Medium density fibreboard is a product that nobody fully understands and the defibration process is an example of the many mysteries that surround MDF.   The panel can be made from a wide range of lingo-cellulosic fibres, most commonly wood, which must be broken down into fibres. This is normally achieved using a thermo-mechanical pulping (TMP) process which combines heat and mechanical energy to break the wood cell bonds.   These cells are joined by the middle lamella, rich in lignin and an amorphous polymer that can adsorb small quantities of water, and so its softening temperature is moisture content-dependent.   The high temperatures and humidities in the TMP process cause significant reductions in the strength of the lignin in the middle lamella region, increasing the likelihood of fracture there when mechanical energy is applied.   Heat is applied at three stages: Pre-heating, an optional stage where the particles are heated to 40-60^oC at atmospheric pressure; in the digester where they are heated to 175-180oC, corresponding to a steam pressure of around 8.5 bar for three to five minutes; and finally during the refining step by the defibrator.   Most refiners have two discs, one stationary and another which is rotated at about 1500rpm by a powerful motor. The heated chips are fed from the digester into the refiner through a hole in the middle of the stationary disc.   Centrifugal force of the second disc forces the particles out to the periphery. As the particles move to the edge they are broken down to 'matchstick' pieces, fibre bundles and finally fibres. The refining is by the raised bars on the disc surfaces; at the centre the breaker bar pattern is coarse and at the periphery the bars are much finer. These raised bars cause the particles to be compression-stress cycled, generating more heat in them in much the same way as a piece of wire that is bent back and forth, further helping the particles to separate at the middle lamella, releasing individual fibres.   As the wood is driven across the radius and broken down, the gap between the discs must be reduced to a very small size, so the discs must be accurately   positioned to avoid them meeting. This can happen if the feeding of particles is interrupted thus reducing the pressure between the discs.   As our understanding of the intricacies of MDF improve so does the potential to develop this product further so that it can be used in a wider range of end-uses and products.  

The rapidly expanding market for continuous panel production lines in China has prompted German complete line supplier Dieffenbacher to build its own workshop in the country, trading as Dieffenbacher Machinery (Changzhou) Co Ltd.   Initially, the facility will be producing fibre bins, forming lines and air graders for MDF lines supplied by Dieffenbacher, as well as flaps for exhaust systems.   With MDF lines distributed all over China, one would think it might be difficult to decide on the best location for such a workshop and that was the first question I put to Bernd Henrich, technical manager and the man in charge of the whole project.   "We looked around Shanghai, Guangzhou and further into Jiangsu province, but there are more than 1,000 foreign companies around here already so the local authorities are used to dealing with them. Also, this area is very good for the kind of suppliers we need and there are workshops nearby which can produce parts for us, such as sheet metal formers, laser-cutting services and so on," he explained. "By the end of this year, I expect to be in a position to see if investment in new machinery for our own workshop will be worthwhile and which machines we need. Another advantage of this city is that there are very good training schools for milling, lathe operators, etc. There are also good road connections, with a two-and-a-half hour journey to Shanghai - itself a major crossroads."   The Changzhou workshop is owned outright by Dieffenbacher and occupies a site of 20,000m², of which the workshop currently occupies 2,500m², leaving plenty of room for future expansion.   The company employs around 20 people, with Mr Henrich the only expatriate on the payroll.   It opened for business in the workshop at the end of January this year and the office staff moved from their temporary accommodation on the site to the new first floor offices just before Chinese New Year in February.   Of course Dieffenbacher has had an office in Beijing for some years, handling sales of new lines and spares and coordinating the company's activities in China and that is not affected by the opening of the new facility.   "We are already producing components for new projects in our workshop and have a stock of spare parts here," said Mr Henrich. "The next step will be raw board handling and then, maybe in the future, some of the heavier parts of the press such as thick sheet metal for the press frames, but no decision has yet been taken on that.   "At present we are only producing for the China market, but with the sales pressure recently, we may also export to other Asian countries in the future."   Changzhou has its own port and so goods can be shipped directly from there if required, or they can be trans-shipped in Shanghai.   Several European machinery companies have taken, or are taking, this route of setting up manufacture in China; it offers   obvious advantages in terms of logistics and customer service and will no doubt be an increasing trend as China seems set to continue its panel production growth for the foreseeable future.  

Jilin Forest Industry Co Ltd has always specialised in particleboard, with only one of its seven mills making MDF. The company bearing this name was not in fact started until September 1998, when it was established as a private limited company in order to buy its first three mills from the local forestry bureau in Jilin province. The oldest of those lines began construction in 1984 and went into production in 1986 with a multi-opening line supplied by Bison of Germany; Linjiang Particleboard has an annual capacity of 50,000m³. Lushuihe Particleboard, another Bison line but this time with a single-opening press, has the same 50,000m³ annual capacity. The third line was built in Baihe in 1988, with another single-opening Bison press line and the same capacity as the first two. With those three acquisitions under its belt, Jilin Forest Industry spent the next few years consolidating its position before launching into expansion in December 2000 when it started up its fourth and fifth particleboard lines. One was at Sanchazi, also in Jilin province (WBPI April/May 2002, p26), while the other was located in Lishuihe, Jilin, alongside line two. These lines were purchased simultaneously from Metso Panelboard, who had by then taken over Kvaerner which had previously bought Bison out of bankruptcy. A single-opening press was again chosen but a higher capacity was achieved, with the lines rated at 78,000m³ a year each. Line six went into production in October 2005, again with a Metso single-opening press line, but with a capacity of 100,000m³. Something else that was different about this line was its location. For the first time, Jilin Forest moved outside Jilin province and built number six in Fengxian, two hours' drive from Xuzhou in Jiangsu province. Thus Jilin Forestry had now achieved a total annual particleboard production of around 420,000m³. However, the company took a small diversion on the way to this figure and built an MDF line in Hongshi, Jilin province, using a Sichuan Donghua multi-opening press and a Metso refiner. This line went into production at the end of 2000 with a capacity of 60,000m³. The company also has a resin plant in Tonghua, Jilin, which is the location of the head office for the Jilin operations, and another plant in Fengxian. There are a further two companies in the Beijing area. One is a panel processing centre equipped with a Vits paper impregnation line and Wemhöner short-cycle press for producing melamine faced boards and laminate flooring. There is also a Homag line for machining the laminate flooring panels. The second Beijing factory manufactures doors, with Jilin Forest's particleboard as the core material and MDF skins from Hongshi. Jilin Forest also owns Hongshi Forestry Bureau in Jilin province. "This is the best province for growing wood as very special wood grows here," said Mr Yu Yong Jiang, general manager of the Fengxian company. And he is not talking about plantation wood for panel production. "We grow oak, pine, willow, walnut and birch there, producing 220,000m³ of wood a year and the price is the highest in China. We have two sawmills in the area and they cut the solid wood for domestic and export markets. The residues from the sawmills go to the MDF factory." The sales operation for Jilin Forest is headquartered in Changchun, Jilin, and there are six sales offices scattered around the country in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Xi'An, Shenyang and Chengdu. I asked Mr Yu why the company had decided to build its most recent line outside Jilin province. "There are four reasons for that decision," he explained. "Firstly, the panel market is generally in the coastal regions so by building the line here, we are close to our customers. "Secondly, the central government wants to reduce logging in the northeast of China because there is not enough wood there. "Thirdly, we selected this location because there is a lot of fast-growing plantation poplar around here and fourthly, around Fengxian there are a lot of small, family run veneer producers we can buy residues from." On the drive from Xuzhou airport to the factory there were many small, home businesses, with racks of veneer standing on end to dry, visible from the road. These residues are chipped before arrival at Mr Yu's factory. "Fourthly," continued Mr Yu, "we are quite near Lianyungang sea port for the export of our panel products." The target for Jilin this year is to produce 30% of its output in value-added material and 70% in raw board. The target for 2008 is 50/50 and, ambitiously, for 2009 it is 100% value added. "There are still a lot of third-party panel processors and we intend to deal directly with the furniture producers in future," explained Mr Yu. "Our target, though, is to export melamine faced board and not to compete in the domestic market because our board quality is very high because we are using Metso technology." Vice general manager and senior engineer at Fengxian, Mr Wu Shao Chun, has a lot of experience in constructing and running short-cycle lines and the target for this year, said Mr Yu, is to add a further three lines under Mr Wu's guidance. Obviously the trend in recent years with imported lines in China has been towards continuous pressing, but you will no doubt have noticed that Jilin has chosen single-opening discontinuous presses for all its lines (except the MDF which is multi-opening). I asked Mr Yu the reason for this decision. "It is not good to have a big-volume mill in one location because of the wood raw material availability and the high cost of transporting the wood," he said. "Also in China, we find a lot of customers still believe single-opening pressing is the best technology for particleboard for furniture. "A third consideration is the total investment for the project because the cost of a continuous line is very high and too much for our company at the present time." Mr Yu pointed out that, in his opinion, the continuous particleboard lines that there are in China are not running at full capacity because of raw material supply difficulties. "Nowadays China is a free market and factories are approved in locations that are too close to one another - this would not have been allowed before," he said. Mr Yu went on to explain how the particleboard production in China is divided into three quality levels: That produced on imported lines (continuous or daylight); that produced on Chinese-made machinery; and that produced more or less by hand in family-run operations. "China's total capacity of particleboard is about seven million m3 but only about one million is of good quality. "Our brand name is 'Lishuehi' and it is the number one in China and has the highest price," said the general manager, who credits the technology and the good quality wood supply for this. "I had a visit from a customer from Brazil yesterday and he placed a large order today. A number of buyers from Europe have also been very impressed with our quality." Although that is a common boast of mill managers, the board I saw produced at the Fengxian factory certainly had an excellent tight core and smooth faces. The market has not been consistently good for particleboard or MDF according to Mr Yu: "In mid-2006 a lot of MDF lines were struggling, but then thin board for flooring and for export picked up and so MDF production took off again - at least in 8mm thickness". "It is my personal opinion," stressed the general manager, "that the market for all the producers of MDF and particleboard is furniture and I believe if in future we can develop packaging products for instance, there will be a big market for particleboard, although it would need a different resin. Maybe another big market for the future is interior decoration panels. "Another area for development is in E zero panels and moisture resistant (MR) resin in particleboard - especially for that packaging market. We produce about 30-50% of our production in MR grade, using melamine urea formaldehyde resin, in thicknesses of 8 to 40mm." The future plans of the company could be easily accommodated at Fengxian as Mr Yu pointed out that there is room on the site for another 200,000m³/year particleboard line on part of the very large logyard. "But this year we are concentrating on planting for raw material. We are buying land locally for fast-growing poplar which we can utilise in five years when it will have reached 16cm diameter. Obtaining our own wood supply is important for the future." "Maybe we will also build a plant overseas - there is one division in our headquarters to oversee this kind of project. It could be anywhere - wherever there is wood."

Stresa, on the banks of Lake Maggiore in the Italian Alps, made a spectacularly beautiful and stress-free location for the EPF and FEIC annual meetings.   Tearing themselves away from the great outdoors, delegates heard from their two federations about the opportunities and challenges facing their industries.   President of the EPF, Ladislaus Döry, introduced Mrs Pia Elda Locatelli, an Italian Member of the European Parliament (MEP) and long-standing ally of the woodworking sector in Europe.   "There is today a particular interest in renewable energy, with national action plans for transport and biofuel. Make your voice heard at national and European level," urged the MEP.   "We support initiatives for the efficient and sustainable use of biomass and biofuels but we must avoid market distortion, which was overlooked at first," cautioned Mrs Locatelli.   She said the Parliament had set up a new, temporary, committee on climate change in April and suggested this was the "perfect place to promote the use of wood in relation to its environmental qualities".   Mr Döry then gave an overview of the status of the particleboard, MDF and OSB industries.   He reported a growing membership for the EPF, with increasing numbers from eastern as well as western Europe.   "Most recently we were pleased to receive the applications of the Egger Group and the Krono Swiss Group to join EPF with all their member companies.….we now represent 94% of particleboard and 87% of MDF production; and 100% of OSB manufacturers in Europe."   In 2006, particleboard production in the EPF countries reached 37 million m³, an increase of 4% on 2006. Consumption grew 6.2% to reach almost 34 million m³. Exports increased by 2.8%, while imports rose by 2.5% in 2006.   Capacity is expected to increase by almost two million m³ in 2007/8.   Production of MDF in the year rose 5.6% to 12.4 million m³, said the president, while consumption increased 6.1% to 11.7 million m3 and capacity increased 8.8%, with a further increase of 5% forecast for 2007 and 5.3% for 2008.   For OSB, production rose 12% to close to 3.5 million m³, said Mr Döry, "For this year and next, a new big investment in Latvia will add a further 500,000m³."   Mr Döry then warned about "The legend of the woody biomass reserve in Europe". He cited work by Professor Dr Udo Mantau, saying: "[This] clearly shows it is very dangerous to establish targets for wood (energy) use on the basis of official statistics on the net annual increment in the forest and on the fellings".   Professor Mantau's work pointed out the huge difference in definition between forest inventory data and actual fellings, which has led to the European Environment Agency calculating, wrongly, that an extra 126 million m³ of wood could be extracted from European forests without ecological impact, said Mr Döry.   This miscalculation was due to several factors such as EU inventory data being calculated over bark; including harvest losses and unused fellings; and not including unregistered fellings, said Mr Döry.   The consequence is that regulators see biomass potential where it does not exist, he suggested.   "The EPF recommends the focus of all biomass plans on wood mobilisation and on encouraging efficient use of wood biomass energy," concluded the president.   Mr Uldis Bikis, president of the FEIC, presented his federation's annual report.   Mr Bikis reported that the FEIC has 75 member companies in 20 countries and welcomed Estonia, Ukraine and a second plywood producer in the Czech Republic as new full members in 2006.   "During 2006, the FEIC member companies equalled the production record of 2005, with plywood production increasing by an average annual rate of 4% over the last 10 years," he said. The strongest growth rates were recorded in the Czech Republic, Finland, Poland and Sweden.   Plywood production was about four million m³ and blockboard 0.3 million m³.   Broadleaved species accounted for 63% of production, tropical 10% and coniferous 27%, he reported.   "Plywood imports have been increasing rapidly since 2002, gaining another 4.6% in 2006 to reach 6.3 million m³ in the EU-25," said Mr Bikis.   In 2006, Russia took first place in import origin ranking, rising by 17%, while imports from Brazil fell. Chinese imports soared by 46%.   Exports also rose under this inward pressure, gaining around 3% in FEIC member countries (EU-25 rose by 4.8%).   In FEIC member countries, plywood consumption increased by 5% last year, to 4.47 million m³.   During 2006, Mr Bikis said the federation put great effort into CE2+ plywood marking for construction panels and established a Technical Working Group to monitor and steer the European and   international standardisation of plywood and to develop and coordinate new research and development projects.   The FEIC has also prepared an application to extend the anti-dumping measures on imports of okoumé plywood from China to redwood plywood as well.   For further information on EPF or FEIC, please contact the joint secretariat at: info@europanels.org or www.europanels.org  

First, the good news: May's Ligna exhibition may seem a long time ago now but for the vast majority, if not all, the exhibitors the memory lingers sweetly on, buoying their spirits.
As I travelled the exhibition, the mood of optimism was everywhere, with all the exhibitors reporting very good contacts and, I suspect, an unprecedented number of orders actually placed at the show, as opposed to signing deals set up beforehand.

Dare Global produces a wide range of products, from cigarette packet silver paper and filters to car trim to computer products and entered the panel business in 2002 with two Chinese-made MDF production lines. The company built its first continuous line in Danyang City in Jiangsu province in 2003, employing a Siempelkamp ContiRoll continuous press. It has a capacity of 280,000m³ today, although its design capacity was only 200,000m³. The second of Dare Wood's Siempelkamp-supplied continuous MDF lines was built in Fuzhou, Jiangxi (capacity 200,000m³, production again 280,000m³ in 2006) and its third in Maoming, Guangdong province. This produced around 230,000m3 in 2006, with the relatively lower figure representing a mix of mainly thin board production. The company then switched to particleboard, with another ContiRoll line in Sanming in Fujian province. A fifth continuous line is planned for Zhoaqing, again in Guangdong province, although 400km from its sister plant. This will be another MDF line. The wide geographical spread of its production lines is due to the availability of wood raw material in each location and results in each mill specialising in a different type of product to serve its local market, as well as customers further afield. In the case of Dare ll in Fuzhou, Jiangxi, the speciality is thicker MDF boards, for which it claims to be famous in China, although the line can and does produce all thicknesses from 2.5 to 30mm. "Our boards are of the best quality - and the highest price," said Mr Zhongliang Yan, vice general manager/production manager. "The reason for this is two-fold: technology and good raw material. We mainly use pine roundwood and some branches, which are trucked from a 100km radius, as well as some wood which comes from further away, by rail." The production volume of the line obviously depends on the thickness being produced, but Mr Yan said that on 3mm and below, they are achieving 700m³ a day, while on 4.5-10mm, the figure is 1,000m³ a day; This on a press line designed for 200,000m3 a year based on 8mm thickness and a design maximum speed of 1200mm/second. As stated earlier, Dare ll achieved 280,000m³ last year and next year the company is targeting 320,000m³. "Even Siempelkamp is surprised at how much we are able to produce on our line," said Mr Yan. The ContiRoll press is 34m long. The markets for Dare ll are furniture, flooring, decorative panels and doors, as well as the popular gift box market which uses very thin HDF. Shoe heels is a special market for this mill, using 6mm HDF with a density of up to 900kg/m³. As an experienced user of continuous presses, Dare is able to be fairly independent of its suppliers for much of the routine maintenance and has tools from both Sandvik and Berndorf enabling it to carry out its own repairs to the stainless steel continuous belts of its presses, including patching and levelling. The company has also learnt a few tricks of its own and, for instance, fits steel rollers to the nose of the press to control the tracking of the belt. Dare ll also employs its own-design 'pinching' unit to keep the forming belt on track after the pre-press. This is something which it fitted in addition to the standard unit before the pre-press. Since the mill debarks all its incoming log supply, it is able to utilise that resource for fuel in the Vyncke energy plant, where many Chinese mills are using coal or fuel oil for at least part of their fuel requirements. It is quite unusual to see any significant investment in environmental standards in Chinese panel mills, but Dare Wood is obviously taking this matter seriously. Since our last visit to Fuzhou, the company has implemented a dramatic increase in the capacity of its water treatment plant. Completed in 2006, this upgrade enables the treatment of 100% of the process water from the MDF line. "Originally we had two small holding tanks but we added two large ones last year and can now treat 600 tonnes of waste water per day," said Mr Yan, admitting that much of this 'grey' water had previously gone onto the surrounding fields, as it probably does in many Chinese MDF mills. The treatment process is biochemical and the treated water is clean enough to go back into the production process. The sludge from the settlement tanks will be burnt in the energy plant in future, although this system had not yet been established at the time of WBPI's visit. Two years ago, the company built a housing for its sifters out in the yard and a covering for its mat formers within the factory, designed to provide thermal insulation. Dare ll has its own resin plant on site and buys in solid urea in sacks, while formaldehyde is delivered by road tanker. At the time of our visit, the sacks of urea were being stored anywhere there was space under cover because the company had forward-bought to pre-empt a price increase. Controlling costs of raw materials such as resin, where possible, is of course a main driver for panel mills worldwide in these days of rising oil prices. Attention to detail is not just evident in the upgraded water treatment plant, but the Dare ll line has an Imal thickness gauge, GreCon density profile measurement and GreCon moisture meters on the production line, as well as an extensive laboratory for testing internal bond, surface soundness, screw retention and so on. These are of course all signs of a company which has pitched its sales at a quality-conscious market and is thus able to achieve higher prices for its boards.

Failure of panel transport in any one area of the factory can have an effect on the whole line, causing expensive downtime, while damage to panels results in lost production and wasted resources. So it is not just speed of handling, but careful handling too that is important.   Thus the efficient handling of panels is obviously vital to any panel factory, keeping production flowing throughout the production process, and it offers a challenge to those machinery suppliers who would try to meet those demands.   Founded in 1986, EMG has seen and seized the opportunity offered by that challenge to offer a range of panel handling lines tailor-made to suit the differing requirements of each production area from after the press to the various finishing lines and beyond.   Using the experience gained in the wood panel business, EMG has also moved into the handling of steel sheets - in polishing lines for example.   The company has wood based panel making customers all over the world, with virtually all its production being exported.   With this fact in mind, EMG decided to open its first overseas sales and manufacturing operation and, perhaps unsurprisingly, chose Brazil as its location as it is a particularly strong market for the company, where its customers include Eucatex, Duratex, Berneck and Tafisa.   The facility opened in April in Curitiba.   "With a lot of customers in the region, we will be able to give service to them locally," said Marco Conzadori, son of one of the founders of EMG. "At present, it only covers the wood division and some products will be supplied from here and some will be manufactured in Curitiba.   "The facility is a joint venture with local technicians and is located in a new building, with new manufacturing and all staff experienced in the wood branch; they are also all local people," said Mr Conzadori. "We will develop additional facilities there in time," he added.   The company also has plans to extend its factory at home, adding 33% to its workshop area by adding an additional bay to the side of the existing three-bay building. This will take the total production area up to 4,000m2 and, at the time of WBPI's visit in June, was scheduled to be completed in September. The robot mowing machines which cut the grass areas around the factory continuously will of course need to be re-programed!   The range of EMG products for the panel industry starts with transporting panels from the press on to squaring/cut-to-size lines - with saws if required- and handling for sanding, inspection, painting and strapping lines.   High-speed panel handling without overlaps is an essential part of many of these systems.   Apart from all types of conventional conveyors, the company also offers bridge clamps, vacuum bridges, lifting tables, stack tippers, elevators, panel strip stackers and covering machines, automatic transfer truck systems and automatic storage systems.   An unusual product offered is the perforating line. This includes vacuum de-stacker, individual panel feeder, punching press, an automatic bridge system for protection board insertion/extraction and a chain conveyor for stack handling. Designed for use with fibreboards, Mr Conzadori said the system can be used to perforate any kind of board, saying: "If you can perforate fibreboard you can perforate anything since it is the most difficult to do cleanly".   Under assembly in the workshop at the time of our visit was an 18m bridge system, employing fork tines rather than vacuum cups on this occasion, designed to lift stacks of panels from a cut-to-size system and convey them to several strapping stations for different size panels.   Similar, though generally smaller, bridge systems are also supplied to handle single panels, this time using vacuum cups.   Apart from handling systems for wood based panels and steel sheet, EMG has also turned its delicate-handling expertise to lines for filling shot gun cartridges.   Coming back to the core business - panels - Mr Conzadori reported a very active Ligna exhibition in May and said that his company had made a lot of useful contacts and had even finalised some orders at the show.  

Fabio Paron, the managing director of Globus, a company which he founded in 1981, has many years' experience in the machinery business and his background is firmly in research and development (R&D) and in designing and realising innovations for the wood preparation sector. Mr Paron admits that, in the past, he perhaps concentrated too much on that aspect of the business and not enough on sales and marketing. However, in recent years all that has changed and Globus has become better known in the panel manufacturing business. "We took out our first patent in 1991 and have taken out five more since then, with two potential patents coming up in the next couple of months," said Mr Paron when interviewed at his Galliate premises in June. One of the latest of those patents is for a pre-debarking system which he said will improve the efficiency of debarking in MDF plants by increasing the performance of the debarking drum. Talking of patents, Globus has a knife ring flaker - the SRC 1400-AR - which was issued with a patent in Germany in 1992. Mr Paron said it is the only flaker covered by worldwide patent. This machine was designed to address the problems of conventional flakers, which Globus says have distribution discs that are either too small or too big, causing machine overloading in the central area of the knife ring, uneven wear of knives and shoes and lower flaking capacity. The SRC 1400-AR addresses this by having its patented 'wobble spreader'. This inclined, eccentric disc, with variable speed drive, is designed to spread the chips more uniformly across the flaking ring. Advantages claimed are a 30% higher flaking capacity, better quality flakes, and savings in knife and shoe wear and in energy consumption. The latest machine to be produced by Globus is not a flaker, but the Cam Classifier and this took centre stage on the company's stand at the Ligna exhibition in Hannover, Germany, this year. "This is the biggest result in our history - our most important new product," said Mr Paron proudly. "Tests have shown that, for the same job, the performance of the Cam Classifier is four times better than its competitor machines." It was brought to market following two years of development and testing and generated 128 serious enquiries at this year's Ligna exhibition in Germany, he said. The machines with which it competes are generally called screens, but Globus felt that, because of its innovative mechanical concept, it should have a different designation, hence the word 'Classifier'. The Cam Classifier may look like a roller or disc screen from a distance, but is in fact a quite different concept. It employs elliptical cams with a 'V' profile and these are the basis of the system, as Mr Paron explained. "Our competitors use circular rollers or discs in their screens and these have very low performance and low speed. Because the bed of particles on the screen can have a maximum thickness of 40-50mm, the fines float on top. In our system, we use kinetic energy. Our cams, as they flick round, make the particles jump, giving energy to the particles. These then jump to different heights according to their weight - big particles absorb more energy and jump higher than mid-size ones, which jump higher than small ones," he explained. "This is what improves the performance of our Cam Classifier." There are gaps between the cams along the bed, set according to customer requirements, allowing the appropriate fractions to fall through and be collected. A particularly unusual feature of the Classifier is the material from which the cams are made. They are not steel like disc or roller screens, but are made of a specially developed resilient polymer around a Kevlar core. "This construction is much lighter than steel," explained Mr Paron. "But we can also offer the Classifier with hardened steel cams for recycling companies which want to sort glass or domestic waste for example." The whole Cam Classifier can be tilted to any angle up to a maximum of 40 degrees, to suit the type of material to be classified. Another Globus product is the centrifugal mill designated 'MSG', which the company says is particularly suited to continuous panel production lines. This mill has interchangeable rings and is claimed to be the only mill with hydraulic ejection of the ring, facilitating a quick change time of eight minutes when switching from core to surface layer for particleboard for example. "You almost double the production with the slotted-hole screen and use half the energy. This is particularly useful for companies putting recycled wood through hammermills. Using the core ring produces particles which will fill the holes in the core layer to produce a better quality panel," said Mr Paron. In the last four years, Globus has supplied several complete chipping lines to panel mills. The latest one was for Alfa Wood in Greece for which the company supplied feeding, chipping and discharge in a chipping line for MDF. In September, PT Kutai Timber will start a new line for which Globus has supplied all the machines for the preparation of chips and flakes. The company is currently supplying its fourth line to Hungary, in the form of a chipping line with a capacity of 600m3 per hour, in this case producing chips for an energy generation plant - another important market for Globus. In addition to supplying complete lines, service accounts for about 30% of the business. Mr Paron gained his industry experience in a company called Mundus, which made debarking lines. He was the agent for a German manufacturer of machinery for producing and refining wood chips. When he left Mundus, Mr Paron decided to found Globus, which became a producer of spare parts and also rebuilt/reconditioned chippers and knife ring flakers for its customers. It was this experience, coupled with years of R&D, that brought the company to its present position, where it offers waste wood shredders, chippers and associated feeding systems, re-chippers, vibrating conveyors, double stream mills, hammer mills, unidirectional vibrating screens for dust and chips, chip storage, dryers and pre-debarking systems. These are in addition to the above mentioned innovations such as the Cam Classifier. In fact, the R&D department is soon to move to larger premises, reflecting its continued importance to the company. Experience, plus research, plus marketing have today made Globus an increasingly well-known name in the panel industry, claimed Mr Paron.

At a time when many commentators were saying that the MDF boom in China was over and the future was in particleboard production, Asia Dekor decided to build a continuous particleboard line in Huizhou City, Guangdong province, in the south of china. It was not the first company in China to venture into high-quality particleboard production using imported machinery. Sanchazi Particleboard in Lu Shuihe, Jilin province, has a Metso Panelboard single-opening press line with a 92,000m³ annual capacity (WBPI April/May 2002, p26). Furen has a Siempelkamp continuous press-equipped particleboard factory on the borders of Fujian and Jiangxi provinces (annual capacity 55,000m³) and another continuous line, this time from Metso Panelboard, in Fujian province. It also has a share in a Chinese-made multi-opening line in Fujian (WBPI issue 3, 2006, p20). Dare Global built a Siempelkamp ContiRoll line in Sanming, Fujian, with a design capacity of 450,000m³/year - still the biggest in China - in 2006 (WBPI issue 3, 2006, p24). Finally, Jilin Forestry Industry Co Ltd has a Metso Panelboard single-opening line in Fengxian Town, Xuzhou City, Jiangsu province with a 100,000m³ annual capacity (see p56 of this issue). We first visited Asia Dekor's Huizhou site in early 2005, when it was just that - a construction site in the early stages of erection (WBPI Aug/Sep 2005, p49) - and this year provided an opportunity to go back and see the completed project. To briefly give some background to this company, Asia Dekor began life in the manufacture of laminate flooring, building its first factory in Shenzhen in 1995, also in Guangdong. It built a second factory in 2000, bringing its laminate flooring capacity to a total of 15 million m². The company then turned its attention to establishing its own supply of HDF base board for the flooring, starting up an HDF continuous production line, supplied by Dieffenbacher of Germany, in 2004 in Heyuan, Guangdong (WBPI April/May 2004, p20). When the Huizhou particleboard project began, the then general manager, Mr Zhang Jian Yan, said that demand was there in the market and that the price of particleboard would in fact be better than that of MDF. Today, it seems that optimism may have been ill-placed as the market has not proved to be that good and the price is currently well below that of MDF. This seems surprising, given the lack of particleboard capacity in China generally. Or more specifically, the lack of anything like good quality particleboard, since most is produced from low-tech, old, Chinese-made lines and/or a lot of manual work. "The price of particleboard is lower than MDF at present and the profit is lower than it was two years ago," admitted the general manager of the completed line, Mr Jianyun Li, who joined Asia Dekor in 2000, coming from a steel construction company. "At present, MDF is still the panel which is mainly used for furniture production, but if the use of particleboard increases, so will the price." Asia Dekor's line has certainly set new standards for quality, as one would expect since the line employs the latest European technology. However, demand apparently remains disappointing in a domestic furniture market still solidly wedded to using MDF. Asia Dekor's Huizhou line produced its first board on January 24, 2006, going into commercial production a creditable three months later. Current capacity being achieved from the line is 20,000m³/month, thus comfortably exceeding the designed output of 200,000m³/year. The wood for the line comes from within a 100km radius and mostly comprises small round wood such as branches (larger diameter logs go to the furniture industry). Some clean 'waste' wood from furniture factories in the area is also utilised, making up about 20-30% of the whole supply. Sawmill residues account for another 15% or so, making fresh wood the major component at 50-60%. Pine and eucalyptus are the only species involved. "We have no plans to utilise recycled wood - it is too difficult to obtain in China," said Mr Li. "Anyway, there are many forestry companies planting trees in this area." Asia Dekor also has its own plantations in Huyuan, where its MDF/HDF line is located. It currently has 60mu (900ha) of eucalyptus and is expanding the area all the time. Asia Dekor's laminate flooring is very famous in China, according to Mr Li, and is sold under the brand name Power Dekor. This brand is shared with the Dare Global group, another large producer of MDF in China. The particleboard produced in Huizhou is made in thicknesses from 9 to 30mm and in densities of 660 to 700kg/m³, depending on thickness. All production utilises urea formaldehyde resin, producing board to E1 emissions standard. Currently all production goes to furniture manufacturers in Guangdong province. When the Huizhou factory was built, the local government planned that it would be part of an industrial area for furniture production, but that has still not materialised. The Asia Dekor mill employs 280 people, most of whom live on the 228,000m² site because Huizhou City is 27km away. Wood preparation equipment and the dryer are reconditioned, purchased through Modul Systeme of Germany and originating from a mill in the UK. A chip store for chips bought in from sawmills was under construction at the time of my visit in late March. The sawmills also supply low-grade waste wood for the energy plant, together with bark from Asia Dekor's own supplies. Raw material for production is separated in three bays - sawdust, chipped wood and recycled chips. Three conveyors run under the floor to take the material up to the vibrating sifters and wet silos. There are two Klöckner chippers, which formed part of the Modul supply, together with three Maier flakers and two Pallmann refiners. The energy plant comes from Vyncke of Belgium and the dryer is from Kvaerner (now part of Metso Panelboard), again via Modul Systeme. There is one Lödige and one Imal glue blender, but the capacity is not sufficient so Asia Dekor is getting a larger-capacity one. The former has two wind and one mechanical heads and was supplied by Dieffenbacher, which was responsible for the whole supply and installation contract for Asia Dekor. A Cassell metal detector and an Imal mat spray precede the Dieffenbacher CPS continuous press, which is 20.1m long. "The quality from the line is good, but I think we should have bought a longer press," said Mr Li. "Maybe we will extend it at some time in the future." The press is followed by a 12-head GreCon thickness measurement/blow detection system and GreCon also supplied the spark detection/extinguishing systems throughout the factory. There is a six-head Bison sander and an Anthon cut-to-size in-line saw installation produces mainly 1220x2440mm boards, with some 2600x2000mm and some 2440x1225 and 2440x1830mm panels. Transport to storage at the end of the line is fully automated. It is interesting to revisit a site which was just mud and a few steel frames two years ago and see a working production line turning out quality particleboard. It would appear from discussions with several people in China that the furniture market is still not ready to accept particleboard in the same way as MDF. That maybe a result of years of supply of poor quality board from small family-run mills in the past, but one can't help thinking that one day that attitude will change as more of these high-quality and higher-capacity mills come on stream.

It is little wonder that Loris Zanasi, managing director of Imal, was smiling broadly as we met in his San Damaso office. With the company's sales reaching a new record for 2007/8 already, he seemed to have every reason to smile.   "We have had a very good order intake of EUR60m and are very satisfied with the business situation," said Mr Zanasi.   The Ligna exhibition this May also provided a boost to the company's order book, with orders worth seven million euros taken at the show, he said.   The contract for a large gluing system for Kronospan's 2,500m³/day particleboard mill in Jihlava, Czech Republic, was a major event of the show but other, less predictable, business was also done with customers who had not negotiated the deal beforehand.   Imal's pallet block extrusion line chalked up three orders from Portugal, while a visitor previously unknown to Imal purchased laboratory equipment during the show.   May 2006 was also a significant date for the company as it was then that Imal and Pal came together in terms of ownership. The chief executive of Pal (located in Ponte di Piave), Romeo Paladin, sold his shares in his company to Imal shareholders and cemented an already close relationship between the two firms. They first exchanged a small percentage of each other's shares in 1998 and removed areas of overlap in the two firms' product ranges.   "The synergy of the two companies has increased since then," said Mr Zanasi. "In the last year, we have begun to have more technical meetings to exchange even more information than before and we have developed new ideas together which are still under development; utilising the mechanical expertise of Pal and the electrical/electronic expertise of Imal."   Stefano Benedetti, son of the family which founded Imal, has been part of this close cooperation. "For instance, we have developed a new type of OSB bunker - both green and dry bins - to avoid the breakage of flakes, without using picker, or doffing, rolls in front of the bins as these create a lot of fines and broken strands. We are aiming to increase the size of strands and reduce the amount of fines," he said.   "Another successful system we developed jointly is the new generation fibre resination system for MDF, to be installed after the dryer."   The latest installation of this system is at Alpha Wood's MDF plant in Greece.   "With this system, we have achieved resin savings of 30 to 40%. It is the fourth generation and brings together over 10 years of experience. We have installed additional nozzles to inject the resin more evenly and changed the injection of warm air in different areas of the blender," explained Mr Benedetti.   A relatively recent product for Imal is the x-ray Press Security Device (PSD) to detect foreign bodies or glue lumps in a fibre mat before the continuous press to protect the press belts from damage. It also provides an accurate picture of the mat weight distribution, said Mr Benedetti.   Another brand new x-ray based system is the MDS100 on-the-line mat density scanner for the full width of the mat. "This will replace the traditional traversing scanner system," he asserted.   "We are also nearly ready with a completely new technology for blow detection which will be on the market this year," adds Mr Zanasi. "It will allow accurate readings and will require less maintenance than existing systems."   Upgrades for existing blow detection systems will also be offered.   An all-new version of the vertical density profile meter CDP600 is claimed to be very simple to install, with the x-ray transmitter and receiver both below the board. "This makes it cheaper and easier to install and enables the measuring of thin board with improved accuracy," said Mr Benedetti.   Some of Imal's products are already well-established worldwide, like the mat damping spray which has clocked up over 100 units sold since its launch in 2002.   Another is the company's gluing system, of which it has supplied over 280 since January 1994. An additional 14 units are due to be shipped to customers this year.   The above represents just part of the Imal scope of supply. Its moisture meters, employing both infra-red and microwave technology, and its range of laboratory quality control equipment add to the range.   "We are covering the majority of panel mill projects worldwide. We work as an independent supplier in around 75% of cases, but also with the major complete line suppliers and there are new projects coming up as we speak," concluded Mr Zanasi confidently.  

In last year's Focus on Italy, we reported that Trasmec Company Limited, headquartered in Casalbuttano near Cremona, was enjoying a rising market for its products around the world and this year, things are no different.   "We are very happy with the situation," said general manager Roberto Moroni, whose father founded the family business in 1954. "We have contracts in Australia and all over the world with the biggest producers of particleboard, MDF and OSB.   "We have also recently closed contracts through Dieffenbacher to supply machinery to Venezuela, Russia and Japan."   Other recent contracts include one with Kronospan for its new MDF mill in Alabama and another for the giant panel maker's new OSB mill in Romania. Trasmec is to supply all conveying machinery to both these projects, confirmed Mr Moroni.   When these projects are added to others in Malaysia, Thailand and Brazil, Trasmec has orders taking it through the next twelve months.   The order book comprises a mixture of contracts secured directly from the client and those supplied through the major complete line suppliers.   "Of course we are also developing the engineering of our conveying systems all the time and carrying out modernisations of existing plants around the world, although most of our business is in fact in new plants," said Mr Moroni.   With such a full order book, the company is making good use of the additional 5,000m² of storage space in a new purpose-built warehouse which it opened on an adjacent site last year. This gives the company a 'buffer zone' to gather together the many components often required for a large contract prior to shipment.   It also enables Trasmec to combine components shipped in from its joint venture manufacturing business in Romania with those produced in the Casalbuttano factory.   Trasmec hasn't always been involved in the panel industry, but it has always been involved in the handling of 'challenging' materials. It started out in the food, chemical, feedstuff and seed industry, only later transferring its experience in that technology to the wood based panel industry as Italian production developed and increased. However, today it supplies around 90% of its production to the panel industry.   The company offers standard belt conveyors and pipe belt conveyors to transport chips, strands or fibres around the mill, but also has its own development of the pipe conveyor, called the 'Cobra'.   In this system, the belt is formed into a tube and can be curved around corners without joints. It can also cover considerable distances if required, in one continuous length.   Standard chain conveyors are offered and, for higher capacities, the heavy-duty-construction Panzer series can carry loads of up to 750m3/hour on a single chain conveyor, says the company. Steel plate conveyors are also available.   Screw conveyors for dryer outfeed or storage bin discharge are another product line and come in a variety of configurations, with each project being tailor-made, as with all Trasmec's systems.   For elevation of chips or other material in a confined space, a range of bucket elevators are offered.   In addition to conveying material, the company also offers disc separators, for example to separate chips from sawdust.   Storage is another main area of involvement for this company, which offers moving floor systems for all kinds of silos and bunkers for wood or biomass plants. It also manufactures the hoppers and bins.   Trasmec is one of several companies involved in the panel manufacturing process whose products are easily applied to the biomass and other energy generation systems which are becoming increasingly popular.   But for the foreseeable future, this company is likely to be supplying the bulk of its design and fabricating expertise to the panel industry in which it is experiencing apparently ever-increasing demand, according to Mr Moroni.  

Jiangsu Dongdun began its journey in the MDF industry at a time when it was a relatively new panel product in China, and one which the company's founders felt had a bright future. Unlike many of the major players in the nation's panel industry, Dongdun did not start out in another, unrelated, industry or industries before building its first MDF mill but came straight in as an inexperienced operator. That was 11 years ago and today the company has an annual production capacity approaching one million cubic metres. This is mainly MDF but also includes some particleboard lines. Originally formed as a workers' cooperative, Dongdun became a private company in 2003. Its first MDF line, built in 1996, was supplied by Shanghai Wood Based Panel Machinery Co Ltd (SWPM) in 1996 and had a 10-opening hot press and an annual capacity of just 15,000m³. Three years later, the larger line two was built, again for MDF, with a 16-opening press from the same supplier and a nameplate capacity of 60,000m³ a year. Both these lines were built in Changshu City, Jiangsu province, where the group's head office is still located. In 2000, SWPM supplied another multi-opening press line for MDF, with 18 daylights and a nominal capacity of 60,000m³, as for line two. Continuing its rapid growth, Dongdun added its fourth line the following year, choosing the same supplier and specification as for line three. Lines three and four were located in Huaian City, Hongze County, Jiangsu province. Up to now, the presses had been capable of producing only one panel per opening, per charge, but for line five, built in 2002, Dongdun chose a 16ftx4ft 15-daylight press - allowing two panels per charge - again from SWPM. This time the product was to be high-density fibreboard (HDF). Located in Xuancheng City in Anhui province, this line was, for the first time, equipped with an Andritz refiner in place of the SWPM systems used in the first four lines. This line was replicated in 2003 in Fengyang City, Anhui province, giving another 100,000m³ capacity. Then the pace of development quickened again, with line seven being built in the same year in Huaiyin City, Anhui province. Again producing MDF, this line has an 18-opening SWPM press, an SWPM refiner, and an annual capacity of 60,000m³. Unusually for the company, Dongdun's eighth line came, in 2004, through the acquisition of an existing MDF line from the machinery manufacturer Sufoma, a rival of SWPM. This line has a 15-daylight 4ftx16ft press and annual capacity of 80,000m³. It is in Liyang City in Jiangsu. So now the company had eight MDF/HDF lines with a combined nominal capacity of 505,000m³, but please note the word 'nominal' as we will return to those figures later. Meanwhile, we are still in 2004 and Dongdun had not finished its investment with the acquisition of line eight. Its ninth line was for the production of particleboard. With a 16-opening press purchased from Sufoma, debarker by Maier of Germany and dryer and boiler from M-E-C of the US, it was built in Huaian City, Hongze County, Jiangsu, as were lines three and four. Barely pausing to draw breath it seems, Dongdun built line 10 in 2005, with a 4ftx16ft 15-opening press to make 100,000m³ of HDF. This line is in Fuyiang Town, Taihe County, Anhui province. Also in 2005, the company made its first foray into value-adding by building not one but two laminate flooring lines, each with a capacity of two million m² a year. These lines are located in Changshu and employ Sufoma equipment. Coming back to that 'nominal' capacity for the MDF production lines, Mr Li You Yu, president of Jiangsu Dongdun and the man who has moved the company forward quite dramatically since he joined in 1998 - having previously been a manager in the plastic and electric motor industries - said the company had boosted the capacity of all of them. "For all our multi-opening lines, our production quality is the leader in China. We have also increased the capacity of all our nominal 60,000m³ lines to 100,000m³. Thus lines two, three, four and seven have an additional capacity of 160,000m³ between them. So our total capacity, when line 11 is running, will be nearly one million m³ [965,000m³]." "What eleventh line?" I hear you ask. Under construction at the time of my visit in March this year was Dongdun's first continuous production line, destined to produce thin board. Supplied by Dieffenbacher of Germany, the line has a CPS press of 26.02m long and a width of 2.52m. Nominal annual capacity is 200,000m³. The line will be capable of producing thicknesses of 2 to 40mm but will mainly be employed for thinner board in the 2 to 5mm range. "We aim to increase the capacity of that line by 35 to 40% as well," said Mr Li, "But we do not want to add more than that as quality is more important to us than quantity and we want to be the best. "Why do I think we can achieve this? Because we have a very good team which is one of the best in the wood based panels industry." Particleboard is also important to the Dongdun Group and in 2006, line one from 1996 was converted to produce particleboard instead of MDF. Its capacity was also increased, from 15,000 to 50,000m³ by adding a further four daylights to the 10-daylight SWPM press. All raw material for this line comes from residues from sawmills and furniture factories. Line nine still utilises small diameter roundwood for its particleboard production. The company is currently utilising some 'waste wood' in much of its raw material supply. At present, for Dongdun, this mainly means small diameter wood such as branches, but for the future it is looking at a wider range of wood resources. "Our goal is to use waste wood for our raw material. This will come from furniture factories, sawmill residues and recycled packaging wood. For instance, there are many breweries which still use wooden crates in which to pack their bottles," said Mr Li You Yu. "We will have to clean this wood of course and I think in future we will utilise other recycled wood, such as demolition timber and so on." The wood supply for each line is local to the factories in Anhui and Jiangsu provinces. "Previously, small diameter branches were just burnt by the farmer, but now they are actually encouraged to plant trees and they get a profit from the smaller diameter wood, so it is good for them and for us. Most farmers plant Italian poplar in Jiangsu and Anhui," said Mr Li. It appears the company has not finished its expansion plans yet either: "We have plans to buy a new particleboard line in the future," said the president. "We have bought our first continuous line from Dieffenbacher to increase the knowledge of our people and we will then have the know-how for when the particleboard market improves. When compared with MDF, the market for particleboard is lower than for MDF and is developing more slowly," he admitted. "But we want to build a 200,000m³ a year particleboard line in Jiangsu province in the future, to use waste and recycled wood." The president also sees the two laminate flooring lines as a launching point for further investment in melamine facing or painting lines. "There is a very big furniture market 40km from here in Suzhou City, which is the biggest furniture market in eastern China," said Mr Li, by way of explanation. Panels produced on line five are branded 'Gaoli', while those from lines three and four are labelled 'Dong An' and line eight's production is sold as 'Fu Hua'. The rest of the company's production is branded as DongDun, including the laminate flooring. However, the company intends to consolidate under DongDun in the future. "DongDun is a famous brand in Jiangsu province and after two or three years, it will be famous in all of China," said Mr Li confidently.

Adriano Stocco founded his business in 1979 in San Giorgio di Nogaro offering assembly, maintenance and repair services to the wood based panel manufacturing industry in Italy.   This led on to the design and development of pneumatic conveying systems and other specialised equipment fabricated from standard and stainless steel.   "At the end of the 1990's we started to think about international markets as well as the Italian markets on which we had previously concentrated," said Mr Stocco. "Our products were already good for the international market and at that time I had new ideas for dryers, systems to be used in processing recycled waste wood and so on. These new ideas and innovations needed international markets."   The company's international expansion soon spread to Nigeria, Vietnam, Canada, Germany, Ireland and the UK and now includes these countries and South East Asia, China and other markets too.   In June 2006, a major boost came for Instalmec's international expansion plans when complete panel manufacturing line supplier Dieffenbacher of Eppingen, Germany bought shares in Mr Stocco's business.   "With this agreement we were now ready to supply a very wide range of products, starting from the green area through to forming, including dryers, screening and gluing," said the chief executive.   One of the first fruits of this cooperation was a complete re-design of Dieffenbacher's forming systems for OSB, which are manufactured in Instalmec's factory.   "An interesting aspect of working with Dieffenbacher is the ability to increase our range of products through the relationship. We had a lot of ideas before the Dieffenbacher partnership but it brought a bigger market opportunity to develop these ideas and bring them to the market," said Mr Stocco.   From Dieffenbacher's side, it has an experienced partner in designing and developing the relevant parts of its production lines and one that is located close to the ports of San Giorgio di Nogaro and Trieste, enabling cost-efficient transport to overseas customers.   A new product from Instalmec, launched at this year's Ligna exhibition, is named 'Ulysses+'. It is a completely new system for cleaning recycled wood.   This combines a rag separator, air gravimetric separator and pneumatic separator.   "This system has solved the problems of dust, of rags which could block rotary screens, and has eliminated all nets which could become clogged," said Mr Stocco. "This is because it employs an air gravimetric system."   The principle of Ulysses+ is based on separating the particles into three or four fractions, each with its own cleaning system, customised by adjusting the air flow to the type of material being cleaned. This means, says the company, that any kind of recycled waste wood can be accommodated in the system.   For instance, the pneumatic separator developed for fines removes those particles below 0.4mm to go to the dust silo for burning. Those above 4mm go to the particleboard production line.   Often contained among the fine dust is silica (sand) which will turn to glass in a furnace. However, Instalmec has also developed a special furnace to separate out the sand before that can happen.   The first Ulysses+ should be working at Xilopan's particleboard mill in Italy soon after you read this.   Another new product for Instalmec is a pre-dryer to be installed before the drum dryer in particleboard mills. Having a pre-dryer is not a new idea, but previous examples have been of the omega type (referring to the shape of the pipe employed). Instalmec has designed a vertical pre-dryer to concentrate the drying effort on the larger core layer particles, without over-drying the surface layer material.   "This gives a big advantage in the press because it eliminates the problem of different moisture levels in the core material causing problems in the pressing process," explained Luca Zappetti of Instalmec's sales department. "It also means you can run your press at a higher speed."   The pre-dryer also has a separation effect for plastic, stones and over-size wood pieces. The first installation of this pre-dryer was made successfully last year.   Other products of the company include dryers for MDF, particleboard, OSB and pellet production; combustion chambers (with the dryer or sold separately) which incorporate the silica extraction system; cyclone filters; pneumatic or mechanical screens; rotary glue blenders; and rotary valves for pneumatic systems.   The original basis of Instalmec's business was in fabricating components out of steel sheet and this remains a core part of many of its products. Metering bunkers for particleboard or OSB are perhaps obvious examples.   Instalmec's factory has already been expanded once and is soon to be further expanded, from 21,000 to 25,000m², on an adjacent site. A 3,500m² production building will form part of that development.   As the partnership with Dieffenbacher develops, and the range of Instalmec's products increases, Mr Stocco anticipates that that space will soon be put to very good use.  

Rather like the magazine printing industry, the production process for stainless steel press plates has undergone a major revolution in recent years as the computer age has made its presence felt. Sesa, headquartered in Olgiate Olona, northwest of Milan, says it has always aimed to be at the forefront of the production technology for, and the design of, press plates for the decorative surfaces industry. In pursuit of better production technology, the company completed a switch-over from the old chemical photo-processes to a digital system for transferring designs to press plates in May of this year. "We now work in digital files and transfer the image directly on to the plate; there is no more use of film," explained chief executive Marco Santori. "This has enabled us to make a technological leap with a precision in the detail which was not possible before. We are also able to create very nice finishes with eight or ten steps of etching to give an incredibly realistic finish." The system involves scanning an original surface and splitting it into digital files. The design is then reproduced directly on to the plate in a similar process to that used by printers. "This means we can produce 'Embossed in Register', or 'EIR' [a registered trademark of Sesa] finishes with absolute precision," said Mr Santori. This, he explained, is because the computer is able to adjust the position of the image, whereas it used to be necessary to move the film around by hand-and-eye coordination to get the accurate alignment essential to EIR. Manual repair of plates using a magnifying glass has also been eliminated by the new high-tech process. "We first trialled the system in early 2004 and we now have four digital lines - three for production and one for producing samples. We kept the old system running in parallel until May and then completed the switch-over and destroyed the old plant," said Mr Santori. He also claimed another, environmental, advantage for the digital process, in that it meant his company was able to stop using the chemicals required by the old film-based process. "Our graphic development and our laboratory have been transferred to a new building and we have purchased a new, larger, press that enables us to produce a finished plank size rather than a 400x400mm or 500x500mm sample," explained Mr Santori. "On this press we can produce the minimum quantity of square metres of a new design that the customer requires, for an exhibition or whatever, and after approval of the design, we can produce the full-size plate for them. "So, rather than investing in a full-size plate at the initial stage, the customer buys a 600x1800mm plate and rents the pilot line from us. With maybe 10 or 12 new designs a year for a customer, this represents a considerable saving for them compared with buying full-size plates. "We still produce the 400x400mm or 500x500mm test plate but then the customer has this intermediate size of 600x1800mm. It's a service we offer." Much of the previous technology still remains in use for actual plate production of course. For instance, the chemical etching to engrave the plate, mechanical polishing of the engraved plate and chrome plating to give it wear resistance. Sesa's main market is in Europe, with Germany a particularly important source of business, although Spain, France and Italy are also important. Then there is Russia and Asia - especially India. In 2000, Sesa set up a subsidiary company in India where it refurbishes plates for the Asian market. The company, Sesa-MSF, has its office in New Delhi and factory in Neemrana, 120km south of that city. Last year (2006), the company doubled in size, expanding its market from domestic customers to those in surrounding countries. In fact, reported Mr Santori, 2006 was a very good year for the Sesa company as a whole - much better than 2005 - and he is expecting a very good 2007. Sesa SpA was established in 1950 by Mr Santori's father Antonio and a partner, but has been in the Santori family's sole ownership since 1970. The third generation - in the form of Mr Santori's eldest son - has joined the business and, having trained throughout the company, is now production manager at Olgiate Olona. "We have continued our mission since we began in the press plate business to make plates as good as we possibly can make them," said Mr Santori. "We have continually demonstrated to customers that we can reproduce any kind of surface; our solutions are unlimited. Of course the plate has also to be produced at a reasonable price, but we are confident that we can achieve continuous improvement with contained costs, due largely to our new technology." Sesa produced its first EIR floor tile at the Surfaces exhibition in Las Vegas, US, in 1999 and is now in the fourth generation of EIR finishes - and no longer just for floor tiles, but for any kind of finish, said the chief executive. The secret of EIR is that the surface does not just look realistic, but feels realistic as well. Time moves on and at Surfaces 2007, one of Sesa's finishes won the 'National Floor Trends Styling Excellence Award and Dealer's Choice'. "Everybody was amazed when we produced those first tiles and thought it was not practical in large-scale production, but now everybody has EIR textures in their range," said Mr Santori. "Now we are pushing hard to transfer the concept to the furniture business and have taken the first steps in that market. We exhibited our first EIR surfaces for furniture at a private gala presentation in Milan in 2004." Sesa exhibited at the Interzum exhibition in Cologne, Germany, in May this year and all the finishes presented there were protected by copyright for the first time, with around 40 new designs. Of course the company works very closely with the decor paper printing companies and often exhibits designs in cooperation with companies such as Interprint, Schattdecor, Süddekor and Lamigraf, to name but a few. "Sometimes we are responsible for 90% of the creation of a texture but it varies from case to case," said Mr Santori. Successful realisation of EIR obviously requires not just printers, but press manufacturers and their accurate alignment systems if it is to work and so Sesa also works closely with those manufacturers. So the history of decorative press plates has been exciting, but what about the future? "We can't predict the future but can only try to be one of the wheels going into the future in a good way and leaving something on the record as to what we have achieved. We have always participated very actively in the development of the laminate industry generally: high pressure laminate, low pressure, flooring, every aspect of the industry," concluded Mr Santori.