Friday Offcuts – 15 February 2013
Click to Subscribe - It's FREE! We’ve got a technology focus for all you geeks out there this week. Our Offcuts readers tell us that videos on a Friday always makes their week so check out the circular saw in this week’s video story.The saw’s doing 5000rpm. In a nifty new technology the saw blade is able to detect electrical conductivity. What this means is that the bench or table saw in the video is able to cut wood – a nonconductive material – but it will pick up a finger feeding a piece of timber into the saw. If the unthinkable happens – the saw’s able to stop within 1/1000" of a second. Take a look at the demonstration in the video and think potentially what this could do for wood manufacturing operations in the near future. Another story looks at assisting smaller operations remain competitive. An Australian roboticist and artificial-intelligence expert who left MIT is the brains behind a US$22,000 humanoid robot that’s just been built. The designers say it can easily be programmed to do simple jobs that have never been automated before. It’s designed to increase the efficiencies in manufacturing. Robotics and automation are going to be some of the focus areas planned for the WoodEXPO 2013 (check out further details on www.woodexpo2013.com) in September this year. In the one day Wood Processing Summit being planned as part of the event, options for step change rather than incremental tweaking of current wood processing and manufacturing equipment will be explored. In the meat industry for example, one New Zealand Company listed on the NZSX has set the benchmark for automation technology in the global meat industry. Automation, vision systems and robotics have been used to optimise cutting accuracy and product cut selection, increase yield from raw materials and eliminate waste by measuring carcass dimensions with X-ray technology. Sounds like the wood products industry doesn’t it? Worldwide trends, new products, applications and opportunities for robotics use by wood products companies will be covered in September at WoodEXPO 2013 with both case studies and recent commissioning and use by wood manufacturers. Other technologies profiled in this week's issue include how new vision and optimisation systems in sawmilling are being installed (and notice of another presentation planned as part of WoodEXPO 2013 where for the first time details of a new complete 360° (3D) full length carriage scanning system will be discussed). We also take a look at recent some work that’s being done on timber-steel-hybrid elements for modern multi-storey buildings. Enjoy.
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Australian hardwood mill expandingVictoria’s largest hardwood saw mill, Heyfield's Australian Sustainable Hardwoods (ASH), has plans to upgrade the facility and expand its operations. Following uncertainty about its future during the ITC and Gunns Timber periods, Australian Sustainable Hardwoods will contribute AU$1.97 million towards the Australian Sustainable Hardwoods value adding and expansion project, with the state government to contribute AU$650,000. The funding will be provided through Regional Development, which includes AU$500,000 from the Latrobe Valley Industry and Infrastructure Fund.Deputy Premier and Minister for Regional and Rural Development Peter Ryan said the project would create more than 40 direct and indirect jobs, high quality timber products and secured ASH's business against future market changes. Ryan said the project would include an extension to the current finger joining and laminating facility, the establishment of a hard stand site, the purchase of a new horizontal finger joiner and new equipment for the joiner line. Source: Gippsland Times Kiwi star LanzaTech turns AmericanLanzaTech is no longer a New Zealand company. The gas-to-biofuel pioneer which started in South Auckland is now based in Chicago. In fact, last week it was named in Forbes magazine’s list of the top 100 most promising privately held American companies.Chief executive Dr Jennifer Holmgren says that LanzaTech will always have a New Zealand flavour, but retaining the headquarters in Auckland when most of the shareholders and markets were on the other side of the world just wasn’t viable. The company developed a process for turning waste gases from industrial processes into fuel. The process was piloted at the Glenbrook steel mill south of Auckland, and the company has retained its research and development base in New Zealand, employing some 70 staff and headed by the company’s founder and chief scientist, Dr Sean Simpson. Holmgren says that New Zealand is very good at research and development, but lacks the resources to take innovation to the scale possible in countries like the United States. Source: Carbon News 2013 Z Energy, Norske Skog seek look to wood wastes Z Energy and Norske Skog, which operates a paper mill at Kawerau in New Zealand, are seeking majority government funding for a proposed NZ$50 million demonstration plant to turn wood waste into transport fuels.Z chief executive Mike Bennetts announced the plan at a conference in Wellington, at the same time as revealing the 100 percent New Zealand-owned fuel retailer is close to committing around NZ$15 million on a project to blend bio-diesel made from tallow into its conventionally sourced diesel supplies. Bennetts told BusinessDesk that Z and Norske, which halved newsprint production at its Kawerau plant last year, will seek government support under the four year old Primary Growth Partnership scheme, which sets aside NZ$70 million a year for partnerships with industry to generate economic growth from the country's primary sector. Bennetts said the two firms' "stump to pump" strategy aimed to make use of the fact that sawdust and forest residues could generate "about 10 percent of our crude oil requirements", although that would require investment of perhaps NZ$1 billion over several years for 10 such industrial plants. More >> Otago University adds wood to energy input
Otago University has boosted its renewable energy from wood supply with the recent installation and commissioning of a new 1.1 Mw Binder boiler for the College of Education buildings. Earlier this week the new unit was officially handed over to the University's Energy Manager Hans Pietsch by Joseph Binder himself from Germany (see attached photo). Also on hand for the occasion was Rob Mallinson of Living Energy, agents for Binder energy systems.Hans says the wood for energy solution is part of a long-term sustainable energy plan for which renewable energy has to be the focus. Local energy groups have welcomed the continued growth in wood energy users in the region. Dunedin continues to grow this renewable energy supply with energy customers happy with the energy value from the local wood supply. The new wood boiler installation is part of a growing trend of local energy infrastructure solutions which continue to grow based on wood. This latest installation will be serviced by Living Energy with Wood Energy New Zealand, the Dunedin branch of the nation-wide Energy For Industry group supplying the fuel. Austria-based Binder has installed 3500 boilers in 35 countries world-wide and is one of the top-5 biomass boiler producers in Europe. Hans Pietsch, Rob Mallinson and Energy For Industry's Stephen Jones are all on the speakers on the FIEA Residues to Revenues 2013 conference programme running in April in Auckland. Note: For those looking to register for this two-yearly update, remember that Earlybird Registrations CLOSE NEXT WEEK.  Timber-steel-hybrid beams for multi-storey buildingsFor modern multi-storey buildings timber-steel-hybrid elements present a very efficient construction method. The combination of these two materials leads to economic and ecologic benefits as the construction height can be optimized, the earthquake resistance can be improved and the assembling can be executed more efficiently. Steel reinforced timber structures are light, fast and clean. Based on research activities of the Institute of Architectural Sciences, Structural Design and Timber Engineering, presented at the WCTE 2010, some static tests on hybrid timber steel beams have been carried out. For more information on the research and paper,click here. For more information, check out this month's R&D Works Newsletter
Saw stop in 1/1000" of a secondCheck this recent video out. Pretty amazing!!! Tasmanian company aims to build new Queensland sawmillTasmania-based Timber Marshalling Services aims to build a new sawmill in Queensland, with an estimated annual output of 90,000 m3 of sawn timber, and hopes to have it operational by Christmas, The Morning Bulletin reported on 7 February. The company is looking at the Rockhampton area for a potential site for the sawmill, which is expected to employ 60-120 people and is a 10- to 15-year venture, said spokesman Ron O’Connor.He said the company’s home state of Tasmania has “become too difficult to do business,” noting that drivers and operators in the area are leaving. O’Connor said Queensland was more business-friendly. O’Connor said the company had secured pine timber supply from Byfield and is in the process of searching for industrial land for a sawmill. Timber Marshalling Services doesn’t plan to export logs and would take on both logging and trucking operations, The Morning Bulletin reported. Source: The Morning Bulletin Comact making big inroads into Australian sawmilling
This year Red Stag Timber in Rotorua is expected to produce around 400,000m3 of sawn timber. Last year Comact, a Canadian company that has specialised in the sawmilling industry since the last century, installed its first vision system into New Zealand in the Rotorua mill. Comact replaced the existing transverse 3D scanner with a new true shape and colour vision board edger optimizer that picks up corewood in boards to optimise sawing. The success of the first installation has led to two other Comact systems being installed; the TrimExpert as a trimmer optimiser in the sawmill and the GradExpert using transverse scanning in the drymill to grade dry boards from the planer mill. The controls on the bin sorter are also being done by Comact to tie in with the mills optimisation package. All up the New Zealand operation has spent around $9 million and the Canadian company according to sawmill manager Steve Roberts has certainly proved its worth providing specialised sawmilling equipment suited to the mill and the species being sawn, Radiata pine. The timeframe from decision to commissioning was about six months. Scanning and sawmill optimisation is a major focus with WoodEXPO 2013 in Australia and New Zealand in September this year. In addition to the latest developments in vision optimisation from Comact, other major North American and European technology providers will be down for the series. One company has just confirmed that they will be speaking for the first time on a complete 360° (3D) full length carriage scanner (patent pending). Details on the programme will be available shortly for all local sawmilling and manufacturing companies. Could Baxter the robot save our small factories?
Chris Budnick is head of Vanguard Plastics, a small injection-molding operation in Southington, Conn., that makes plastic fixtures, gaskets and other "stuff no one cares about unless it breaks". On a computer screen, placed where all his workers can see it, Budnick displays what he considers the company’s key statistic: sales divided by man-hours.Budnick, a Yankees fan who never misses a game on the radio, calls it his company’s “batting average.” Wages are his second-biggest expense (after raw materials), and sales have been slow. Even so, the figure stands at $206.8 per man-hour, above the previous year’s mark of 201. For Vanguard to stay in business, says Budnick, the figure has to go up by 1% or more every year. There’s only one way get there: produce more while working less. That is why Budnick is now considering adding a new member to his team: a robot called Baxter. Baxter was conceived by Rodney Brooks, the Australian roboticist and artificial-intelligence expert who left MIT to build a $22,000 humanoid robot that can easily be programmed to do simple jobs that have never been automated before. More >> Source: Mashable Albany woodchip exports expected to drop to 1.2 M tonnesThe Albany Port Authority in Western Australia says woodchip exports have dropped significantly to less than 50% of recently-predicted levels, according to a report by ABC News. Export levels have dropped from around 1.7 million tonnes annually to a predicted 1.2 million tonnes this financial year, well below projections that volumes could reach three million tonnes in the current financial year, reported ABC News.The authority's chief executive Brad Williamson said it was a tough time for the woodchip industry, but the more conservative prediction would limit the port's exposure when volumes dropped. Williamson noted that the Australian dollar exchange rate made Albany's woodchips among the most expensive in the world. He said volumes this year were likely to be between 1.3 and 1.4 million tonnes. Source: ABC News NZ forestry Safety and Health meetings scheduledWe covered in a recent previous issue the just completed Approved Code of Practice for Safety and Health in Forest Operations for the New Zealand forest products industry. Nineteen meetings have been planned around the country to provide forestry contractors the opportunity to engage with local forest inspectors and members of the Code’s review committee so that all understand just what changes have been made, how they will benefit those working in the forest and how best they can be implemented.Full details on the round of meetings have now been produced by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment and the itinerary – starting in Kaitaia on Monday and finishing at the other end of the country, in Invercargill on 3 April. Full details on the timing for each of the meetings can be viewed here. For more information about these sessions, please contact your local Forest Owner or email info@isafety.co.nz.  Australian forestry contractor organisations combineTasmanian Forest Contractors Association (TFCA) Chair, Karen Hall, together with Australian Forest Contractors Association (AFCA) Chair, Ian Reid, have announced a restructure of the administration of both organisations and a management arrangement covering both Forest Contractor Associations.The move has come about as a consequence of ongoing re-structuring of the Forest Industry across Australia and has led to a review of staffing within both organisations. It also recognises that much Forest Industry policy is now nationally based, with major issues including biomass, bioenergy, carbon farming and new generation forest products being firmly in the national policy arena. There will be significant resource sharing, including the position of CEO, who will provide services to all members of both organisations. AFCA CEO Colin McCulloch, will assume the joint role, whilst the TFCA CEO position held by Ed Vincent for almost three years, during the intense involvement in the Tasmanian Forest Agreement talks, has now expired. AFCA/TFCA will continue to be based in Kings Meadows & will be supported by TFCA administration staff.  Macquarie Group puts together bid for Gunns assetsThe Macquarie Group, a financial and investment Company based in Sydney, Australia, is putting together a bid to take over failed forestry group Gunns of Launceston, Tasmania, according to a 7 Feb report by ABC Rural. Gunns was placed in voluntary administration on 25 Sept last year. Macquarie officials met with investors and farmer representatives involved in the Gunns Plantations Managed Investment Schemes to explore options for land that was leased to Gunns for timber plantations.ABC Rural, Hobart, Tasmania APP - Suspension of natural forest clearanceAsia Pulp & Paper Group (APP) has announced an end to the clearing of natural forest across its entire supply chain in Indonesia, with immediate effect.From February 1st, all of APP’s suppliers have suspended natural forest clearance whilst independent assessments take place to identify areas of high conservation value that will be protected through a long-term management programme. High Carbon Stock (HCS) assessments undertaken by The Forest Trust (TFT) will identify all forested areas, enabling APP to ensure that future plantation development does not take place in forests. APP announced the new Forest Conservation policy on 5 February during the latest quarterly update of its ‘Vision 2020’ Sustainability Roadmap, which was published in June 2012. Initially the APP Sustainability Roadmap set out a plan for APP to implement High Conservation Value Forest (HCVF) principles and end natural forest clearance across its entire supply chain, by 2015. Today’s announcement means that objective has been accelerated by almost two years. APP has said that the HCVF and HCS policies will be applied immediately to any further expansion or development of its business. The Group has encouraged third parties, to participate in a monitoring programme to ensure that these commitments are being implemented. Jobs
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