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Indiana Veneers Perseveres with Constant Fine-tuning of Operations by Rich Donnell

Vice President Peter Lorenz says there is only one way for a U.S. based hardwood veneer company such as Indiana Veneers Corp. to offset the foreign impact on the industry: Stay focused on your business. “Your machinery and your product, if you don’t have your things in order, then forget it, you can’t make it.”

Lorenz pauses, “We have to be frugal about how we take care of our business. We have to take advantage of cost savings and tax savings whenever we can. We have to take advantage of having steady power supply, which means we should have machinery that works consistently. It’s very important to keep our schedules in order, to have control over the items we can have control over.”

Industry Developments

U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities has selected three areas as “Forest Investment Zones” under a multi-million dollar initiative designed to advance healthy working forests and vibrant forest-reliant communities across America.

The organizations and areas identified as Forest Investment Zones are Mountain Assn. for Community Economic Development in Berea, Ky., focusing on Appalachian communities and forests in Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and Ohio; The Northern Forest Center in Concord, NH, representing a 30 million acre swath of forests and communities across northern New York, New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine; and Sustainable Northwest of Portland, Ore., which will work on “dry-side primarily publicly-owned forests” stretching from northeastern Oregon to northern California.

Flakeboard Adds Melamine Press Line at Simsboro Particleboard Complex by Tonya Cooner-Vots

In March 2007, Flakeboard announced it would install Siempelkamp short-cycle thermally-fused melamine (TFM) presses at three of its U.S. particleboard plants: Simsboro, La.; Bennettsville, SC; and Albany, Ore. This series of upgrades would greatly expand Flakeboard’s decorative finishing capabilities and add to its five melamine presses already in operation: one continuous and two fast cycle presses in St. Stephen, NB, and two fast cycle presses in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont.

In December 2007, Flakeboard’s LPB (Louisiana Particleboard) Regional Laminating Center started up a 5x20 fast cycle model, capable of running up to 180 cycles per hour, producing different lengths of 4 and 5 ft. wide panels. The press allows laminating of particleboard and MDF as produced for cabinet, furniture and store fixture markets, as well as emerging home storage applications, giving Flakeboard further inroads for customers seeking this value-added option.

Itipack Systems Provides Custom Strapping Solutions

In a high output panel industry, the final part of the packaging equation involves strapping of the product. Often, equipment is sold through distribution and tied into strapping contracts to the end user. This makes for an extremely competitive marketplace which often comes down to dollars and cents, rather then the quality of the system being supplied and the reduction in overall operating costs.

Itipack Systems came into operation in 2002 when its Italian head office, Itipack S.R.L., and machine shop entrepreneur Arnold Hulzebosch formed “Itipack Systems,” the North American headquarters in Burlington, Ontario, Can. From day one, Itipack was founded on the principles of designing and building strapping machines for custom applications in various industries, predominately in panel and sawmill environments. Operating as an OEM supplier to industry, Itipack Systems is a single source strapping equipment supplier—that’s it.

Recent Mill Orders, Installations & Startups

Belarus is located in the northeastern part of Europe and borders with Poland, Russia and the Ukraine as well as Lithuania and Latvia in the North. For the 10 million inhabitants, the per-capita consumption of wood-based products is low compared to the western part of Europe. This, however, may change soon because Siempelkamp has sold a particleboard line to the Ivatsevichdrev company. The line is designed to reach a daily capacity of 800 m3 and, according to the customer’s request, will allow a buffer of +30%. With a yearly capacity of 330,000 m3, the country’s production of particleboard will almost double.

The plant will be built in Ivatsevichi, in between the Polish border and Minsk, the capital of Belarus. An old Russian particleboard line is currently operating at this location.

Equipment & Supplier News

Bruks Rockwood reports that Dr. Desmond Smith has joined the group as Vice President of the newly formed Bruks Rockwood West Coast office in Snohomish, Wash. Smith has been working in the areas of bulk materials handling, wood chipping, and materials screening for more than 24 years, most recently with Acrowood Corp. In his new position he will be developing business opportunities in the Western U.S. and Canada while also supporting the overall sales and marketing efforts of the Bruks Rockwood office in Alpharetta, Ga. and group offices in Sweden.

While the Bruks group of companies including Bruks Klockner acquired in 2000 and Bruks Rockwood acquired in 2008 have had some market presence in western North America, the establishment of a West Coast office will improve their ability to service customers, according to a statement.

Seeking Opportunity When Markets Turn Sour by Dan Shell

Seemingly everywhere panel plant owners, managers and others look, there’s bad news: Single-family housing starts, the lifeblood of the U.S. forest products industry, remain mired in the doldrums, with housing starts down more than 50% from 1.72 million in 2005.

Output of key panel products has followed the demand swoon, with softwood plywood and OSB production dropping drastically, along with glulam, I-joists and LVL. We’ve all heard those numbers by now.

Breaking News

California Air Resources Board (CARB) announced it will allow “retro-certification” of composite wood products to the formaldehyde emission limits in the Composite Wood Product Air Toxic Control Measure (ATCM). Retro-certification allows facilities that have achieved CARB Phase 1 certification to certify emission-compliant production lots that were manufactured prior to receiving certification. CARB is permitting facilities to certify lots using the “Non-Complying Lot” provisions of the ATCM.

Composite Panel Assn. had urged CARB to initiate such a policy to relieve unanticipated bottlenecks in the marketplace. The provisions mirror the Non-Complying Lot procedure in the CPA Grademark program so CPA-certified facilities already have written guidance in place to accomplish this task.