In June of last year, the IARC (International Agency for Research into Cancer) upgraded its classification of formaldehyde from a ‘probable’ to a ‘confirmed’ human carcinogen. This decision was based on evidence of increased incidence of naso-pharyngeal cancer among certain individuals exposed in the past to high levels of formaldehyde. There were also some implications among such individuals of a link with leukemia.
The impact of this announcement has not yet been felt but it is certainly on the agenda of several regulatory authorities and could potentially have quite widespread and major repercussions in practically all aspects of the wood based panel industry.
Basically, there are four groups of individuals for whom this issue may have an impact:Consumers of panel products

Since January 1, 1999, EPF, the European Panel Federation, has represented the European manufacturers of particleboard, MDF and OSB, with a total production in 2003 of 36.1 million m3 of particleboard, 11.2 million m3 of MDF and 2.4 million m3 of OSB.
The EPF thus took over the tasks of FESYP, the European federation of associations of the particleboard manufacturers (founded in 1958), and Euro MDF Board (EMB), the European federation of MDF manufacturers (founded in 1986).
The above two paragraphs, taken straight from the EPF website which can be found at www.europanels.org, go some way towards explaining the background to the  organization which represents the vast majority of European composite panel makers.
The formation of the EPF from the two constituent bodies, FESYP and EMB, marked something of a milestone in the history of the European industry in that it gave one voice to the particleboard and MDF industries at a time when various and increasing challenges required strong and credible political and public representation.
At the time of its formation, the EPF, at least officially, represented only particleboard and MDF interests; the OSB manufacturing sector had no official voice.
“There was no association for OSB and when a number of manufacturers became established they started thinking about a promotional organisation for their sector,” says Kris Wijnendaele, secretary general of the EPF. “The need for such an association became very acute when OSB capacity in Europe increased and, as all OSB producers were also producers of particleboard and/or MDF, we thought it logical to offer them a structure which already existed. There was no change to our official structure – all but  one producer was already a member of EPF so we simply added OSB to the EPF in 2001.”
The process of combining the EPF and EMB was concluded in 1997/98 and the first joint annual meeting was in fact held in Munich in 1998, with the EPF formally ‘taking over’ from both organisations in January 1999, with Frans de Cock of Unilin of Belgium as its first president.
“The main driver was that most leading companies in both organisations were producing both particleboard and MDF and did not see the necessity for two organizations with two separate sets of meetings and so on,” points out Mr Wijnendaele.
“Both were different in that FESYP was representing the particleboard industry as a lobbying body on technical and environmental standards and on political issues, while the EMB was set up at the beginning of MDF in Europe as a communication and promotion tool for the product, to assist people in using this new panel.
“But by the end of the 1990s, MDF was so well established that [EMB] members thought it could be added to the work of FESYP in one larger organisation.”
So that leaves the European plywood producing industry currently outside the EPF structure.
These companies have their own representative body, FEIC – the European Federation of the Plywood Industry (www.europlywood.org). It is headquartered in the same building as the EPF in Brussels, and Mr Wijnendaele is secretary general of both organisations.
For the first time, the FEIC held its annual meeting at the same time as the EPF in June 2004. The two organisations’ members shared the gala dinner and the open part of the general assembly (to which press and associate members are also invited and which offers an opportunity to suppliers to give some promotional information to members).
“Why did we do this?” asks Mr Wijnendaele. “If you look at some of the bigger players, several produce plywood and particleboard/MDF and several of the bigger plywood producers like the opportunity to talk to OSB producers. They also want to be active in the wider European wood based panels industry. That is why we came to the idea of ‘combining’ our annual meetings.”
It must have been well-received because the format is to be repeated for this year’s annual general meetings, this time to be held in Riga, Latvia.
Both EPF and FEIC come under the umbrella organisation CEI-Bois, also headquartered in Brussels.
“We are based in Brussels because of the issue of representation to the main European institutions,” points out Mr Wijnendaele.
CEI-Bois, the European Confederation of woodworking industries, was founded in 1952 and represents the interests of the European woodworking industry, which includes some 100,000 companies employing around 1.9 million workers. It is again in the same building as the EPF and FEIC.
The primary goal of CEI-Bois is to further the interests of the European wood sector and, to this end, it aims to influence EU policy making. It is the main body representing and defending the interests of the European woodworking industries towards the European Union.
That is a quotation from its website, www.cei-bois.org and really encapsulates the aims and objectives of its two member organisations too.
“CEI-Bois has two parts,” explains Mr Wijnendaele. “One is everything concerning the solid wood processing industry, with branches in sawmilling, (represented by EOS), parquet (FEP) and wood preservation (WEI).
“The other is the panels side of the industry, represented by EPF and FEIC.”
The Confederation also has two categories of members: national associations and those European branch organisations.
There is another organisation representing another sector of panel manufacture: the producers of wet-process fibreboard (hardboard, and softboard or insulation board) have their own association, FEROPA, the European Federation of Fibreboard Manufacturers, headquartered in France, whose website can be found at http://members.lycos.fr/feropa.
Coming back to the subject of the EPF, the federation has a managing board comprised of a president, from the particleboard and/or MDF producers, a vice-president and seven board members, also all from the producing industry. The president (currently Lazlo Döry of Constanzia-Iso AG) is the chairman of the board and normally serves for a period of four years, with re-election at the AGM each June.
The managing board is responsible for the day-to-day running of the EPF and putting forward major policy decision proposals to the federation’s general assembly, which is open to all members. The assembly is held three times a year, in the autumn, spring and just before the annual general meeting, in June. The EPF has two categories of members:national member associations (WPIF in the UK, AssoPannelli in Italy, Febelhout in Belgium, and so on); and individual companies and groups which can be direct members, whether or not they are in their national associations.
“We find it invaluable to have industrialists contributing to the work of the EPF and participating in meetings,” says Mr Wijnendaele. “Our prime objective is that the industrialists have maximum input to ensure that what we do helps the companies in the industry as much as possible.”
The EPF has five working groups: economic affairs, technical, environmental, OSB, and promotional. These are all tied in with the official working groups on standards such as CEN/TC112-Wood Based Panels.
Funding for the EPF comes from two directions. Firstly, there is a fixed fee payable by every member. Secondly, there is a fee calculated on a company’s individual production volume of particleboard, MDF and OSB up to a ceiling of €50,000 for individual member companies or associations.
There is also a category of membership for ‘associate members’. These include machinery makers, resin, additive and service suppliers, paper and decor producers, consultants, powder coating suppliers and so on, as well as the North American Structural Board Association (SBA) and the Italian organisation for collecting and recycling wood. “In fact anyone who has an interest in the European wood based panel industry,” confirms Mr Wijnendaele.
“The associate members have no voting rights but can be invited to give presentations to working groups or the general assembly or to contribute expertise on a specific subject.”
Other sources of funding for the EPF are sales of its very comprehensive annual report and services for other organizations in acting as consultants, or in a similar capacity.
“We are very focused on what is important to our members,” points out Mr Wijnendaele. “We like them to come to meetings and say what they want from us and also we can show them what we are doing on their behalf. Opportunities for networking among members are also very important.”
So what does Mr Wijnendaele see as the main strengths of the EPF?
“We have a broad membership structure covering virtually all EU25 countries and some others. It includes many suppliers in closely related industries and covers the vast majority of European producers.
“Also, our structure and our ties to CEIBois and the various national associations leads to an efficient decision-making mechanism and lobbying capabilities with very wide networking to relevant countries, decision making bodies and European and international standardisation. Our quarterly meetings also allow quick decision-making and the launching of actions through our network. And with a relatively small team, we can get widely coordinated representation actions.”
What does Mr Wijnendaele see as the main challenges for the industry today?
“Raw material supply in competition with the energy sector – ‘the biomass issue’,” he says, referring to the subsidising of power generators in Europe in the last few years.
“We have to convince all relevant authorities and institutions – and the public – that wood’s first use should be for products which can be reused or recycled and that the primary form of recycling is panels. After this, the prolonged life cycle can still be used to recover energy from them and through this prolonged life cycle, carbon from the original tree is stored for much longer and this contributes to the Kyoto Protocol objectives.
“This is CO2-neutral energy production plus a whole value chain, adding a factor of at least plus-25 in employment and plus-10 in value per cubic metre of wood products, compared to burning that original cubic metre of wood.
“The big fear is that wood will become too expensive as a result of competition from the energy sector.”
On this issue, Mr Wijnendaele says the EPF has achieved the setting up of, and involvement in, a working group within the EC (European Commission) which has  concluded that the subsidy of, and support for, renewable energy is slanted too much towards the benefit of energy producers rather than increasing the supply of raw materials for renewable energy, to the benefit of the whole forest-based industry chain.
Also, in a communication on renewable energy sources issued by the EC in May 2004, the Commission did not decide to increase the targets for biomass energy as intended, but said it wants to set up a biomass plan to ensure that its policy does not distort wood raw material markets.
“This shows that the EC is listening and realising the distortion effects and this is partly because of the work of the EPF in the working group with the Directorate General of Transport and Energy,” says Mr Wijnendaele.
The EPF also keeps an eye on trade and anti-dumping issues.
A third important area is in promoting the interests of wood in terms of sustainable development and the EPF is working hard to have wood based products recognised as carbon sinks under the Kyoto Protocol.
The Construction Products Directive and its requirement for CE marking of structural panels is also a well-documented area of heavy involvement for the EPF in recent years. The Federation is now disseminating information on this to architects and specifiers; and to the trade itself.
The EPF also continues to address the issues raised on emissions of VOCs (volatile organic compounds) with respect to raw materials and products, and is active in public advocacy and following up regulatory initiatives that may impact production plants, or the classification of products.
“We encourage members to reduce the environmental impact of their products and processes in the context of ‘sustainable development’,” says Mr Wijnendaele.
In addition to all the foregoing activities, the EPF runs test projects and has two in progress currently.
One is on reaction to fire in actual use situations, and of panels not covered by existing classifications. The other is the determination of the moisture resistance of wood based panels, eventually using a single test rather than the two systems currently accepted under CE marking.
“We have set up an evaluation project with six European test laboratories and 12 European panel manufacturers to evaluate this wet bending strength method and hope to report later this year,” says Mr Wijnendaele.
The issue of competition for wood for energy generation versus panel production was a classic case of somebody having what seemed like an excellent idea – encouraging the production of energy from renewable fuel. But they failed to think of the farreaching consequences and implications – for example for the panel industry – of their decision to subsidise energy production from wood.
That is the strength of having an organization such as the EPF which can watch out for such ‘low-flying missiles’ and hopefully shoot them down on behalf of the industry before they do irreparable damage.

The Schelling Group of Companies trades internationally and manufactures customised solutions for sheet mate- rial sizing in the wood panel, furniture,  metal, plastics, and electronic circuit board industries.
The company says its engineering expertise covers all areas from saw con- ception and design to the production, delivery and start-up  of production  mod- ules and that it can deliver turnkey systems.
These systems can include the mechani- cal assemblies and software modules for turnkey plants and production  lines for automated handling of wood panels such as particleboard, OSB and MDF, as well as cut-to-size, sorting and stacking plants for automated handling of wood, alumini- um, plastic and electronic circuit boards.
Precision saw machines in turnkey sys- tems with speciality tooling, waste removal and material transportation with automated  handling of wood, aluminium,  plastic and circuit board sheeting is all part of the competence of the company, according to Mr Rohner, manag- ing director of Schelling.
“The main drivers for Schelling’s success in the market are its individual and professional solu- tions combined with the latest technology, for example the highest cutting speed in the market,” said Mr Rohner.
“The knowledge gained from 88 years of experience in the business enables us to find the most economical solution for cus- tomers’ individual requirements,” he said. This year, Schelling says it will present its solutions, technology and competence at the following exhibitions: Ligna in Hanover/Germany from May 2-6; BWS 2005 – the international trade fair for woodworking  processing held in Salzburg Austria – April 6-9; and AWFS Vegas Show at the Las Vegas Convention  Centre from July 27-30.
The company also exhibited at Interzum Guangzhou in March and Woodmac  China in Shanghai, also in March.
At Ligna, for example, the company will show its 50m3   per hour system with saw speeds of up to 70m per minute for the ASH Evolution model at full book height of 210mm and speeds above 120m per minute for the cross-cut saw.
The latest development of the finish-cut saw Schelling FXH will also be on show.
“The core activity for the coming years is to improve our strength which we see in marketing,  product and process develop- ment, sales with project development,  pro- duction (including design, manufacturing, and start-up)  and service,” said Mr Rohner.  “Essentially, Schelling, sees itself as a customer-oriented specialist provid- ing custom-designed, high-tech solutions for the processing of boards for the panel industry, furniture  industry, non-ferrous metal, plastics and the circuit board industries.”  

The wood based panel industry consumes energy on a large scale and in various forms. For instance, the MDF production line consumes saturated steam to pre-steam wood chips in the cooker and in the refiner, while hot gas is required to dry the wet fibres, and thermal oil is used to heat the fibre mix in the press.
The energy plant is another of the core pieces of any production facility, requiring reliable high-end technological solutions and maximum availability,” says Vyncke’s senior sales manager, Lieven Tarras.
For its thermal energy, the wood based panel industry is generally self-sufficient since its own production waste is used for fuel, giving threefold benefits: elimination of waste; savings on fuel cost; and a cleaner environment.
Each energy plant has its own features, mainly depending on the type of raw material and board being produced. This implies that each panel production line needs a tailor-made energy plant which takes into account the different fuel specifications and ratio of energy output.
Vyncke Clean Energy Technology, based in Flanders, Belgium, has supplied  custom-made energy plants throughout the world for almost 100 years. Now with over 3,500 references worldwide, Vyncke claims it is the best-known supplier of biomass-to-energy solutions for the board industry. In fact it says a trip around the world is necessary to describe the activities of its ‘Vynckeneers’.
“We are the market leader for large wood based panel energy plants in China, starting up eight energy plants in the 45-70MW range for the leading Chinese MDF producers in 2004,” says Mr Tarras, adding: “Several repeat orders from satisfied customers such as Asia Dekor and the Dare Global Group followed.”
In 2004 Vyncke’s China office moved from Beijing to Shanghai to be closer to its customers for service and assistance.
All the company’s energy plants in China are equipped with the Dynamic Watercooled Stepgrate. The table on the following page gives a list of all energy plants commissioned within the last year in China by Vyncke, except the ones for Guodong (MDF) in Shengdu and Decade Woods (particleboard), which are scheduled for commissioning in 2005.
Most commentators anticipate an increase in particleboard plants in China and Vyncke says it is already in the design stage of two energy plants for that sector.
For Decade Woods in China, it will install a 29.5MW energy plant, while for SPB Panel in Thailand, the company was selected to supply and install an energy plant fuelled with waste from palm oil plantations – the first of its kind in the world.
As fuel availability is rather limited in the particleboard industry, more biomass needs to be sourced from outside.
Vyncke’s Dynamic Water-cooled Stepgrate, as a multi-fuel step grate, can take other types of biomass.
Vyncke energy plants for Metro Particle Board and Rayong (both in Thailand) came on stream in 2004 and are producing thermal oil and hot gas. The Vyncke service centre in Bangkok serves Thai customers in close cooperation with the offices in Kuala Lumpur and in Shanghai.
Turning to other parts of the world, Mr Tarras feels that eastern Europe is a market with significant potential – in 2004 the group Fazerles (Bulgaria) started up a Vyncke steam boiler. In western Europe the investment climate was rather slow in 2004, he admits, but at Spanolux in Belgium, Vyncke designed and built a thermal oil heater to provide high availability and reliability.
Energy plants for OSB are similar to those for particleboard. Even though investments in OSB lines will not happen to the same extent as MDF and particleboard, Vyncke – already having references in OSB – says it anticipates new orders.
Water cooling of combustion grates
“Reliability of energy plants is a prime concern, since, just like other key equipment, they are a vital link in the production chain and frequent shut-downs would disturb the entire production line,” points out Mr Tarras. “A major weakness of typical aircooled step grates is that they too frequently need to be repaired and maintained. In order to optimise the availability and also minimise maintenance cost, water-cooling is essential for any combustion grate for the wood based panel industry.”
Mr Tarras says that water cooling in step grates maintains a stable temperature on the combustion grate, which has advantages. “For instance, there will be less expansion and therefore less friction and wear, ash trough fall is reduced to an absolute minimum, maintenance costs are significantly lower and the lifetime significantly higher.”
A major added advantage, he claims, is that the combustion air serves no cooling function and can therefore be optimally controlled, resulting in remarkably good combustion and so extremely low emissions.
“As a result of the fuel flexibility and low emissions, Vyncke combustion systems have been selected for several ‘green energy’ (CHP plants) projects in Europe using  emolition timber as fuel to produce steam and power,” says the sales manager.
Vyncke says it operates on the forefront where innovation is an ongoing process. In the field of combustion technology, the company has developed the Hybrid Stepgrate, in addition to the well-known Dynamic Watercooled Stepgrate (DWS). This is claimed to have the advantages of the DWS with an additional feature: the post-combustion zone.
It is said to be better for very wet fuels. The main combustion area, as well as the side collectors, are water cooled. The post-combustion area is air cooled to ensure complete burn-out.
Cogeneration and heating
“Power shortages and increasing interest in green electricity have made electricity plants and cogeneration (steam and electricity) very viable options,” points out Mr Tarras.We recently commissioned a cogeneration plant for Balcas (11.5MWth + 2.7MWe) in Northern Ireland. The tail-end type steam boiler is a unique innovation in the field of biomass. Several wood and biomass fired power plants, mainly in Europe, are under construction.” An example is Holz Dammers Moers, from Germany, which selected a small cogeneration project from Vyncke.
The wood processing industry, such as flooring and furniture, is also profiting from wood fired heaters. For this sector the company developed a thermal oil heater, suited to combustion of sanding dust, although the combustion of larger wood particles and other types of biomass is also possible.
Dare Global, Asia Dekor and Vöhringer, all leading producers of flooring in China, installed several thermal oil heaters, using sanding dust as fuel. “The savings on  conventional energy sources, such as fuel oil, are enormous,” says Mr Tarras. “It also combines the best of all worlds; whereas the design is 100% European, we source  globally to guarantee competitive prices to our customers. To ensure reliability of the system, all critical components originate from well-known European manufacturers.”
Biomass is a clean form of energy and contributes to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. International organisations and governments recognise this fact and offer various forms of incentives.

By his own admission,  Wei Zhang is no expert in plywood production. A resident of Jiangsu Province for all of his 56 years, the burly Mr Zhang (a pseudo- nym used at Mr Zhang’s request for this article) made a living managing labourers in a metalworks factory in Xuzhou City until 1998, when opportunity knocked in the person of a well-connected second cousin.
“The local government  was helping certain entrepreneurs set up factories to process fast-growing wood,” says Mr Zhang, “and my cousin was among the lucky ones.”
By 1999, Mr Zhang’s cousin had secured enough government  financing to set up a veneer plant in nearby Pizhou, and by 2000, Mr Zhang had traded iron scaffolding for poplar panels. “We had 45 workers when we opened our doors,” notes Mr Zhang. “Today we have nearly 300.”
The plant’s focus has widened as well. Stacks of birch and okoume veneer lie wrapped in clear plastic outside the main warehouse alongside neatly matched piles of poplar  sheets, which form the bulk of the mill’s sales.
Mr Zhang’s story is not unusual in this booming and densely populated coastal region of eastern China, several hours by car northwest  of Shanghai.  While numbers are hard to verify, municipal statistics claim over 2,000 operating  veneer and plywood plants in Jiangsu Province alone; one of four key plywood producing regions in China (the others are to the north  in Shandong  Province and, further still, in the northeastern reaches of the country along the Russian and Mongolian borders).
Over 80 of these are plywood plants manufacturing panels. Nearly 50 have production of over 50,000m3  annually, with increasing volumes destined for overseas distributors. While not of that size, Mr Zhang’s operation is growing nonetheless. “We sold almost nothing overseas until 2002,” says Mr Zhang. “Today we ship nearly 40% of our panels to Europe, and about  10% to the Middle East.”
Those figures would put Mr Zhang’s plant only slightly below the regional average. According to the municipal website, nearly 60% of the region’s panel and veneer production is exported overseas, the bulk of it in poplar veneer and panels used for furniture  construction in Europe and the United  States. An increasing volume of birch and okoume, however, is finding its way into the Pizhou panel mix, along with those of many other mills that have sprung up in Eastern China.
According to the official Commission  regulation  (EC) No 988/2004 of May 17, 2004 (L181/14, May 18, 2004) only 1,093m3   of okoume plywood found its way into the European Union  in 1999. By 2001 that number  had increased to 9,521m3   and had zoomed to 43,082m3  (or roughly 2,300 20ft containers)  by December 2002. A website sponsored in part by China’s Ministry  of Forestry and Agriculture, www.chinawood.org, states that exports of all types of plywood have risen 50% in each year since 1999, a figure that would place today’s okoume exports to Europe at considerably  higher volumes than those cited in the 2004 Commission Regulation report.
Faced with a strengthening  euro, which hit historic highs in 2004 as a result of the US drive to ratchet  up debt loads via war and tax relief, European mills are beginning to variously feel the effects of the rising tide of imports. Their responses range from unconcern  to frustration.
Major  player Finnforest,  for example, is focused on a widely diversified product mix at the high end of the panel market and sees no significant threat coming out of China to its traditional birch or softwood panel business in the EU.
“The quality of Chinese panels can be acceptable but it is inconsistent”, says president of panel products  Kim Poulsen.
Speaking of the industrial and concrete forming panel market, Mr Poulsen notes: “Out of every five or so loads that are produced, anywhere from one to five can have significant problems. 
Beyond that, the pricing levels are ridiculously low. But some of these panels can be used in less demanding  applications. Those panels will take a share at the lower end of the market, but not the higher end where Finnforest is established, such as concrete forming systems which require production to exacting stress, bending, shear, and rupture specifications.”
Yet even Finnforest  has paid the Chinese manufacturers a compliment. The company, notes Mr Poulsen, is performing value-added  work on selected imported Chinese panels for an unidentified European end-user.
Smaller, less diversified firms in Europe are more concerned with Chinese advances than are their larger counterparts. French  panel producer Allin le Vanneau,  for example, has built its repu- tation on the manufacture of high quality products for the building, yachting and acoustic industries. It produces large amounts of okoume and has experienced a significant impact from Chinese imports  of that species in recent years.
“With the low wages they pay their labourers they can market their products with prices at which most Europeans can’t compete. It’s impossible [for smaller European manufacturers] to survive in a situation  like that,” says company president François  Allin.
Yet, like other small and medium-sized firms, Allin is surviving and prospering through innovative product marketing methods  that are driven, in part,  by the very threats that necessitated the innovations in the first place.
Faced with up to 30% of European okoume usage coming out of China, Allin “took  a 90-degree turn in 2003 and put in place a new set of strategies to compete”,  says ceo Mr Allin, who has been the president of the European Federation of the plywood industry as well as a panel manufacturer.
Building on the 2003 acquisition  of Bruynzeel, a move which strengthened Allin’s position  in the high value-added  yachting and acoustic component indus- tries, the French  manufacturer refocused its marketing  to include far more than panel production. Targeting  major building markets in the Netherlands and Belgium, Allin representatives present a ‘package’ of expertise that includes product, application  information, installation  consulting and advice covering critical components such as adhesives, fasteners and coatings. The approach has involved a significant investment by Allin and one which the company’s ceo expects to begin paying off in 2005.
Despite the promise of the high value-added strategy, however, Mr Allin remains worried. “No company can sur- vive on high-end products,” he notes. “Everyone has to have a strong mix of basic products  as a foundation. But that is where we feel most threatened.  No country, no company,  can live on the luxury part of the market alone”.
More than anything else, product mix, value-added  services and simple marketing savvy seem to hold the key to the future for European produc- ers, both large and small, as they come to grips with the traffic jam of Chinese containers rolling down the high- ways of Holland, Germany, and France.
Finnforest’s Mr Poulsen agrees. “For  a number  of years,” he reports  in an English perfected by six years in the United Kingdom,  “Finnforest has transitioned from being a supplier of structural components to being a purveyor of structural designs, application  consulting, and even building-related  software. Our customers are not just buying a panel. They are buying a whole package of skills that gives them the kind of value with which the mere manufacturer of a panel cannot compete.”
Mr Poulsen’s is a strategy that makes sense for the sophisticated, competitive, and highly-differentiated European wood market.
Companies as different as Finnforest and Allin are demonstrating, in their vastly different markets, just how effective such innovations  can be. But China is nothing if not a nation of entrepreneurs  and innovators, bursting with energy and rich in a hope which neither poverty nor govern- ment edict can permanently diminish.
“My cousin hopes to build another plant,” says Pizhou’s Mr Zhang, referring to a possible opportunity for government  assistance to export-oriented operations.  He does not know when that might be. But for the moment his nearly 300 work- ers are very busy. And in China, everyone seems to have a second cousin.

Since the two German companies Holtec and HFHN formed a strategic alliance a few short years ago, they have completed three joint projects in the wood preparation area of panel mills. One of their latest projects involved the supply of what the companies claim is the world’s largest flaker for OSB.
“With the installation of this new OSB flaker a new, important milestone in our short company history was set,” said Wolfgang Holzer, managing director and company founder of HFHN. “When we founded the company in 2001 we had the vision to develop and build large OSB flak- ers. We started with OSB stranders at the mill of one of the west European  pioneers of the OSB industry.”
The company says the new system, con- sisting of a feeding and loading system, as well as modified batch-feeder and flaker type WZU 250 with chip evacuation and sieving, will in future replace the existing type of flaker.
“In close coordination with the client, an individual plant concept was developed for the very confined space available at the site,” said Mr Holzer. The clear requirement  of the customer was for a capacity increase of 100% over the existing machine.”
Mr Holzer said there have not been any single machines on the market which could guarantee a capacity of 40 tonnes (absolutely dry) per hour.
“In addition to a new flaker generation, a new feeding and loading concept was also necessary,” he said. The challenge was accepted jointly by Holtec and HFHN, which last year realised their biggest project to date–a complete logyard for an MDF mill in Russia.
The new system was installed in parallel to the existing line and was started without significant interruption of that line.
The cross-cut logs are fed between the two systems via an adjustable tilting belt. A hydraulically-controlled step feeder transfers the logs in parallel and aligned to the log deck in front of the batch-feeder.
“Holtec delivered the first step feeder to the customer in 1998. The concept and the advantages were convincing,” said Alexander Gebele, managing director of Holtec. “That step feeder will be a core part of the new feeding, too, in order to guaran- tee a high availability of the system.”
A special challenge was the loading of the 2,000mm-wide channel of the batch feeder. In cooperation with HFHN, Holtec developed a solution with a moveable log deck. The companies say this guarantees that the conveyor, with a cross-section of nearly two square metres, is always filled. “This is the most important condition for a continuous achievement of capacity,” said Mr Gebele.
The knife carrier disk, a core part of the machine, was equipped with a special knife system, also developed by HFHN, and the company says the quality of the strands obtained has pleased the customer with a significantly low level of fines and big, plane flakes making for a top board quality.
The batch-feeder was made by HFHN in heavy duty form at the customer’s request. The feeding of the system was effected through a two-stage slider concept.
“This allows a continuous and uninter- rupted chipping,” reported Marcus Weber, sales manager of HFHN.
“The flaker itself convinced because of its basic data: inside diameter of knife-carrier disc 2,500mm, disk width 725mm and driving power of 1,000kW. The system was sup- plied as big units and its total gross weight was approximately  100 tonnes. The large weight invests the system with a capacity for very reliable operation,” said Mr Weber.
The knife carrier disk, the core part of the machine, was equipped with a special knife system, also a further development by HFHN. The customer was convinced of the benefit of this by the quality of the strands, claimed Mr Weber.
The second installation of the new flaker generation is now being made in a new OSB mill in eastern Europe, while Mr Weber said further promising projects are currently being worked on by the two companies.