Monday, September 26, 2016
The company of the SWISS KRONO GROUP ordered an MDF/HDF plant with an annual capacity of approximately 280,000 m³ for its Barnwell, South Carolina, location. The Swiss family enterprise specializing in wood processing and wooden building materials requires the new plant to meet its own in-house requirements.
In Barnwell the “Quiet Giant” of laminate flooring production invests $230 million to extend capacities and to create 105 new jobs. The largest share of the annual output goes into the production of carrying plates for laminate flooring. Moreover, a part of the production serves as an additional market supply.
The scope of supply for this plant illustrates the growing demand among wood-based material manufacturers for Siempelkamp’s integrated range of competencies. The order starts with the extensive process technology ranging from the wood-yard to a high-bay storage system including a transfer station to the flooring production.
Combined expertise of the Siempelkamp Group for the “Quiet Giant”
The expertise of almost all Siempelkamp subsidiaries is applied in South Carolina. Sicoplan in Belgium developed the entire plant concept and plans the new equipment based on three-dimensional models. Pallmann, the expert in size reduction technology within the Siempelkamp Group, contributes to the order the wood-yard with a disc chipper and a chip washing system including a refiner. Büttner will supply an energy plant with a capacity of 53 MW and a dryer; the Italian subsidiary CMC will supply the screening technology.
The forming and press line with one of the latest Generation 8 ContiRoll® presses will come from Krefeld. For the first construction phase the press will be designed with a dimension of 10’ x 30 m. The scope of supply also includes a finishing line, a cooling and stacking line, a sanding line, a dividing saw, and an automatic high-bay storage system.
The special feature of this plant is the equipment package for high-speed thin board production including a compactor which provides additional compression in front of the press. Material lumps and other impurities are destroyed by the compactor.
The highly flexible operation guarantees that boards with a broad range of thicknesses ranging between 1.5 and 42 mm can be produced. The order also includes the Ecoresinator which was developed at Siempelkamp’s research and development center. Compared to the traditional blending process in a blowline, this system reduces the resin consumption by up to 15%. This is possible due to special nozzle technology and the use of super-heated steam.
This order represents another complex wood-based material production plant which Siempelkamp has supplied to the Swiss Krono Group since 1995. “It was therefore all the more gratifying to us that, within the scope of a location expansion, our scope of supply has once again convinced our long-standing customer,” says Dr.-Ing. Hans W. Fechner, spokesman of the management of G. Siempelkamp GmbH & Co. KG.
