By Melissa Wentarmini
Associate Editor
Ask General Manager Jon Johnson what sets Timber Products’ new Munising Components facility apart, and he doesn’t start with robotics or scanners. He talks about people.
“They’ve really embraced it,” he said. “We even had employees transfer departments just so they could work with the new technology.”
That enthusiasm, Johnson said, is what makes the new facility feel less like a departure from Timber Products’ legacy and more like its evolution.
Opened this year beside the company’s long-standing veneer and lumber plants, Munising Components is one of the first operations in the country to connect a primary sawmill directly to a fully automated hardwood component line.
The concept, five years in the making, pairs Timber Products’ century-old craftsmanship with state-of-the-art automation, creating an on-site process that transforms raw logs into ready-to-use hardwood components with virtually zero waste.
Instead of shipping random-width lumber for customers to process and discard, the new line produces defect-free, precisely cut pieces that arrive ready for assembly.
It’s a shift that saves time, labor and freight costs while keeping every part of the tree in use. More importantly, it positions Timber Products, and Munising itself, as a national leader in sustainable, high-tech manufacturing.
Five years in the making
The idea took shape five years ago in conversations between Timber Products and its customers. Many were struggling with the same two issues: rising labor costs and tightening supply chains. Johnson said those early discussions were the catalyst for a fundamental rethinking of how hardwood could be produced more efficiently.
The result is a multi-million-dollar investment in Timber Products’ Munising campus — one that marries traditional craftsmanship with cutting-edge technology and positions the region as a hub for advanced wood manufacturing.
“Anything we could do to help address the challenges we all face to get the labor we need, the better off we all are,” Johnson said. “That meant taking the entire process, from log to finished component, and finding a way to do it all in one place.”
From there, Timber Products began exploring who could design and build the necessary systems. The company eventually partnered with Eagle Machinery & Supply of Sugar Creek, Ohio, a smaller and more nimble manufacturer known for innovation in industrial woodworking.
Together, they created an integrated production line that could handle each stage of processing with minimal human intervention, ripping, crosscutting, scanning and robotic stacking, while maintaining the precision and quality Timber Products is known for.
Product Development Manager Sam Stenerson, who relocated to the Upper Peninsula to help oversee the project, said every part of the line was built to order.
“It wasn’t like we were buying something off the shelf,” he said. “All of it had to be designed from scratch to fit what we were doing. The vendors we worked with were great partners, and our internal team was phenomenal.”
Automation that sustains, not replaces
In an era when automation often sparks fears of job loss, both Johnson and Stenerson are quick to clarify what’s actually happening in Munising.
“Without that technology and innovation, I don’t think it would have been a viable project,” Stenerson said. “We’d have needed 40 or 50 people, and we just can’t hire that many today.”
Instead, automation ensures the work continues and the jobs evolve. The robotics and scanning systems, designed to process anywhere from 60 to 100 boards a minute, allow a six-person crew to operate what would once have required a full shift of manual labor. But it hasn’t replaced the human element; it’s expanded it.
Johnson said the new facility has created demand for both operators and technicians, people who understand not just wood, but programming, sensors and data.
“We’re still looking for about 20 more people,” he said. “It’s actually creating jobs.”
To prepare employees for the transition, Timber Products sent several to Eagle’s headquarters in Ohio for training on robotics, scanners and computer systems. Others learned on site as the facility came online.
“It’s been impressive to watch,” Johnson said. “People want to be part of it.”
Stenerson agreed: “It gives them the leverage to do more work than one person could historically. And they’ve realized that. They’ve taken ownership of it.”
From waste to power
Before Munising Components, Timber Products produced kiln-dried lumber in random widths and lengths — partially processed material that customers would later cut to size. As Stenerson explained, that approach meant shipping roughly 25% to 30% of every board as waste.
“Now we use that material to create electricity and steam,” he said. “It’s all used here on site.”
Every piece of scrap generated in the new facility is collected, ground and burned in Timber Products’ on-site boilers, which power all three of its Munising operations. The result is a self-contained, zero-waste loop that reduces fuel consumption, cuts trucking emissions and eliminates the disposal burden for customers.
“It reduces freight costs and keeps that waste material here, where we can turn it into steam,” Johnson said. “We’ve always tried to use every part of the tree, but this takes that commitment to another level.”
Quality, consistency and reach
The facility’s high-speed ripsaws and crosscut saws can produce hardwood components between 1.5 and 6.25 inches wide and 12 to 98 inches long, primarily in hard and soft maple. Combined with advanced defect-detection scanners, the system ensures that every board leaving the line meets the company’s specifications for quality and appearance.
“Our customers want repeatability,” Johnson said. “They want to know that when they get our product today and when they get it next week, it’s going to look and perform exactly the same.”
The new model allows Timber Products to serve a broader range of clients, from cabinet and flooring manufacturers to millwork and door producers across the country. While the company’s core business remains concentrated in the Midwest, from Minnesota to Ohio, it now ships as far as California, Texas and Mississippi.
Commitment to community
Though the technology is new, the company’s priorities remain familiar: reliability, sustainability and long-term investment in place. Timber Products has operated in Munising for decades, employing generations of local families, and both Johnson and Stenerson emphasized that the new line reinforces, not replaces, that foundation.
“The owners of Timber Products are in this for the long haul,” Stenerson said. “They want to be in Munising for a long time, and they do whatever they can to make sure that happens.”
For him, the commitment is personal.
“A big reason I live here now is because of this project,” he said. “My wife and I really fell in love with the U.P. The people, the landscape, everything about it — it’s been awesome.”
That sense of belonging extends to the shop floor. Veteran employees have taken on new roles, training alongside new hires to run robotic systems few could have imagined a decade ago.
“It’s given them opportunities they wouldn’t have otherwise had here,” Stenerson said. “You don’t often get to learn robotics in a small Upper Peninsula town.”
An evolution, not a departure
For Timber Products, Munising Components is more than a facility — it’s a blueprint for the future of American wood manufacturing. It demonstrates how a century-old company can innovate without abandoning its principles: craftsmanship, conservation and community.
“This is the next evolution,” Johnson said. “We’re still doing what Timber Products has always done, using wood responsibly and delivering quality, but now we can do it faster, cleaner and smarter.”