The Challenge
The European Union Deforestation Regulation introduced strict requirements for verifying the origin and legality of wood based raw materials. The mechanism at the centre of it is the Due Diligence Statement: a mandatory record that must be valid and correctly linked to every incoming delivery. For a pulp mill, that turns one place into a critical control point: the mill gate.
Piteå was already running YardManager to coordinate yard operations and material flows across its pulpwood and recycled paper streams, so operational control was not the gap. EUDR created a different obligation. DDS data no longer just needed to exist in the system; it needed to be verified at the point of entry, before material moved into production.
That distinction carries real consequences. Recorded but unchecked DDS numbers can be incorrect or missing and still pass into the process unnoticed. Operators at the gate have no clear signal about the compliance status of the load in front of them. And audit readiness collapses back onto manual checks and retrospective reconciliation, which can be slow, costly, and fragile. The mill needed DDS validation that was automatic, real time, and immediately usable by the people working the yard.
The Solution
Piteå's decision was to avoid a parallel compliance system entirely. Instead, DDS validation was embedded directly into the existing yard workflow in YardManager, so that compliance ran as part of normal operations rather than as an isolated extra step.
The mechanics are straightforward. When a pulpwood truck reaches the gate, load data, including DDS numbers, passes from the measurement system into YardManager. YardManager then communicates with the mill's internal integration systems, which verify the DDS information against EU TRACES.
What makes the approach work operationally is what happens next. The compliance status of each load is surfaced immediately to the people handling the material. Log stacker drivers and yard personnel see whether a delivery meets EUDR requirements and can act on it before the wood moves.
In parallel, YardManager stores every DDS record tied to a delivery, including both valid and invalid entries, so nothing is quietly discarded. That complete record is what gives the mill end to end traceability and lets it demonstrate compliance during an audit without assembling evidence from fragmented sources by hand.
Compliance data is only useful if the person driving the stacker can see it. Validation at the gate turns EUDR from a reporting exercise into an operational decision.
The Results
Piteå now runs a consistent, system supported DDS validation process at the gate. Verification happens automatically as trucks arrive, and the outcome is built into day to day yard decisions rather than reviewed after the fact.
The result is a single, reliable control point for EUDR compliance. Only properly validated material enters the process, with no dependence on downstream checks or manual intervention. And because the mill holds a complete, structured DDS record for every delivery, audit preparation draws on one source of truth instead of a reconciliation exercise, strengthening audit readiness while cutting administrative overhead.
For other pulp mills preparing for EUDR, the pattern is repeatable: verify at entry where risk is easiest to control, make validation results visible and actionable for operational teams rather than trapping them in backend systems, and retain every DDS record for transparency. Together, those three moves convert EUDR from a reactive obligation into a controlled, repeatable part of mill operations.
