Ligna makes its mark

Ligna 2015 closed its doors to ringing endorsements from visitors, exhibitors and organisers alike. The world's largest technology fair for the timber and forestry industries at Hannover attracted 96,000 visitors, including approximately 40,000 from outside Germany (2013: 32,800), according to organisers Deutsche Messe.

Some 1,567 exhibitors showcased their leading-edge solutions, technologies and innovative production equipment on over 120,000m2 of display space.

Jochen Köckler, the Deutsche Messe managing board member in charge of Ligna, said the outstanding success of the event cemented its leading status worldwide. "This year's Ligna struck a chord among exhibitors and visitors, a chord embodying three resounding notes: outstanding international participation, impressive innovation and a further increase in topexecutive attendance," remarked Mr Köckler. Wolfgang Pöschl, ceo of Weinig and chairman of the German Woodworking Machinery Manufacturers' Association, said the show had more than met the association's expectations.

"This Ligna has more than met our expectations, which were high to begin with," he said.

"Once again it has generated even more momentum in an already positive market environment, and demonstrated the potential that new technologies hold for everyone in the wood industry. This is precisely what our customers from around the world expect from their flagship fair," said Mr Pöschl.

Top visitor nations were Austria, France, Italy, the US, UK, Russia, Belgium, Poland, Sweden, China and Brazil.

Attendance from Asia was up considerably, from 2,800 in 2013 to 4,700 in 2015. An upsurge of 86% was noted for the Near and Middle East. The show attracted 2,800 visitors from South and Central America, thus topping the 2013 figure (1,700) by a wide margin. Deutsche Messe estimated that more than 25% of trade visitors had either planned to place orders at the show or had already done so.

Anniversaries

All the main players from the panel sector were in attendance. Continuous press giants Siempelkamp and Dieffenbacher both had milestones to celebrate.

Siempelkamp was celebrating the 30th anniversary of its ContiRoll, while for Dieffenbacher the CPS has reached its 25th year.

Once again, innovations for reducing costs and saving energy were high on the agenda in the wood based panels industry.

Siempelkamp had a mission statement "Cut your Cost" at the show, with a focus on new drive technology, glue blending and metering systems, mat formers and preheaters and further development of its process control system Prod-IQ.

The company has developed the Ecodrive drive system to power its ContiRoll discharge drums. Consisting of an energy-efficient electric motor and two-stage gearbox, a version was presented for the first time at Ligna.

Under full load, Siempelkamp says the drive can save customers at least 7% energy compared to the previous drive system. In addition, special emphasis was placed on the topic of "Industry 4.0" with the further development of the proven Siempelkamp process control system Prod-IQ.

Other developments by Siempelkamp include the glue blender for particleboard production and the wind former Ecoformer SL (Surface Layer).

Meanwhile, Dieffenbacher also had much news.

In the last 12 months, its development activities have been focused on the further development of its continuous press system. The new CPS, presented to the public for the first time at Ligna is the CPS+, which combines the CPS and ContiPlus in an improved press design to further make wood based panels production even more economical.

The first CPS+ was sold to a well-known customer in Asia shortly before the trade fair. The new maximum speed of the CPS+ in thin panel production is 2,500mm/s - a 20% increase compared to its predecessor.

Dieffenbacher has also signed a cooperation contract with BINOS. The aim of the working relationship is to jointly develop and market new products in the area of forming for wood based panel plants, with the first result being the licensing of components in the windformer for Dieffenbacher particleboard plants.

Further products added to the Dieffenbacher product line include the Formator M and the Spike-Roll Vacuum Former for fiberboard plants. The Formator consists of the well-known Dieffensor in combination with the BINOS segmented Scalper, compensating for weight fluctuations precisely during forming.

At Imal-Pal Group, 12 major contracts were signed with customers.

The group has forecast a 15% rise in sales this year .