WBPI - the voice of the global panel industry

As the magazine enters its 37th year, we start out with a completely fresh look to the cover - and to all the pages within.

We hope you approve and that you find it to be an even more comfortable read.

Over the years, the magazine has metamorphosed through various design changes to keep up with the trends of the day, always mindful that we need to be totally relevant to the truly international industry that we serve.

However, it is not only the design of the cover and pages that has changed, but we have added new content as well.

For instance, this issue contains our first article in a series to be entitled The interview. The idea is to feature a person who has helped, or indeed is helping, to shape our global industry. He or she may be involved in actually making panels, or in assisting those who do.

In this February/March 2016 edition, our first interviewee falls into the second category. Clive Pinnington is the first ever managing director of the European Panel Federation (EPF). I talk to him about his vision for the EPF - and the panel industry - now and in the future.

The next interview subject, in the April/May issue, may be a senior person in a panel making company, or in a machinery manufacturing business, or in another association/federation.

Also new is the Archive page. With nearly four decades of WBPI issues to call upon, we will choose some stories that indicate how both the industry and the editorial direction of the magazine have changed.

We also have a new Focus section in this issue - Focus on Resins .

In the April/May issue we will have another new Focus - Further processing. This will turn our attention to the machinery used in machining panels to add value after the raw boards have been manufactured. This may be in the panel manufacturer's works, or in a company specialising in secondary processing.

Coming back to this first issue of 2016, we have an 18-page section called Focus on Europe in which we feature a diverse range of companies involved either in panel manufacturing, or in supplying machinery or services to those companies.

I guess the biggest news story in this issue is the joint venture announced between international panel making companies, Sonae's Tafisa division, and Arauco, to be named Sonae-Arauco SA. The agreement covers mills in Spain, Portugal, Germany and South Africa (see p5 for more details) and diverse products including OSB, MDF, particleboard and sawn timber.

Once again, I hope that you enjoy your new, re-designed, WBPI and all the information which it contains.