WoodTECH News | Issue 50

Welcome to the latest issue of WoodTECH.News.

Fifty issues so far – and still going strong. Thanks for your contributions and suggestions for stories, results from recent research or trials, tips and links to breaking news over the years. It’s appreciated. Keep them coming.

One of our regular readers, Graeme Moore, recently sent us a useful resource that he’d compiled to share with our sawmilling and wood manufacturing readers. It’s listed below and titled Production Plant Mechanical Maintenance. It was pulled together from the author’s experience having worked for over 50 years in mechanical plant maintenance in the motor industry, pulp and paper, panel board and sawmilling industries.

In technology and equipment supplier news this month, USNR, a division of Wood Technologies International, has announced that it’s acquired Timber Automation, an industry leader in wood processing equipment and technology, adding more than 250 employees and over 200,000 square feet of manufacturing space. Polytechnik Biomass Energy has also announced that they’ve restructured in order to continue to offer their full range of biomass combustion, wood gasification and carbonisation systems. Locally, the company has provided 19 boiler plant installations in Australia and New Zealand over the last few years and is currently working on seven boiler plants for four customers in New Zealand, with a combined heat output of about 50,000 kWh.

And in the new technology space this month, we cover a Boston start-up using indoor drones to help warehouses keep track of their inventory and we feature a story from HewSaw with details of a recent installation of one of their new SL200 2.2 sawlines at the new GELO Timber facility in Wunsiedel, Germany. This new HewSaw line runs at speeds of up to 200m/min and can process logs ranging in length from 2.5 to 5.5 metres. Included with the story is a video of the new saw-line in action.

Check out these stories and much more below. Enjoy this month’s issue.