The International Wood Composite Symposium seems to have made a permanent move to Seattle, Washington from its long-time home at Washington State University in Pullman, Washington. In fact, meeting veterans still refer to it as the 'Pullman meeting'. Attendance stood at 173 and of these, 25% were board manufacturers, 50% suppliers, 20% education and research and 5% associations. Kelly Shotbolt, president and ceo of North America's largest MDF and particleboard producer, keynoted the symposium. Then Steve Zylkowski, director of the quality services division of APA, Tacoma, Washington, said slumping housing demand in the US has created a strong headwind for engineered wood products. He said US residential construction has plunged at a record pace, but commercial building continues to increase. Low-rise non-residential construction continues to be an attractive market for wood products. "Unfortunately, wood framing still represents less than 10% of the total low-rise construction market in North America. Five major North American wood products associations are working to expand that market," he said. He said glulam hit bottom this year, but is starting to climb back, as are I-joists. Mr Zylkowski advised that the following is necessary to get housing starts up again: lower home prices; better liquidity/credit; increasing sales to lower inventory; consumer confidence; and a stable economy. "We have two out of five and that isn't enough," he indicated.He said the housing recession is causing a national recession and the traditional remedy is to use lower rates to spark housing to lead the economy, but this can't happen because of the huge housing inventory. "Housing and wood products will suffer for another year," he warned. Sunil Ramachandra, Armstrong World Industries, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, described his company as a global leader in hard floor coverings, ceilings and cabinets, with annual sales of US$3.4bn. The company is working on computer analysis of wood flooring. His laboratory has developed a 3'4in panel with hardwood MDF core. President Laszlo Döry of the European Panel Federation (EPF) said, "Climate change is one of the most pressing and complex issues facing society today. The countries that have ratified the Kyoto Protocol recognise this and are developing measures to adapt to climate change and also to mitigate its effects. This development opens up new threats, but also new opportunities for the economic value of forests and the environmental value of forest products. As part of the important role that forests can play in providing well-being to citizens, forests and their products can also make an important contribution toward the problem of climate change."  However, the potential benefits of using wood products to reduce carbon dioxide emissions are not recognised by governments, and not well understood by individual consumers, said Mr Döry; forest-based industries need to take a united position if they want to be recognised for their role in the climate change fight. The EU woodworking and furniture industries' production value is e230bn/year, employing 2.3 million workers. The key wood problems are inaccurate forest inventories, small forest owners' reluctance to enter the wood markets and large forest owners' lack of interest in market share, said the speaker. Higher wood prices allow them to earn what they need by cutting less. Policy is directing the long-term price of wood to its energy content, thereby linking it to fossil fuel prices. The challenges are soaring production costs, increased competition for wood raw materials, growth deceleration in the construction sector and increased competition, especially for extra-EU exports. Panel production in Europe is 62% particleboard, 21% MDF, 7% plywood, 6% OSB and 4% hard/softboard. This excludes Russia and Turkey, said Mr Döry. Michael Zimmerman, Sauder Woodworking Co, Archbold, Ohio, described his company as a ready-to-assemble furniture manufacturer and one of the largest users of particleboard and MDF in North America. The furniture is made primarily by laminating paper to particleboard and MDF, cutting to size, edge-banding the appropriate sides and boring the parts. The parts are hand-packed and shipped flat. The company works with 100 different panels. Mr Zimmerman said: "In order to compete in the current furniture market, we need to value-engineer our units to meet all the required specifications and yet hit extremely competitive pricing." Harald Schwab, Wilhelm Klauditz Institute, Braunschweig, Germany, said: "Formaldehyde is a most simple, but highly reactive organic compound. It is a natural trace and an important substance for chemical and technical applications - and for hygiene purposes. It is used for the formulation of wood based panel adhesives."  In 1980 some European countries started with formaldehyde regulations on particleboards. He said emission standards have been tightened since 1984, but do not apply to wood based panels to which no formaldehyde-containing materials are added during production, in production, or in post-production processing. John Bradfield, Composite Panel Association, Gaithersburg, Maryland, said the California Air Resources Board (CARB) restrictions on formaldehyde emissions are now in place and will have a worldwide impact. The current proposal would reduce emission rates by 60 to 85% from the current low levels in two phases - the first on January 1, 2009 and the second on January 1, 2011. "The new limits will create a technical challenge for adhesive producers and their customers in the composite industry. However, the CARB rule will lead to an opportunity to market products where formaldehyde emissions are not an issue. Composites already have one of the greenest wood products stories with their nearly 100% recycled/recovered wood usage rates." The CPA/EPP requirements are the most widely-specified environmental certification programme for composite wood panels in North America. They require using all recycled or recovered wood fibre and formaldehyde emissions which meet CARB phase 1 levels. Frédéric De Champlain, FPInnovations-Division, Forintek, Canada, said, "Formaldehyde is a confirmed human carcinogen and is, among many sources, released from UF-bonded wood composite products used for furniture and structural panels. "Even if the industry has reduced by more than 80% the formaldehyde that emanates from these products since the 1980s, public concerns about air quality in working and living spaces are increasing the need for lower, or zero, formaldehyde emitting products. This has resulted in stricter regulations around the world." In North America, average formaldehyde emissions from panels is 0.15 to 0.20ppm. New standards provide 0.04 to 0.10ppm in off-gassing. A major challenge is not only to produce these low-emitting products, but also to ensure that the sampling and analytical methods are sensitive and reproducible enough at these low levels. He said increased sealing of homes to save heat energy has increased the formaldehyde problem. Mario Colombelli, Duratex SA, Såo Paulo, Brazil, whose 50-year-old firm is building the world's largest MDF plant, said the Brazilian MDF market is experiencing a high growth period. He said this is Brazil's "magic moment", with home construction booming, and that more MDF production is needed. His firm opened its first hardboard line in 1955. It has its own forests. The new mill at Agudos, Såo Paulo is a US$200m project producing 2,300m³ of board daily. Ken Pratt, Olympic Panel Products LLC, Shelton, Washington, said customer needs are more valuable than manufacturing needs. Of sales, he said: "You basically have to be a consultant, not a glorified order taker." Speaking of the value of speciality panels he said you have increased margins, predictable sales volume, partnership loyalty, reduced risks during commodity dips and growth opportunities for both partners. Mr Pratt said: "We have 15 to 20 new ideas in the hopper at any one time. About half come to fruition. About 80 to 90% of the ideas come from our customers." Lacramioara Schulte auf'm Erley, NanoDynamics Life Sciences, Inc, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, described nanotechnology as manipulating matter on the atomic and molecular level to create new materials and processes. She said that it has been too costly to use in many areas, but advances in technology, and new commercial uses for the tiny materials, will allow nanotechnology to become more cost-effective. Durability of wood products refers in part to their resistance to microbial attack. Biological contaminants include bacteria, mould, mildew, fungi and viruses. One technology is based on encapsulation of biocides into the naturally occurring nanotube clays, which allows slow release. Biocides are important agents which could replace copper chrome arsenate treatments. Encapsulated biocides facilitate incorporation of heat labile biocides into wood composite materials, protect and keep biocides dormant until needed, and release them at a controlled rate. The materials can be incorporated into the wood composite materials during the processing, or as finishing. Kai Greten, Fagus-GreCon Greten GmbH & Co KG, Germany, said spark extinguishing systems in mechanical or pneumatic conveying systems are valuable for fire prevention. Sensors can detect sparks and burning embers and automatically extinguish them by water spray or other systems. This can prevent fires or dust explosions further on in the line. The delay between spark detection and extinguishing water flow is 0.2 of a second. "Every spark is dangerous and many disturbances can be traced by the plant operator at any time, due to a millisecond-accurate data recording of the sensor." Hauke Kleinschmidt, Electronic Wood Systems GmbH, Germany, explained on-line measuring systems. He said extended press length and market growth for thin panels has created significant production line speed increases, up to 6.5ft/sec. He credits improved drying, forming, pressing and handling equipment. He explained that minimum density variations during mat forming are necessary to optimise production speed. Thickness data collection in the press exit area must follow high panel speed, simultaneously with blow detection. He said traditional measuring equipment uses gaps between the boards for calibration. "New solutions must calibrate on-line instruments where little or no gaps exist, due to the high production speed. "The increased production speeds make it difficult to obtain panel weight because the time for weighing it is not long enough, or there is simply not enough space to install a mechanical scale between the cross-cut saw and star cooler," Mr Kleinschmidt concluded. Jamie Hague, CSIRO, Clayton, Victoria, Australia, said: "The Australian forest industry generated sales of $14.1bn in 1999-2000, accounting for 7.5% of Australia's manufacturing industry and 1% of GDP". There are currently 1.7m ha of industrial plantations established in Australia. Of these, one million ha are softwood. There are 164 million ha of native forest covering 21% of the continent. Just 1% is logged commercially. Australia's wood production has been unable to meet consumer demand. "The Australasian panels industry has considerable experience in addressing formaldehyde emission issues. It is possible to achieve required emission levels with amino plastics without incurring prohibitive costs. MDF has proved to be relatively straightforward. Particleboard presents greater challenges of furnish pH, new catalysts and resin spread," he concluded. Bruce Broline, Arclin, Springfield, Oregon, said: "Amino resins are the most widely-used adhesives in the forest products industry. Despite the importance of these resins, some of the frequently used methods of determining free formaldehyde give erroneously high values when time dependency is not taken into account. "Quantification of formaldehyde in amino resins is a non-trivial exercise". Björn Engström, Casco Adhesives, Sweden, presented thoughts on NIR spectroscopy for formaldehyde emission measurements. He said laboratory results were encouraging and demonstrated the possibility of formaldehyde emission measurement in just seconds. He reported that an NIR probe has been developed and a full scale installation has shown good results in comparing calibration of NIR with measured formaldehyde emissions. However, the ability of calibration models to compensate for process drift is still not satisfactory. Anke Schirp, Fraunhofer Institute for Wood Research, Braunschweig, Germany, said his group is researching lightweight particleboards for the furniture industry, varying from 300kg/m3 to 500kg/m3. The first project uses annual and perennial plants such as hemp, sunflower, topinambur, maize and miscanthus. The light parenchyma cells are particularly suited. The experiment used different conventional and natural adhesives such as urea or tannin-formaldehyde resin and PMDI. Board properties were compared with reference particleboards made from wood. A second project, funded by the German Ministry for Education and Research, developed a lightweight particleboard based on foamed adhesives. This included foaming urea formaldehyde adhesive using air and surfactants; mixing expandable, gas-filled microspheres and polystyrene into UF adhesive; and using formaldehyde-free foam-generating polyurethane adhesives. Chris J Watt, Columbia Forest Products, Bellingham, Washington recounted that in 2003 Columbia Forest Products, after using traditional UF glue for 40 years, embarked on a project to use a soy protein-based adhesive using cationic amine polymer-epichlorohydrin as a fortifier. This produced a novel adhesive with superior durability and lower overall cost. The UF adhesive within Columbia's hardwood plywood operations contributed to plant emissions and limited durability and did not fit with Columbia's moves towards sustainable products. Mill conversion took three years, starting in 2005. It involved retro-fitting glue lofts with new high-shear mixers and glue pumps. The exercise of implementing the new technology now acts as a model for further company innovation.

Today ZOW is synonymous with a new, more efficient business meeting and is well known as a trend-setting platform for communications through its innovative 'workshop' concept. Strong demand is driving the need to provide more exhibition space at Bad Salzuflen. Hall 23.1, which is the ground floor of Hall 23, will be used for the first time this year. This means that visitors will now circulate in a closed loop inside Halls 20-23. The south entrance, which is right next to the new parking lot P2 at the B239 highway, will be modified and there will be direct access to Hall 20. Including Hall 23.1, the total space available at ZOW has now increased to 45,000m². By consolidating the Architecture Lounge, the E3S European Solid Surface Show and M Technology Award exhibition in close proximity to each other at ZOW 2008, organiser Survey GmbH has created a concentrated area specially to attract architects and trade visitors. Because E3S is focused on the commercial sector, placement of the exhibition next to the Architect's Lounge is considered ideal, because the target group for E3S exhibitors will be located right next door. In parallel, the M Technology Award exhibition will provide an overview of the top innovative products of the sector. The competition is open to exhibitors and non-exhibitors. Survey has seized the initiative to offer logistics suppliers the opportunity to also exhibit at the show. It will be their first chance to make contact with customers from the furniture industry at an established trade fair platform. The organisers will also actively support ZOW exhibitors if potential cases of product piracy are identified. In the run-up to the show, exhibitors are being notified about the European law and jurisdiction concerning intellectual property. Market researchers say that women control or influence more than 85% of all consumer purchases and that purchases by women total trillions of dollars annually. In the furniture industry, analysts indicate that 53% of adults planning to purchase furniture are women. The woman is the key in selling home furnishings. She makes the ultimate buying decision. She chooses the colour, texture, scale, comfort level and furniture finish. She also normally decides how furniture purchases will be placed in her home. With this in mind Decotec Printing SA called on four renowned women from different countries with significant expertise in design to create a collection of decors for printed decorative paper. These 12 decors form part of Decotec's Woman Power Collection and will be presented at ZOW. The designers taking part in this project are Conchine Terranegra (Jordi Vidal & Asociados, Valencia, Spain), Sung Sook Kim (BBCK Studio, Milan, Italy), Athina Peletidou (COR3 Creative Works, Thessaloniki, Greece), and Eviete Dacol (Inove Design, Curitiba, Brazil). Working on these collections resulted in an exciting inter-cultural experience, said Decotec. Wood based product manufacturer Egger will be exhibiting decors under the tag line "neutrality and vitality". Numerous new decors will be shown which are said to breath life into designs either alone or in combination with other Wood, Uni or Fantasy decors. One of the most striking things with the Uni colours is the use of mother-of-pearl, which gives a greater impression of depth and brilliance, creating a very high-quality appearance, says Egger. DTS-Systemoberflächen GmbH has been processing decor papers using the electron beam process for more than 10 years and is considered one of the market leaders in the production of this material, sold under the brand name 'Elesgo'. The product, which will be shown at ZOW, is supplied in rolls and depending on the quality required can be processed on all conventional coating lines with various glue systems. Elesgo surfaces are mainly employed in laminate flooring, wall and ceiling panels, furniture surfaces, interior doors and door frames and kitchen worktops. Wilhelm Taubert, owner and managing director of DTS, has been engaged in the innovative technology of electron beam cross-linkage since the 1970s and is a recognised expert in the field of electron beam curing of acrylate resins. One special feature of the patented DTS method is that the papers used are first impregnated with acrylate and polyester resins in the company's own impregnating lines. According to Decorative Panels Ltd's design chief Julian Tatham there is a trend towards darker, richer foils - and, he says, many will be shown at ZOW. But lighter foils, he says, still remain popular in some sectors, particularly in civic, commercial and corporate environments, as well as for limited spaces like boats and caravans. But the trend towards the richer tones of traditional dark woods, like walnut and oak, in the consumer home environment looks strong for 2008. Exotic new fruit woodgrains like plum bring subtle cuts and effects to decors - Wallis Plus is one of Decorative Panels' latest foil introductions. And new technologies, such as laser engraving of printing cylinders, is taking quality and detail in printing and reproduction to another plateau, says Mr Tatham. Powder coating on metallic substrates has shown a tremendous growth in the last 40 years. On substrates which are sensitive to thermal impacts, like MDF, the technique is about 10 years old and it has only been two years since the industry seriously focused on this new innovative technology for surfacing panels. iCoat Group Holding GmbH, a young start-up company, has designed and erected a special powder coating line simply for coating MDF. The experience of 20 years of sister companies within the group was utilised in the construction. The line has been in full operation for six months and now coating is being done on various substrates (MDF, light weight boards, some solid woods) as well as in different textures (micro structure and smooth design). iCoat is offering the ready-made furniture piece, including the MDF, machining, drilling and sanding, details of which will be explained on the company's stand. "The powder coat does have some outstanding features compared to other foil or wet-lacquering systems," said Peter Hauer, managing director of iCoat. "It is mainly green, with no solvents, and up to 95% of the powder is used. BLP UK Ltd is constantly working with foil producers to develop new ideas for its cabinet doors and this year at ZOW it plans to inspire visitors, said Barry Berman, sales and marketing director for BLP. "We will demonstrate a number of door designs in new and innovative foils which show BLP's capabilities both from the UK and China factories. "With the recently opened 60,000m² door factory in Suzhou, China combined with the existing 25,000m² factory in the UK, BLP will have lots to talk about." Pennacchioni SpA produces postforming and preforming semi-finished furniture and will be exhibiting examples of its products. The company supplies a wide range of different items and finishes: worktops, panel doors, plywood or MDF, covered with HPL or melamine, and cut to size and edge-banded according to customers' drawings and models. Products are aimed at furniture manufacturers of kitchens, bathrooms, offices, bedrooms, shops and interior design. Riken will be exhibiting its specially-developed new metallic gloss finishes, as well as introducing gloss-matt printed foils which give the appearance of a surface texture synchronised to the wood grain. The company will also display its most recent updated colours within its long-established high quality gloss range, both in PVC and PVC-free materials. The gloss colours shown will centre on a strong trend of black and match-to-black. The hardware and hinge specialist Hetal-Werke GmbH will be presenting a product innovation designed to complement any kitchen design. The flap fitting KB-35-D allows wall-mounted kitchen flaps to be swivelled up out of the way of the cabinet itself, above the top of cornices, pelmets and attached lights. The fittings also afford convenient access to the storage space, as the flap swivels upwards out of the work area. Furnco AB is based in Sweden, with production facilities in China for the manufacture of electronic low voltage converters, halogen lighting, fluorescent lighting and LED lighting fixtures, aimed primarily at European manufacturers of kitchens and bathrooms. A selection from the product range will be on display. Sandvik Hindrichs-Auffermann, the producer of press plates and endless press belts for the laminating and wood based panel industries, will welcome all visitors to its booth. The company's textures are mostly developed in close cooperation with its customers and their needs. Finally we offer congratulations to Agoform GmbH, one of the main leaders in vacuum forming products. The company will be celebrating 80 years in the business and what better place to do it than at ZOW, Bad Salzuflen. Agoform is selling in more than 60 countries worldwide and is a competitive partner for the kitchen, furniture, decorative and automotive industries.

The main chemical components of wood are the polymers cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin and the extractives.   The extractives are normally a minor component but tend to determine the characteristics of wood in terms of colour, smell and bio-resistance. Wood has many different extractives so they are often classified by how they are extracted. Common solvents include water, ethanol and ether. Each extracts different groups of components.   An example of commercial use of extractives is turpentine, made by steam distillation of resins collected from wounded trees.   Pure cellulose is made of glucose. More accurately, cellulose is a linear polymer of cello-biose units and cello-biose is two glucose molecules joined 'end to end'. Consequently, the two ends of the cello-biose units have different chemical properties and this is true of cellulose too, because of the repetition of cello-biose units throughout its length. The number of cello-biose units found in a cellulose molecule varies between species.   Hemicellulose is also made from sugar molecules and so is a polysaccharide, like cellulose, but the hemicelluloses are more complex because they consist of different sugars and often have a branched structure. The hemicelluloses of softwoods tend to have higher proportions of mannose and galactose, which are hexoses, ie sugars with six carbon atoms, than hardwoods. Hardwoods have more xylose, which is a pentose.   Lignin too is a complex polymer made of three basic units which can join together in a variety of ways leading to the complexity of lignin. The resultant macromolecule is a high-strength 3-D amorphous polymer. Lignin in the cell walls of woody plants allows them to grow high and support branches. It is also responsible for the gradual discolouration of wood in sunlight. Thus lignin must be removed during the manufacture of paper for books.   This simple introduction to wood's chemical components shows its complexity and helps to explain its variety and why it is not like other materials.  

Green River Panels (Thailand) Co Ltd, part of the Green River Wood and Lumber Group, is a new venture for its long-established parent company, which has always specialised in furniture production for the mid- to high-end market.   The group has furniture production facilities in Malaysia, Vietnam and China and also has some sawmilling operations in Malaysia and Thailand.   One of these sawmills, built on a Greenfield site in 2001, is located in Bangklum, near Hat Yai in the south of Thailand, and is one of five mills owned by the company within a 60km radius of Bangklum.   I know what you are thinking: Five sawmills, lots of residues, ideal for a particleboard line. That is exactly what Green River thought, too, placing a contract in May 2006 with Dieffenbacher for all equipment from the forming line to the star cooler, including a CPS continuous press.   As we learnt from last year's article (WBPI issue 1, 2007, p32), groundworks began in October 2006.   I returned to Green River in early December 2007 to find the last frantic preparations - necessary in every mill as it nears completion - for start-up at the end of that month. I subsequently heard that the first board was produced on December 19 and that the company planned commercial production before the end of February 2008.   "The buildings were roofed by mid-2007 and the first machinery arrived in early March, with installation of the main components of the line in May," said Hubert Hsieh, the man with responsibility for the particleboard project.   First to be installed was the Büttner drum dryer, followed by the 29MW energy plant from a Chinese supplier. Next came the continuous press from Dieffenbacher, which is destined to produce around 150,000m³ of panels per year.   "Maybe we will add a boiler at a later date - perhaps next year - to generate electricity and provide steam for the lumber drying kilns of our sawmill next door," said Mr Hsieh.   The press installation was completed in August last year and was due to complete testing in mid-December, together with the thermal oil heating system.   The sanding line was due on stream in January and comprises an Imeas six-head machine with the option of a further four heads - two each for calibration and finishing.   The trimming and splitting saw was supplied by a Chinese manufacturer but an angular saw system is under consideration for the end of this year.   "If all goes according to plan, we could increase this mill's capacity to 200,000m³ and an area of the site is set aside for this possible expansion," said Mr Hsieh.   The wood supply for the mill will come from two sources: slabs, offcuts and other residues from the company's own sawmills; and in the form of rubberwood from plantations in the area. The sawmills also process rubberwood, producing lumber for furniture manufacture.   "We also have a finger-jointing factory three kilometres from here and will utilise wood from there too. Thus the group will be utilising the whole tree with nothing wasted," pointed out Mr Hsieh. "As a group we concentrate on rubberwood solutions in Thailand."   The company plans to supply some of its particleboard production to its own group furniture factories in Malaysia, Vietnam and China. For the rest, it will look to export panels, notably to Taiwan where the majority of the group's management comes from and where the group is headquartered.   Exports will go through Penang Port in Malaysia for container shipment, as the factory is close to the Malaysian border, and also through Songkhla port, 50km away in Thailand.   Rail transport will be used to ship the containers to Penang from the border station of Padan Besah.   "This particleboard mill is a pilot project for the whole group, which has previously concentrated only on furniture," said Mr Hsieh. "If it is successful, maybe we will build other mills in other countries."   Unfortunately for Green River and the other particleboard producers in this part of Thailand (including Panel Plus and SPB), the market has been dire for most of 2007, lamented Mr Hsieh. "The market in South East Asia is the worst - worse than China which achieves prices about US$50 per m³ higher than here. Europe also achieves about US$30 more than we can.   "That is a challenge for a new factory like ours, exacerbated by the increased supply of particleboard in Thailand in recent years. Costs also continue to rise and the gap between particleboard and MDF prices has about tripled in the last three years," he said, echoing the comments of all producers in the region.   Reduced supply of plywood from Indonesia due to logging restrictions has benefited MDF, but not particleboard.   The Green River Panels particleboard project has been a steep learning curve for a company building its first-ever panel production line. Although expert in furniture manufacture and sawmilling, there was no inhouse expertise in panel production of any kind.   The company did, however, retain the services of a German engineer with considerable experience in building particleboard mills - Herbert Hermann Karl Fahlbusch - as the project manager.   Hubert Hsieh has overall responsibility for bringing the project in on time and on budget and, by the look of things in early December, he had a good chance of doing just that.  

Luxurious Palm Springs, California, and its Hyatt Grand Champions resort at Indian Wells, was the venue where nearly 400 members and suppliers assembled for APA's 70th annual meeting. During his chairman's address, Jonathan Martin, Roy O Martin Lumber Co, Alexandria, Louisiana, spoke frankly: "It's been a difficult year for residential construction with both demand and markets down. But our association is financially strong. We have excellent staff and an excellent strategic plan. We are prepared for contingencies and we have a strong leadership. I like our chances going forward." Richard Huff, vice president and general manager of Tolko Industries Ltd, Vernon, British Columbia is new chairman and Jim Enright, president, Standard Structures, Inc, Windsor, California, is new vice-chairman. Mr Martin announced Thomas Maloney as recipient of the Bronson J Lewis award. Dr Maloney is director emeritus of the Wood Materials and Engineering Laboratory at Washington State University, Pullman, Washington. He also founded the International Wood Composites Symposium, now held in Seattle, Washington. The panel industry's problems are rather longer term, a result of the economy getting out of kilter, a consequent dearth of credit, a surplus of unsold homes, a weak US Dollar. All these have magnified other problems resulting in weakening panel markets and consequent lower profit margins. David Lereah, executive vice president of Move, Inc, Westlake Village, California, forecast it all during his 2005 APA meeting appearance citing danger signs of a tiring market including stretching credit, rising mortgage rates, dropping home affordability, rising inventories, lengthening days on market and more speculation. He returned last November and outlined the present problems, explaining the geography. "All real estate is local. Real estate expansion started in 1991. Immigrants started buying homes in a big way. The industry had a mortgage product for whatever anyone wanted. Real estate expanded. Everyone turned to real estate, which was a safe haven. It didn't work that way. So many loans were made with nothing. So we have a real mess today. This is the worst. Home sales are down 35% now. It's the 'Dot com' of real estate." In the last few years of the boom, customers were purchasing for short term. "If you want short-term, you should be in the stock market, not the real estate market," he advised. Mr Lereah said 40% of all home sales in 2005 and 2006 were second homes. "Risky," he declared. He said real estate is a good, but cyclical, investment. He tempered his dire report by adding the fact that home prices increased tenfold over 38 years. He predicted a 10% drop, compared with a 33% climb during the boom. And it all affects the wood products market. "If we know how we got here, maybe we can get some sense of how we're going to get out of this thing," he said. "The inventory must come down," he said of the present excess housing supply. He said the speculators are out of the market. "That's good news, but they're coming back in to bottom-fish." He observed that construction jobs fell, but seemed to be turning around recently. He said the economics are improving, but consumers lack confidence. "The level is way down, off the charts. Every consumer has the expectation that prices will continue to drop." Mr Lereah ranked the state of California as leading in mortgage foreclosures and said that state will take the longest to correct the market (into 2009), with Florida next. The real estate recession in 2008 will be worst in California, Florida, District of Columbia, Las Vegas and Phoenix in Arizona and some metropolitan areas in the East and Midwest. He predicted an upswing in most parts of the country in the first quarter of this year. "When the market does come back, I expect it to jump a level in activity," he added. APA president Dennis Hardman agreed with the market description. "It's been a bad year," he said frankly. "You, through your association, have laid a strong foundation for better times to come." He reported that industry non-residential construction and Gulf Coast rebuilding programmes are moving forward under the auspices of the Wood Products Council and he praised the Engineered Wood Technology Association (EWTA), APA's related supplier organisation, as "a valuable asset for industry networking and information transfer". Earl Phillips, phenolic resins technology manager, Hexion Specialty Chemicals, Inc, said the main focus in air quality in resins has been on public buildings, with the next targets to be private homes and structural products. He warned: "A freight train is coming your way. Every living thing gives off formaldehyde. The pressure coming is based on emotion, not fact". He said resin prices have increased 215%, but the increase is less than that of wood raw material. He said consistency might be an issue with bio-based adhesives. Ward Hubbell, executive director of Green Building Initiative, outlined activities of his association: promoting credible building practices; wood promotion network; expanding National Association of Home Builders partnership; education; and third party research. Mary Jo Nyblad, Boise Cascade LLC, further explained the importance of the state of California to the US wood products market. She said the state has a US$1.5 trillion economy which would rank 8th in the world's country rankings. One in eight Americans lives there. She said California's home price now exceeds median income by ten times, while the rest of the country is 4.5. The average housing demand is 240,000 units. She said that the California Building Standards Commission is to adopt the green building programme. Ed Elias, APA, reported that the significantly weakened US dollar makes a better market for importers of US goods. APA's Tom Williamson posed some problems in wood design, saying: "Steel is easy. Wood is complicated". He said software for wood design is fragmented and component-based and designers make more from designing with steel than with wood. Continuing in that vein, Mark Halvorsen, APA, told members: "Process designers and product engineers, take note: engineered wood panels deliver increased value, better durability and long-term performance". He stressed some other pluses: strength and stiffness; dimensional stability and flatness; surface texture; workability; relative lightness in weight; lower formaldehyde emissions; environmental friendliness; durability; unique features; and surface durability. Marilyn LeMoine, APA, reported that the organisation has published 402 titles and distributed 475,000 in the first nine months of last year. Building professionals downloaded 60%. "If only 1,000 of the projects were built, it would result in using one million ft², 3'8in basis, of plywood," she conjectured. Craig Adair, APA, said reducing home inventory is the key to market recovery. His five-year forecast calls for a small improvement in 2008 and 2009 and a return to the 3% improvement range in 2010. He said demand for housing should be greater in the 2006-2015 decade. He described the recent housing boom as "too much, too fast". He predicted that plywood imports to the US will increase and total OSB exports from Canada and the US will increase substantially throughout 2008. He forecast structural panel growth with further opportunities. Mr Adair said converting concrete floors to wood would be a 2.6 billion board foot opportunity for lumber and a three billion ft2 opportunity for structural panels. "The stakes are high," he declared. He noted that the total share of wood based construction hasn't changed much since 2000, adding that plywood production is expected to decline from 2007 to 2012. An OSB forecast taking advantage of a predicted housing resurgence would be expected to increase from 2007's 24 billion ft² to 28.6 billion ft² by 2012. He had hopes for a glulam rebound after it suffered from the housing drop. LVL was also a victim, but he thought LVL would increase after 2008. Mr Adair concluded on a medium-sized high note: "We don't see a recession". Jim Bowyer, Bowyer and Associates, Inc, Minneapolis, Minnesota and professor emeritus, University of Minnesota, reported that global energy consumption is rising and US energy use per capita continues to rise. He said China exported petroleum in 1993, but is now a major importer. India is perhaps seven to 10 years behind in energy consumption. He sees a peak in world petroleum consumption in 2010-2020. The US Department of Energy predicts 2037. Dr Bowyer declared: "The US is not prepared for what is coming". Coal still provides 21% of today's energy needs. Gasoline uses more energy to produce than we get out of it, he said. He explained that less than half of a barrel of oil goes into making gasoline. Other products, such as resins, use the rest. "It's possible to make all of these materials from biomass. Interest in biomass energy is higher than it has ever been. Potential suppliers of biomass are large," he concluded. A record of 70 exhibitors showed and discussed their machinery and supplies with members during several periods set aside for the activities. The Engineered Wood Technology Association sponsors the Info Fair. Raute, Willamette Valley Company, and Coe Newnes McGehee shared awards for seniority. Each has exhibited at 15 annual meetings. Eighteen awards in the all-important safety category were handed out during a special banquet, with LP taking home six; Weyerhaeuser Company five; Georgia-Pacific Wood Products three; PlyVeneer Products two; and Norbord, Inc, and Boise Cascade, one each. Eleven of the 16 winning mills had zero accident incidence rates. APA's 2008 annual meeting is scheduled for September 21-23 at the Ritz-Carlton, Lake Las Vegas, Henderson, Nevada.

As I write this column in late January, the world's stock markets are in sharp decline and the R-word, for 'Recession', seems to be in every news bulletin.
Companies are revising their forecasts downward for 2008 across Europe, and elsewhere, as the problems in the US economy apparently drive sentiment in the rest of the world. As you would expect, the North American OSB industry is suffering badly as the US housing market stalls and this has had a knock-on effect on the European producers in the second half of 2007 - a year which started with such promise.
Expansion plans in the US and Canadian OSB industry are mostly, though not entirely, being put on hold or cancelled and mills are being closed or production suspended, while in Europe some major mills are taking extra downtime to try and match supply with demand. The producers will all be hoping for some upturn when the better weather comes in the spring. On a brighter note, APA-The Engineered Wood Association, is making upbeat forecasts for OSB in the years ahead (see p50). South America, on the other hand, is showing considerable activity in the OSB sector now, with takeovers and mergers - and new mills going up. The producers are also finding markets outside their traditionally strong customer base in the US (see OSB, pp14-25 for our full survey of the world's producers and markets). In fact, South America is the hot topic in this issue of WBPI as in January, as we went to press, Sonae announced that Chile's Masisa had bought Brascan's shareholding in Tafibras, in which Sonae has shares (news, p12). I have a feeling that this may be just the beginning of a round of consolidation among panel makers in various parts of the world in 2008 - and maybe among machinery makers as well. In the last issue of 2007, we reported that Siempelkamp had acquired the press business of Metso Panelboard and in this issue we find that Dieffenbacher has purchased Metso's forming, drying, sifting and handling businesses (news p5). That leaves Metso with only its refining activities. It also left us with only two suppliers of continuous presses. Or did it? Shanghai Wood Based Panel Machinery Co Ltd (SWPM for short) has started up its first continuous press at its owner, Kronospan's, mill in Slovakia. That is a development that I am sure will be watched with great interest by the global industry. With the annual round of exhibitions and conferences kicking off, I look forward to seeing you at 2008's events around the world.

We have charted the story of a massive panel production complex in Hat Yai, southern Thailand, for about the last 11 years - most of which have been turbulent. However, as we reported in WBPI issues 1, 2005 and 1, 2007, recent years have seen a revival of a large part of the site under two new owners. Just to recap briefly, that original complex was conceived by STA in the mid-1990s but soon ran into severe financial difficulties. In February 2004, MP Particleboard of Thailand and Evergreen Group of Malaysia jointly purchased a large part of the assets from the receivers of STA Group. The two Siempelkamp ContiRoll continuous particleboard lines were taken on by MP, since renamed Panel Plus, while the two similarly equipped MDF lines were taken on by Evergreen Group under the new name of Siam Fibreboard. All four lines were in need of extensive refurbishment and upgrading after years of either little, or no, usage and are now running very successfully. The ceo of Evergreen Group, JC Kuo, having invested a lot of time and money in raising his two MDF lines to world-class performance, then set about planning the future for Siam Fibreboard. One of the first things he did was to order a third continuous MDF line to be constructed on 30 acres of additional land adjacent to his existing factory. The land was again purchased from the STA receivers. At the time of my visit in early December 2007, ground works were well under way and Mr Kuo was busy sourcing steel frame elements from wherever they could be had in a very tight world steel market. The new production line was on order, with Dieffenbacher being chosen for the supply of the 8ftx28m continuous press line. The contracts were signed with the supplier in April 2007 and the machinery is due on site in May 2008. "This will be the longest press we will have in the Group and will thus be versatile," said Mr Kuo. "We will be able to produce thicknesses from less than 2.5mm to 30mm because of the versatility of this press." Contracts were also signed in May 2007 with Andritz for the refiner and GTS for the energy plant. Mr Kuo admitted that the delivery times for the machinery had gone against him since his original planned start-up time, due to the general boom in the machinery market since that time. His intention is to start up the new line in the fourth quarter of 2008 and I have not known Mr Kuo's many projects to run late up to now. Anticipated capacity is around 750m3/day or 270,000m3/year. "Maybe more," said Mr Kuo intriguingly. Siam has also bought a short-cycle press secondhand from a Panel Plus facility in Bangkok. Mr Kuo intended to have that Wemhöner line in operation by about June this year. The investment in major machinery for the third line is in the order of RM120m (US$37m) and has been funded entirely by the existing two MDF lines at Hat Yai. The new office building, under construction at the time of my visit last year, was in full use and features an ingeniously-designed water garden in an unroofed space between the new office building and the factory itself. However, this new development, impressive as it is, is dwarfed by Siam's latest construction - the buildings to house a new electricity generating plant. It was the need for this facility which led Mr Kuo to put back his planned start-up date for the third MDF line from end-2006, thus unfortunately incurring the further delays already mentioned. The massive generating plant was undergoing tests last December in preparation for full start-up in early 2008. With the original purchase of the two MDF lines came one electricity substation from the original STA set-up. This has been shared with Panel Plus since the two companies entered their joint venture, but Siam's third MDF line would have taken demand right up to 100% capacity on that one substation - obviously not a viable situation. "So we decided to build our own generating plant," said Mr Kuo. "We purchased it from a Chinese specialist manufacturer of such equipment almost as a turnkey contract, except for the buildings and their foundations." The Siam site is adjacent to a river and the area has suffered from flooding in the past so the land is not ideal for heavy construction. For this reason, Siam had to sink over 700 piles up to 8-12m deep to ensure a safe basis for the plant. The land level also had to be raised before construction could begin as there is a significant fall towards the river. The main generator building housing the three turbines is almost 30m high. Electricity generation will be carried out by a biomass steam turbine using wood waste but also designed to take up to 50% coal as fuel. "We intend to use mainly wood as it is cheaper but we could import coal from Indonesia," said Mr Kuo. "The capacity of the plant is sufficient for the two existing MDF lines, plus some spare capacity. However, we plan to expand the capacity in about a year's time to supply the third line as well - this extra capacity has already been designed into the plant." Siam has a team of experienced specialists from China to cover the development of the plant and has employed the services of Mr Lee Kwok Choy, formerly of Guthrie MDF of Malaysia, to oversee the project. Cooling water for the electricity plant is taken from the river where Siam has constructed a pump room on the river's edge. This was considerably complicated by the fact that it had to be specially designed to cope with a 10m seasonal rise and fall in the river level. That water is then filtered in a special filtration plant and treated by reverse osmosis to supply the boilers and the cooling towers. These boilers will also supply steam to the MDF refiners and the flue gas from the generation plant will not go to waste either. The plant will produce 20 tonnes of clinker per day and options for utilising that in a profitable way on site were under consideration at the time of my visit. These included making building bricks but that had yet to be tested. Another major, though invisible, change at Hat Yai is the fact that Evergreen bought out Panel Plus' shares in Siam Fibreboard Co Ltd in September 2007, thus ending the joint venture arrangement under which the two MDF and two particleboard lines were bought from the STA receivers. Meanwhile, the Evergreen group has not been idle back where it started, in Malaysia. A new resin plant at the Batu Pahat MDF factory will supply all resin types for panel making and lamination to group MDF lines in Batu Pahat and Johor Bahru, as well as to the Allgreen particleboard plant in Segamat. The resin plant has an annual capacity of 60,000 tonnes of formaldehyde and 8,000 tonnes per month of resins. It was designed by Cal Polymers and built by specialist sub-contractors, while Cal provided drawings, key components and an overseeing role for the construction. The plant is due in full production by May 2008 and represents an investment of around US$6.5-7.0m. Mr JC Kuo is something of a visionary in the SE Asia panel business and always seems to have further plans for expansion of panel capacity on top of his operations in Indonesia (see p27), Malaysia and Thailand, or for increasing the efficiency of his operations by projects such as the electricity plant. It is this kind of entrepreneurial activity that got him listed in a group of the top 200 companies in the Asia Pacific region in Forbes Asia magazine in 2007; he fully intends to be at the award ceremony in 2008 as well.

Founded in 1988 by Tan Sri Datuk Tiong Hiew King, Subur Tiasa Holdings began by making veneer and plywood. Over the years, the group diversified into logging, particleboard manufacture, sawn timber processing and finger-jointing. A few years ago, the company went into reforestation and oil palm plantations. Although Subur Tiasa Holdings Berhad is one of those operations started by Rimbunan Hijau in 1988, it has been a publicly-listed company in its own right since 1997. The subject of this article is the particleboard factory at Sibu, Sarawak, which went into commercial production in 1995, producing both raw board and melamine faced panels as Subur Tiasa Particleboard Sdn Bhd. The raw material for this mill is recycled residues from sawmills located along the Rejang River in Sarawak, East Malaysia - the longest river in Malaysia. Sarawak shares the island of Borneo with its sister state Sabah and the independent state of Brunei, all being located in the northern third or so of the island while the remaining area forms the large Indonesian-ruled state of Kalimantan. There are a lot of sawmills along the river, together with a number of settlements which all grew up there to take advantage of the water supply and transport system offered by the Rejang, which remains the principle means of transport for these scattered communities. Subur Tiasa also has its own sawmill converting meranti, keruing, kapur and agathis into products sold mainly to the Asia Pacific and Middle East regions. Offcuts from the sawn timber are recovered to produce mouldings, which are primarily exported to the Asia Pacific, as is the particleboard production. Subur Tiasa says it has successfully converted 1.5 million tons of wood waste into commercial products such as particleboard, earning foreign exchange income for Malaysia and providing job opportunities and training for its citizens. The complete particleboard production line was designed and supplied by German company Bison, which later went into liquidation. As was common practice in those days, the line was supplied as a turnkey contract, complete and ready to run. "The mill was built to utilise the residues from sawmills, which would otherwise have continued to be burnt or discarded," explained manufacturing manager Wong Sie Kwong, who likes to be known as SK Wong for simplicity. "This also helps to conserve the forest because if we did not utilise the residues we would have to cut more trees to make construction materials for use in place of particleboard." The mill utilises mixed tropical hardwoods in the form of sawmill slabs and offcuts, log ends, peeler cores, veneer waste, shavings, plywood edge-trim and a small quantity of sawdust. In the logyard, the company maintains a covering of wood on the ground to avoid grit contamination of the wood supply. There are two Pallmann primary chippers - a PHT 500x850 and a PHT 300x550. The same company also supplied the three flakers and the hammermill. Total capacity is 5,000kg bone dry per hour per flaker, while the hammermill can process 6,000kg/hour. The Bison drum dryer has a capacity of 13,000kg/hour. Screening is carried out to produce surface layer material, core layer, dust and oversize for re-processing in the Pallmann refiner for surface layer material. "We have three filter systems - one for the sanding dust, one for the screening after the dryer and one for the reject material and sizing saw. This helps us to protect the environment," said Mr Wong. The dust, together with any other wood waste, is burnt in the energy plant, supplied by IMW of Germany. This energy plant has been modified and equipped with improved controls. When making thin particleboard, sander dust is sufficient to feed the plant, but when thicker panels are being made, chips may have to be added to the fuel mix as there is less sanding dust produced. "Chips also produce a stable flame in this energy plant," said Mr Wong. The surface and core layers are blended separately with the urea formaldehyde (UF) or melamine urea formaldehyde (MUF) resin in a Bison-supplied system. Mat forming is also by Bison and this is followed by a DeMets pre-press. The company fitted a specially designed surface to the pre-press belt, which was developed inhouse, to overcome some problems with the mat sticking to it and Mr Wong said this had worked perfectly in overcoming this problem. A PVC belt conveys the mat to the hot press, a system which involves a total of four belts, all perfectly synchronised, while a Teflon-coated 'bridge' carries the mat over the gap between the PVC belt and the stainless steel belt which transports the mat into the main press. The Dieffenbacher single-opening hot press is 72x8ft (Bison did not make a press of this kind). The line is currently running at around 420m³/day, or 130,000m³/year, on a mix of thicknesses and the press controls are the original, fully-automated synoptic systems which Mr Wong said enables the factory to produce a good uniform thickness of panels. After the press and before the star cooler, panels are cut to around 8x24ft by a Kontra flying cross-cut saw and after cooling they pass to a Bison six-head sander, where visual inspection of both panel surfaces is carried out. About 95% of production is exported, within Asia, via the Rejang River and Tanjung Manis port at the mouth of the river, where the packs are trans-shipped. Subur Tiasa has a Dieffenbacher 4x16ft short-cycle melamine-facing line to produce melamine-faced panels to order. The mill has a Holzma HPL 11 hand-fed sawing system which offers a cut-to-size service - at the right price of course. For the year ended July 31, 2006, the Subur Tiasa Holdings group recorded revenue of RM508.4m, down 5% on the previous year, reflecting lower log sales volumes. Profit after tax stood at RM74.2m. This year, particleboard prices have been poor in the region and all manufacturers have suffered a decrease in profitability, aggravated of course by the increase in costs such as resin, freight, energy and the weakened US dollar. A sister company, Subur Tiasa Forestry Sdn Bhd is a pioneer in reforestation in Sarawak. In partnership with RH Group it is investing in rehabilitating and reforesting a sizeable area of land over the next 15 years to ensure a sustainable wood supply for downstream processing "at a very competitive cost". Selected indigenous species are being planted and fast-growing exotic species are planted for areas designated for Industrial Tree Planting. Island corridor planting is practised to reduce environmental impact and to preserve biodiversity, says the company, while extensive research is being carried out to ensure proper conservation of its forests. This planting is important given the rising demand for wood, while sustainable forestry management practices ensure ongoing replenishment of wood resources and continuous wood supply. Based on its records, Subur Tiasa Forest has planted close to one and a half million trees and achieved a ratio of three trees planted for every one that is harvested. In fact, it recently attained a ratio of six to one which it claims as a major milestone in its reforestation efforts. It is setting a target of 10 to one for the future and says it is confident of achieving that. Subur Tiasa Holdings says it is proud of the part it plays in environmental protection and community support and that it is committed to making further progress in reforestation and ensuring it continues as a significant supplier of veneer, plywood, sawn timber, laminated board, finger-jointed products, round logs and of course particleboard from its base in South East Asia.

Under the leadership of its young and dynamic chief executive JC Kuo, the Evergreen Group has risen from a small wood based business started by Mr Kuo's father over 30 years ago to an internationally operating ready-to-assemble (RTA) furniture, and panel, manufacturer with production facilities in Malaysia, Thailand and now Indonesia. The success of the group was recognised in a very significant way in November of 2007. This was when Mr Kuo attended an awards dinner on Sentosa Island, Singapore, to receive the accolade of being included in the prestigious Forbes Asia magazine's list of the top 200 businesses in the Asia Pacific region with turnover of under one billion US dollars. Evergreen appeared in the list for Malaysia with sales of US$180m in 12 months and net income of US$17m (WBPI news, issue 6, 2007, p12). Part of the rapid growth of Evergreen has been effected by expanding production at its existing facilities and part has been by acquisition and merger. Falling into the latter category is a joint venture with PT Hutrindo, effective in August 2007, and involving that company's existing MDF production line, PT Hutrindo Jaya Fibreboard Manufacturing Co, and PT Uforin Adhesive Industry, near Palembang in the south of Sumatera island, Indonesia. Evergreen currently holds 51% of the shares in the line and Hutrindo 49%. The joint venture company is now called PT Hijau Lestari Raya Fibreboard, which means 'Evergreen' in the Indonesian language. In 1993 Hutrindo, a long-established plywood and veneer producer, decided to go into MDF as well, placing a turnkey contract with German complete line supplier Siempelkamp for a ContiRoll continuous press line. However, in common with many Indonesian plywood producers, Hutrindo's business ran into difficulties with the shortage of available logs for its plywood operations due to logging bans, and its new MDF line also halted production, in 2005. With the MDF line, Evergreen and Hutrindo's joint venture also took on 10ha of the large factory site outside the city of Palembang and rented some further areas for raw material storage from Hutrindo. Although the MDF line had not run for two years, it had been maintained in full working order, explained Christopher Blaise Marshall, the chief operations manager. Normally based at Evergreen's Parit Raja MDF factory in Malaysia, Mr Blaise Marshall is in charge of getting the Palembang line back into full production - a job which he expected to complete before the end of January 2008. Also part of the deal was an existing resin production plant on the same site and this was undergoing a full restoration at the time of my visit in late November 2007. Mr Blaise Marshall hoped that production of urea formaldehyde glues would restart in March 2008 as all necessary components had already been purchased. "The original designed capacity of the MDF line was 9,000m³/month and we are targeting 11,000m³/month within two to three months of start-up," said the manager. Access to the Hijau factory by road is difficult but there is the possibility of using the adjacent Musi river and the company has rented land near the River, about four to six hours' voyage from the factory, for storing logs which can then be barged to the site. Finished MDF panels will also go by river to Palembang port. "The logs come from a 100 to 200 kilometre radius and we will be utilising only rubberwood initially, although we expect to use acacia and maybe mixed hardwoods in the future," said Mr Blaise Marshall. "We will use rubber wood initially because it is easier to control quality. Latex can be a problem for some mills, but with our experience, and a good sifter and refiner plates, it is not a problem for us. "Initially the factory will produce E2 grade boards of approximately 700kg/m3 density, but maybe later we will produce E0 or even Super E0, depending on the demand." Moisture resistant board is also a possibility, but the company does not foresee much demand for that grade. The majority of production is destined for export to the Middle East, Far East and South East Asian markets, with some going to the domestic market. The production line The drum debarker was supplied by Fuji Kogyo, while chippers are from Pallmann. Texpan supplied the screens and the chip cleaner came from Imal. The original Siempelkamp sifter has been modified to improve its performance. The refining system, from Andritz, has a 14in plug screw feeder and 16in discharge screw. The refiner is a 45/48in unit. The blow-line dryer is heated using thermal oil and a heat exchanger, as well as flue gas from the energy plant which goes to a mixing chamber and then to the heat exchanger. Heat energy comes from three new boilers supplied by GTS. These replaced a Vyncke system which was destroyed by fire some time ago. Two of the three boilers run on wood waste using the original Vyncke furnace, while the other runs on dust, burnt by a GTS system. Mr Blaise Marshall does not envisage needing any source of fuel other than wood waste. The glue kitchen and volumetric dosing systems were supplied by Imal, while forming, pre-pressing and of course pressing, is by Siempelkamp. The ContiRoll continuous press is 9ft wide and 16m long and runs with the original Sandvik stainless steel belts, which, apart from the removal of some minor dents, were fully serviceable. A Siempelkamp system cuts the panels to size at the end of the production line. "Initially we will produce standard 8x4ft panels," said Mr Blaise Marshall, "but we have a 9ft wide press, so we will see what other sizes we might offer in the future. We could run 3x9ft as long as the panel profile is good up to nine feet wide - time will tell." In the control room, the original synoptic control panels are good enough to get the mill running well. The Steinemann six-head sander was part of the original equipment supplied and has also been kept in good condition. To keep emissions to a minimum, the factory runs a closed-loop system. "We elongated the dryer tube and added a Bison-type back filter, fabricated locally, because this mill has historically had problems with dust emissions," explained Mr Blaise Marshall. The process water supply comes from the river and is filtered and chemically treated in an already existing plant, while waste water will be filtered in a locally-made filtration and water treatment plant. PT Hijau Lestari Raya Fibreboard will mainly produce thicker panels as the press has a design speed of around 500mm/second, although this may be increased at a later date. Evergreen Group's other factories in Malaysia are already well-equipped to produce thinner panels anyway: Evergreen Fibreboard Bhd at Batu Pahat has one Mende line and one Dieffenbacher continuous press line, both for MDF. Also in Malaysia there is Allgreen, a particleboard line with a two-opening Dieffenbacher press. In Johor Bahru there is also another Mende line and a Küsters line (formerly owned by Merbok). Total panel production capacity in Malaysia adds up to 480,000m³/year. An extensive RTA furniture making factory is also located in Parit Raja. Again for MDF, there is Siam Fibreboard in Hat Yai, southern Thailand (see p36), which has two continuous Siempelkamp lines running and a third, greenfield, Dieffenbacher, line currently under construction and due to go into production towards the end of this year. Production capacity of these three lines adds up to 570,000m³/year. There are other major projects currently underway too, including an energy generation plant at Hat Yai, nearing completion at the time of my visit there. JC Kuo is continually looking for ways to expand his group and it seems certain that PT Hijau Lestari Raya Fibreboard will not be the last new site to be added to the Evergreen Group. Meanwhile, who knows, there is actually space for a second line in the Palembang factory............

The long history of the former STA wood processing complex in Hat Yai has been well-documented in this magazine over the past 10 years or more.   Last year we introduced readers to the new building erected for Panel Plus' planned new decor paper impregnation line (WBPI issue 1, 2007, p24) and in late 2007, we returned to see the building finished and the new sate-of-the-art Vits line in full production.   The impressive glass-fronted building required over 600 piles to be sunk to support its 96x42m steel-framed structure, which has space - and the foundations - for a second impregnation line at a later date, should the company wish to make that investment.   The construction took about six months including the piling, which sounds quite quick.   "Panel Plus has five short-cycle press lines in total - two in each particleboard factory here [the company has two separate factories on the massive Hat Yai site] and one in Bangkok," said Ms Amporn Kanjanakumnerd, managing director of Panel Plus when I visited the factory last December.   "We have the biggest laminating capacity in South East Asia I think and having our own impregnating line will help us with quality control."   The company has over 200 colours/patterns of decor paper in stock and in production for its clients.   The first sheet of laminated paper left the new production line on January 15th, 2007 and commercial production commenced in March.   Capacity of the line is 25 million m² a year and the company was still ramping up to that level in December.   Vits of Germany installed the impregnation line in the purpose-built factory and also supervised the start-up of the line, with technical assistance from a consultant from Europe.   Panel Plus also hired a German specialist who is an expert in impregnation technology to assist in ramping up production and in quality control matters.   "We really put our hearts into this project in order to achieve the 'Panel Plus spirit'," said Ms Amporn. "We promise to add value in everything we do."   In December, the line was running at 32m/minute, but the designed capacity - and the target for Panel Plus - is 40m/minute, depending of course on the type of paper being treated.   The line is 60.5m long and can impregnate 4ft- or 6ft-wide paper, with the maximum line width being 1.9m.   There are eight drying chambers arranged in two banks - one of three and the other of five units.   The decor paper is all supplied by European makers and printers such as Technocell, Schattdecor, Interprint and Munksjö, while resin for impregnation comes from the Dynea factory on the Hat Yai site, or from Dynea's factories in Malaysia and Singapore.   The whole impregnation line building has an air conditioned, controlled atmosphere, with separate air conditioning for the raw paper store. The whole building is maintained with positive air pressure to prevent the humid tropical outside air from entering when the doors are opened.   "It is necessary for us to have our own impregnation lines to cope with the high capacity demand of our own short-cycle lines. This is how we integrated our value chain to bring great benefit to the customer," said Ms Amporn. "With this facility, we are able to offer a wider design range, higher flexibility and better quality products and services."   The new impregnation line building also has office accommodation for the production and administration staff - and a fully-equipped laboratory, where all incoming materials are tested and the resin formulations are decided.   Other changes at Hat Yai   The new impregnation line is not the only new thing to see at Panel Plus' site here as it continues to improve and upgrade its facilities.   In the past year, the company has added mat spraying before the press, as well as blow detectors after the press, to both Siempelkamp ContiRoll particleboard production lines. The supplier for all this equipment was Imal of Italy.   In another move to increase efficiency, Panel Plus has changed the ABS oil and dust burners to Körting equipment to burn 100% dust.   Another project under way at the time of our visit in 2006 was the restoration of the Vyncke energy plant.   This is now complete and the plant is completely under cover. The wood chip infeed has been modified and all the electronic controls upgraded.   Meanwhile the capacity of this plant has been raised from 3.5Gcal to 6.0Gcal to enable the line 2 particleboard press to be run at full capacity.   In another move not directly associated with production, the company has completed the construction of 11 management accommodation units in a landscaped area of the site and these now offer family homes to some of the managerial staff.   It is good to see the old STA site, reduced to a near-standstill by that company's financial woes, coming alive again with both the original particleboard lines running full-tilt again, everything upgraded and now the new impregnation line in operation in its grand new building. The future once more looks bright for the Hat Yai complex.  

It was back in 1996 that Mr Tenson Yoong built his first particleboard production line; a single-opening 2.5x22m Raute press with Schenck forming station. That line was intended to be the first of several wood processing operations to be built on the 132-acre site in Gemas and was thus the first stage of Mr Yoong's dream of an integrated rubberwood processing complex there. On November 1, 2006, stage two was realised with the first commercial production coming from the latest major investment, a 405,0000m³/year continuous particleboard production line from Dieffenbacher adjacent to the first, Raute, line. So far, these remain the only factories on the HeveaWood Industrial Park, so Mr Yoong has a little longer to go before he realises his overall 'dream'. However, long-term regular readers will know that this man does not only have two particleboard lines to his credit, but, through a wholly-owned subsidiary, also has extensive ready-to-assemble (RTA) furniture manufacturing facilities under the HeveaPac name in Seremban, about 60 to 90 minutes' drive north of Gemas towards Kuala Lumpur. Established in 2001, HeveaPac has continually expanded on the Seremban site, with Mr Yoong buying up two neighbouring properties as they became available to continue the expansion. The undercover area of the factory has been trebled in the last six years. Factory one at Seremban mainly produces hollow core panels with particleboard frames and thin MDF faces. These are mainly for export to the Japanese market. This factory was equipped with three automatic framing machines and two Homag automatic double-end trimming and edging lines in March 2007 to increase throughput and efficiency. Factory two makes all the solid particleboard panel RTA furniture, using HeveaBoard particleboard from Gemas. Factory three comprises a warehouse and dormitories accommodating 1,200 foreign workers. Between them, the three factories cover around 100,000m2 and employ 1,300 people. "Our customers are mainly hypermarkets which want high-volume, affordable household furniture," said Mr Yoong. "These are essential items such as book shelves, computer work stations, wardrobes and so on." The word "affordable" is particularly important to Mr Yoong, who carefully avoids calling his furniture "cheap" - not the same thing at all - although he admits that his products are often bought in the hypermarket on impulse because of their low price and functionality. "We started as a contract manufacturer with Kmart and Walmart and now the main buyer in the US is Target, another home hyperstore chain, as a qualified registered vendor. In the UK, Tesco and ASDA (owned by Walmart) are the main buyers, while in France it is the internationally-operating Carrefour. Exports account for around 80% of HeveaPac's production and the HeveaBoard Group has set up representative offices in the Philippines, Hong Kong, China, Korea, Indonesia and Vietnam. HeveaPac uses HeveaBoard particleboard for all its production and has four lines at Seremban for applying paper lamination to the panels. Nothing is wasted, with the trims from RTA panel production being used in the core frames of the hollow core furniture panels, once the paper facing has been sanded off. Travelling 130km south to Gemas, we reach the HeveaWood Industrial Park and the new particleboard factory. Gemas is in the centre of a FELDA (Federal Land Development Agency) rubberwood plantation scheme, with 300,000ha of plantation around the factory. Investment in line 2 was RM270m (US$83m) and this allows HeveaBoard to qualify for tax exemption, under Investment Tax Allowance (ETA), equivalent to 100% of the qualified investment made. In 2005, HeveaPac won the Export Excellence Award, leading to RM43m in tax incentives under the Allowance for Increased Export (AIE). In total, the group expects to achieve over RM80m in tax savings in the near future. Other awards won by the HeveaBoard group include the 2005 Productivity Award and various customer awards such as Best Supplier. HeveaBoard has also invested over the years in R&D, as well as working with research organisations such as FRIM (the Forestry Institute of Malaysia), Universiti Putra Malaysia, the Malaysian Timber Industry Board and the Malaysian Timber Council. The company itself invests around two million ringgit a year in R&D. Another achievement for the company was in becoming the first particleboard manufacturer in Malaysia to be certified to the Japanese Industrial Standard (JIS) A5908/2003 Super E0. Of course emissions from the boards themselves are only part of the story - emissions from the production process itself and the efficient use of resources, particularly energy, are just as important these days. With this in mind, the company installed a new energy plant for Line 1 in 2005. This was a Vyncke plant and was set up in cooperation with the ministry of Energy, Water and Communications in conjunction with a United Nations Development Project. The financing of the energy plant was obtained by security provided jointly by the ministry and the UN and the cost is being repaid by HeveaBoard out of the consequent savings in energy. It is planned to pay off the loan by 2010. "This gave us a lot of experience about heat value that can be generated from biomass fuel such as rubberwood bark generated in the production process. It enabled us to have a balanced material supply/heat value calculation and transfer handling system for line 2, learning from our experience with line 1," said Mr Yoong. Line 2 was supplied by Dieffenbacher, which took responsibility for the complete design, supply and installation. The energy plant formed part of that contract, being supplied by Intec Engineering. "We gave Intec the data from our line 1 plant and they used that to design the energy plant for line 2," said Mr Yoong. "We are saving about one million ringgit a month in fuel costs." So, with the start-up of the continuous line, another stage of Tenson Yoong's 'dream' has been realised but this is not a man to stop dreaming - there is always more to be done and now his son is also dreaming the dream and running HeveaBoard. Of course there is a lot of space at the Gemas site and the hollow core panels do utilise thin MDF which has to be bought in.......