A flooring specialist
13 June 2008The privately-owned Chengdu Shengda company was founded 11 years ago as a laminate flooring producer, becoming the first company to manufacture that product in China. Competitor Power Dekor was already distributing laminate flooring in the country, but only imported the laminated board and then machined it in China. In the early days, Chengdu Shengda imported high density fibreboard (HDF) and laminated and machined it in its own works, but later purchased the board in China as better quality material became available from domestic panel producers.
In 2007, Shengda produced 10 million m2 of laminate flooring - second only to Power Dekor - from its two Chinese factories. One is in Qinbaijiang and the second is in Wenjiang, both within greater Chengdu City. Power Dekor was in fact bought by investment group CVC Asia Pacific in March this year, adding it to MDF maker PTP which CVC already bought in September 2006. It seems likely that CVC will merge the significant laminate flooring interests of its two subsidiaries. But Shengda is not only involved in laminate flooring. In Shanghai it has a factory established four or five years ago producing solid wood and bamboo flooring and was the first to make the latter product. Here it also produces multi-layer wood flooring and was the second company in China to enter into that business. Shengda's fourth factory is in Yibin, also in Sichuan, producing bamboo plywood panel as raw material for the Shanghai flooring factory. "We are the only company in China producing all kinds of flooring," said Sun Han, general manager of the new fibreboard factory. "Seventy percent of our laminate flooring market is in China and 30% is exported to more than 70 countries." To help to promote its 'Shengda' brand laminate flooring, the company employs the services of world champion hurdler Liu Xiang in its advertising campaigns. It is not surprising that Shengda decided to make its own HDF to supply the base board for that laminate flooring business and the company formed a subsidiary, Sichuan Shengda Man Made Fibreboard Co Ltd and placed a contract with Dieffenbacher in 2006, making a down payment in November of that year. The group considered all three suppliers of continuous press lines at that time: Siempelkamp, Dieffenbacher and Metso Panelboard, before deciding on Dieffenbacher in a close-run finish with Siempelkamp, apparently. The potential advantages of Metso's cooling zone were considered, but the company decided it could not justify the additional cost. After-sales service was another important consideration, said Mr Sun. Machinery installation began on August 4, 2007 and the first board was produced on December 27. "I am told this was the quickest start-up in China," said Mr Sun, who has considerable experience in the panel industry, having previously worked for the Kronospan panel factory in Beijing (Beijing Sinhua). "Our contract [with Dieffenbacher] was very special," he continued. "We only placed the order for equipment from the sifter to the saw after the press with them. The chippers were sourced locally in China and the 48in refiner came from Andritz of Austria." The CPS continuous press is 18.22mx8ft. "The maximum thickness we produce is 12mm but 80-90% of our production is 3-5mm HDF, with 3mm generally having a density of around 870kg/m3 but this depends on customer demand - we do not only supply board for use in laminate flooring. We supply to our own factory and to outside companies, depending where we can get the better price." The wood supply comes from a maximum radius of 300km and comprises small diameter roundwood - logs and branches. "We have our own forestry company, which we founded about five years ago, and we already have about 100,000mu (6,700ha) on a mountain - in fact we own the mountain!" said Mr Sun proudly. "Our boss, Mr Jiang Changzhen, used to work in the forestry department of Sichuan province as deputy director and we have a company strategy with wood at the centre: one centre, different directions. This currently means MDF, HDF and laminate flooring, but we are also planning a door and window company." Shengda has 1,000 shops around the country selling its branded flooring products. "This year the company will go to the stock market and we have already sent the documentation to the government for this," said Mr Sun. "We expect to launch our shares in July this year, on the Shenzhen market. "Then we will invest in another three MDF/HDF lines as three subsidiary companies. At least two of those lines will be continuous. We will also have a second division in each of these companies to handle the forestry business - planting trees and selling the larger diameter wood to the general market. However, the primary purpose of the forestry activity will be to supply our own lines." At present, the company is still concentrating on laminate flooring as its value-adding activity for the immediate future but is considering direct printing at a later date, although Mr Sun said that the market is not yet that big in China. "Laminate flooring consumption has shown very fast growth but direct print is slow at present. Of course it depends on qualities such as abrasion resistance and design." As far as the MDF/HDF market in Sichuan province is concerned, Mr Sun has no concerns: "Consumption in this province alone is two million m3/year and we, Sichuan Guodong and PTP Leshan only account for a total of 600,000m3, plus a few small local lines. So, there is plenty of room in the market"
