WoodTECH Issue 37 - Latest news and resources
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Welcome to the latest issue of WoodTECH.News.
It seems Covid-19 is not done with Australia yet, with a significant outbreak sending Victoria into a hard 7-day lockdown and border restrictions with neighbouring states. While this will be felt throughout the State, the local forestry industry has largely avoided the economic hit other sectors have received. There is also a global construction boom that is resulting in strong timber prices up and a potential shortage in supply.
As we mentioned earlier, WoodTECH 2021 will be running in two months (3-4 August 2021) and is once again expecting a huge turnout. While Covid-19 did force us to skip our normal two-yearly sawmilling in-person event in Australia, it will be streaming live online from Rotorua, New Zealand. This ensures everyone within our WoodTECH community will be able to participate, whether it is travelling into Rotorua or virtually online (live or watching the recorded presentations at your sawmill site later on).
This month's issue has a little bit of everything. We feature a new timber joining process using linear friction welding, insights into major drivers impacting the construction industry, what's next for the successful 'Buy Aussie Timber First' campaign and a status update on a number of mills around the region.
Check out these stories and more below!
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‘Buy Aussie Timber First’ campaign a huge success
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Australia’s structural timber supply chain industry has applauded the success of the Buy Aussie Timber First (BATF) campaign, launched to promote Australian timber sales during uncertain times, following the destructive 2019/20 summer bushfires and the onset of the global COVID-19 pandemic. Industry will now look to refocus the campaign. The 9-month BATF campaign helped deliver a message of support about ...
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Profile – Women in timber
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The timber industry has been historically dominated by men, but things are changing fast both inside the mill and in the office. In the latest issue of Timberlink’s Newsletter, they spoke in depth with Denise Morrison and Carley Murphy, both working with Timberlink mills about their careers, the challenges they have faced and about why a career in timber is ...
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Top five shifts affecting construction
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Construction has long been plagued by a lack of collaboration and communication right along the supply chain, according to construction payment application firm Payapps. Over time, this leads to job fragmentation, inefficient contract approaches and disputes over claims. Yet, construction companies that meet these challenges head-on by remaining agile, adapting faster and manage to reduce their cost base will see ...
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Lifeline for Whakatāne mill?
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Whakatāne’s packaging mill, one of the town’s biggest employers, may yet be saved from imminent closure. The mill’s Swiss owner SIG has announced that a consortium led by Dr Dermot Smurfit, a European investor with long experience in paper packaging, is in talks with it to buy the mill. “A successful sale may result in the continued operation of WML. ...
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Saw-doctoring 101: 2021’s saw of choice
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In any business, we tend to speculate as to what changes will occur or what new technology will come along. Throughout 2020, I began to notice a change in sawing taking place – more filers are sawing with circle saws. And it appears that trend will continue in 2021. New mills are not installing many bandsaws and a lot of ...
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South Australian sawmill struggling to source logs and could close
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Seventy-five jobs are at risk in a small South Australian town if the local sawmill does not find a new supply of logs. The Morgan Sawmill at Jamestown, in mid-north SA, is a family business that has been recently reliant on processing timber from the Adelaide Hills. But it failed to secure a contract with ForestrySA after a tender process ...
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A sawmilling “who’s who” lined up for WoodTECH 2021
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Two years ago – over two weeks – the FIEA WoodTECH technology series achieved a record turnout of local sawmilling companies. Over 350 delegates from all major sawmilling companies in addition to leading tech providers from throughout Australasia, North America and Europe converged on Melbourne, Australia and Rotorua, New Zealand. Two years later, after huge disruptions worldwide, WoodTECH 2021 will ...
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Norske Skog reviewing Tasman mills future
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Norske Skog, the owner of the Tasman newsprint mill in Kawerau, has begun talks with staff over the mill’s future, following a lengthy review. Unionists have been expressing concern for some months about the mill’s viability, given the declining world demand for newsprint. A spokesman for Norske Skog, David Quin, said the mill had about 160 staff, and they were ...
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First industrial scale Russian CLT plant opened
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Segezha Group President Mikhail Shamolin visited Sokol in Vologda Oblast to oversee the grand opening of Segezha Group’s cross-laminated timber (CLT) plant. The plant is the first industrial-scale production facility to manufacture the innovative building construction material. The factory is located at Sokol Woodworking Plant (S-DOK JSC), a leading producer of laminated wooden structures in Russia. Segezha Group has invested ...
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A new timber jointing process using wood welding
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In a proof-of-concept collaboration between TWI Ltd and the University of Cambridge and enabled by the Construction Innovation Hub, researchers have developed a sustainable process to rapidly join timber elements using linear friction welding. Two years into the project they have been able to join pieces of wood in two to three seconds by rubbing them together at high speeds, ...
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WoodTECH is a community and we want to hear your voice. Do you have any thoughts about the stories above? Please don't hesitate to share your thoughts with the wider community and leave a comment at the end of the story!
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