unplanned downtime event, there’s a possibility that correct parts needed for the repair are not on site. The mill having to ‘hotshot’ or overnight a part is very, very costly. The size and weight of these parts can be very expensive, often in the hundreds to thousands of dollars for shipping costs.”
Canfor’s mills now order parts during routine planning cycles. No scrambling. No overtime labor. No emergency shipping premiums.
Fast Time to Value and ROI
Brian discovered something unexpected during initial Machine Health deployments.
“Once the baseline was established, more times than not, we found upset conditions right away. The mill would repair the machine center immediately, avoiding unplanned downtime and saving money right out of the box.”
“Most mills found return on investment almost immediately,” Brian says. Problems that had been lurking undetected were caught before they could cause failures.
Canfor’s 2025 Performance: The Numbers Don’t Lie
“You notice a downtrend in the graph,” Brian points out. “That’s due to catching upset conditions early, correcting them, and having more machine centers running in acceptable status.”
The Canfor Difference
Brian Gonzalez doesn’t talk about digital transformation. He talks about preventing nine-day shutdowns. He doesn’t preach about Industry 4.0. He eliminates quarterly bearing replacements. He doesn’t theorize about change management. He converts skeptics into believers, one prevented failure at a time.
These results are so impressive that they deserve to be celebrated. Multiple Canfor sites have won Augury’s Spotlight Awards for Maintenance and Reliability Excellence. But most importantly, 16 mills once bogged down with firefighting now prevent trouble before it starts.
Your Path to Similar Results
If you’re ready to see how Canfor’s experience could translate to your operations:
Download Forrester’s independent Total Economic Impact™ analysis featuring Canfor and three other customers.
Download the Full StudySee Brian’s full conversation with Forrester analyst Antonie Bassi about Canfor’s transformation.
Watch the Full WebinarUse our interactive calculator to estimate your return on investment.
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