Better control

Founded in 1966, Imeas today offers wide-belt sanders up to 3.2m wide to the panel sector, as well as to the stainless steel, titanium and rubber industries.

In 2011, at the Ligna exhibition, the company launched its Full Control System (FCS) for its sanders. This management software offers graphical visualisation, with precision positioning of each sanding head.

At last year's Ligna, Imeas offered its Full Control Belt system (FCB). This involves the accurate positioning of the sanding belt on the drums by the use of photo cells which give continuous measurement of the position of the belt. The system then adjusts the belt from side to side, with a precision within +/- 0.5mm, to return it to its central position.

Both FCS and FCB can be retro-fitted to sanders if required and Imeas has carried out several such projects.

At IKEA's factory in Malacky, in Slovakia, an Imeas eight-head sander is now running both systems.

Meanwhile in Iran, Pooya Wood has both systems on its MDF line on its new Imeas eight-head sander.

Although both the IKEA and Pooya Wood sanders were supplied with eight heads, they were also both built with the capacity to go to 10 heads if required at a later date.

For plywood, Imeas has supplied a special machine to Joubert of France, which is replacing an existing line at its Les Eliots factory. This line, equipped with FCS and FCB, includes some very specific design details demanded by the customer, said Francesco Zenere, sales director of Imeas, whose grandfather founded the company almost 50 years ago.

Another plywood manufacturer, Metsa Wood in Finland, bought two lines from Imeas two years ago: one for use on a birch hardwood plywood line; and one for a softwood plywood line.

"The configuration was different for each line, because stock removal from hardwood presents different challenges from softwood," said Mr Zenere. "However, both six-head lines are interchangeable between the two plywood types if necessary."

Mr Zenere said that China had seen several years of growth and that his company had taken a good number of orders in that market, mainly for sanding MDF.

Although the market in China has slowed down in recent times, Imeas signed a contract in June to supply a sander to a particleboard producer there; and another through a German oem complete line supplier. Both lines will be made in Italy.

Although Imeas does have a subsidiary in Suzhou, China, that factory only makes the smaller, four-feet-wide, sanding lines.

With China's economy and panel industry growth slowing down, of course everybody is looking for other markets.

"I think Latin America will grow quite fast in the next few years, with Arauco and Masisa both expanding a lot and other firms looking at investment as well," said Mr Zenere. "I think there will also be some investment in western Europe in replacement lines and perhaps some new investment in Spain as well," he said.

"There is also some potential for growth in Russia and the former 'Soviet block', but North America is still quiet."

In eastern Europe, Imeas supplied two lines to Belarus, for Gomeldrev and Rechitzadrev, in 2012/13.

"The past nine months have seen good developments in all our markets and we now have more or less nine months' worth of orders," said Mr Zenere.

"In new developments aimed at further replacement of manual adjustments, we are currently discussing, with a partner company in measuring systems, a means of integrating a measuring system into our machines.

"This will measure the thickness before and after sanding and adjust each sanding head accordingly, in a 'closed loop'," he continued.

"Our FCS software is ready to accept such a system when the development is complete and we hope to have it under test in a customer's factory by the end of this year."