During the second half of the 1970s, CMC became involved with what was at the time Siempelkamp’s Italian representative company, Elmag and its subsidiary Texpan and thus began its involvement in the particleboard industry, with the manufacture of movable forming machines, dryers, screens, load cell mat scales, feeding and discharging lines and panel saws. In the mid-1970s, a closer relationship was formed with Texpan and during the 1980s, the two companies cooperated in the production of the first stationary forming machine for particleboard.

Also at this time, CMC became directly involved with some of the companies in the German Siempelkamp group and fabricated forming machines for the MDF and OSB industries, as well as particleboard, and got involved in the production of after-press lines, sawing equipment and automated storage systems. Texpan and CMC grew closer in their business relationship, resulting in acquiring shares each in the other, in the 1980s. It was in 1995 that the two companies formally merged into one, named CMC Texpan as it is today. Siempelkamp also increased its involvement in the developing companies and today holds 40% of the shares in CMC Texpan.

Colzate is a pleasant valley town at the foot of the Alps, but only 45 minutes drive from the northern city of Milan. CMC Texpan has two workshops in the town with a covered area of 15,000m2. Design and engineering, utilising advanced computer techniques, is carried out in the subsidiary firm PAN, with offices in Vimercate, closer to Milan. Erection and some service functions are also coordinated from there. In 1998, CMC Texpan and another independent Italian company, Trasmec, jointly founded a factory in Romania, each owning 50% of the equity. This factory has 7,500m2 of workshop space and about 100 workers, in Cluj Napoca, Transylvania, and manufactures components there for its two Italian shareholders.

The ‘traditional’ products of CMC Texpan are mechanical (core layer) and wind (surface layer) formers for particleboard; formers for MDF and OSB, disc separators; equalising and pressing units; mat weighing equipment; movable forming systems; filtering units for wind mat formers; and drum dryers for particleboard lines. Their equipment supplied for a number of years includes: MDF and OSB storage bins; wet particle storage and dosing bins; and hammer mills. CMC Texpan also offers engineering and consulting services for upgrading existing plants for MDF, particleboard or OSB.

Last year, the company began to produce the most important components of short-cycle presses for Siempelkamp as well and, during 2008 up to June, has supplied Flakeboard of the US and Egger’s plants in both Russia and France. Ten short-cycle lines have been supplied in total during this year and last. Forming plants are made for Siempelkamp projects due to the special relationship between the two companies, but Dieffenbacher is also a possible customer, as is Italian press maker Pagnoni, while panel mills also buy some equipment direct from CMC Texpan. For example, a recent contract, which went into production last year, was for a forming line as part of the complete new line that Dieffenbacher supplied to PT Kutai Timber of Indonesia.

Pinksdrev of Belarus wanted to modernise an existing plant and this is an example of a contract where Texpan is to supply the forming machine direct to the customer at the end of this year. Start-up is anticipated to be early next year. Eucatex of Brazil ordered a modification of its existing Bison forming machine and that project was due to go into production this July. Meanwhile Fibraplac, also in Brazil, ordered a full forming line for a new plant which is due to start up in December. Still in Brazil, Satipel Taquari has a new forming machine due to commence production early in 2009. A country which has seen considerable activity in its panel industry recently is Turkey and there, Yildiz Sunta will take delivery of a new forming machine in October this year, with start-up of the line due in the first quarter of next year.

CMC Texpan has also been active in the MDF industry, with four forming machines delivered this year, to Starwood Betul in Turkey, Asatryan Abinsk in Russia, Duratex in Brazil and Yildiz in Turkey, which is building a fibreboard doorskin line. CMC Texpan made everything except the press (Siempelkamp) for this doorskin line. Just to show its versatility as a metalwork engineering company, CMC Texpan can also point to a rather unusual project carried out for an Italian company far removed from the panel industry: It supplied a mini-submarine to GSE of Trieste in June this year and this was its third such project. Times are good for CMC Texpan at present, with an order book taking the company into 2009 and deliveries into 2010, but if the panel industry ceases to keep the company busy, it would appear it can turn its hand to a wide variety of metalwork engineering projects.

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