34 | Focus on Italy: Imeas
“I think Imeas now has a good position and reputation in the CLT market,” added Mr Zenere.
Imeas’ range of products for the wood industries includes the flagship EvoL range (launched in 2017) – its ninth generation of calibrating and sanding machines. In the MDF/particleboard/plywood wood- based panels market, it has sold a total of 52 EvoL sanders (since 2017) – equivalent to 176 sanding units spread across 29 projects; 160 sanding units are already installed and more than 130 have already been put into service in full production. Here notable customers are Berneck (Brazil), Gaolin and Dongteng. Imeas’s product portfolio also includes
the CR-TB Cross Sander, LCI Grinding Machines, the Full Control System (FCS) and automation solutions.
Above: Imeas CLT sander in line Imeas saw Chinese containers being
targeted towards the west coast of the US this year, leading to a European shortage. “Sometimes it took four to six weeks to find a suitable number of containers. Some of our equipment can require up to 15 containers. Sometimes the price quotation for containers was only valid for 24hrs or less, as the price kept changing. It is improving now and not so critical as it was six months ago.”
PROJECTS
This year Imeas supplied a 10-sanding unit line to Berneck at Lages, Brazil for its new MDF facility.
“They purchased it back in 2019 with
delivery scheduled for May 2020, but it was suspended due to the pandemic. Finally, we delivered the goods this June.” Imeas technicians were onsite in August to
initiate installation, which is now complete. The plant is expected to be up and running early 2022.
Imeas is particularly pleased with the project as Berneck is a new client. The project has three machines in a 4-4-2 sanding unit configuration. “That is becoming a standard for MDF producers – 10 or 12 sanding belts in order to increase capacity and quality,” explained Mr Zenere. “Better quality is what we are being asked
for every day, no longer just producing more, but producing better in a more efficient fashion with integrated quality controls.” A similar project was also delivered to
Dongteng, China this year with 10 sanding belts for MDF. On the CLT front, the trend towards better quality is also prevalent, with machines featuring different degrees of customisation and more complexity.
Imeas has a 30-project reference list in
the CLT industry, with a total of 34 machines (some projects involve more than one machine) and 63 sanding units. Most were sold direct, although some projects were sold through Ledinek or were the result of negotiations involving Ledinek and Kallesøe. Interesting customers in this segment include the aforementioned Structurlam (US and Canada), Le Chantiers de Chibougamau (Canada), Piveteaubois (France) and Arboreal (Uruguay). The Piveteaubois project will be delivered early next year and had been in discussion since 2016. The client wants to automate its sanding of CLT panels (currently manual). The project for Arboreal in Uruguay will be delivered in May, 2022. The factory is believed to be the first CLT operation in South America and will use plantation wood. Imeas is also in discussions for further projects in Sweden, Russia, the Netherlands and Australia.
Elsewhere, Imeas has also been busy making technical improvements to comply with new mandatory EU rules focused on machine operator health and safety. This covers the emergency stopping of all moving parts of machines.
Some additional electronic controls and software modifications to Imeas technology were completed as a result. The regulations enter force at the start of 2022. Reflecting on some of the changes during the pandemic, Mr Zenere said virtual meeting technology had been very useful. “We almost never used Teams or Zoom before the pandemic, it was always physical. To drive or take a plane for a few hours meeting was nice but it consumes a lot of time and has limitations. Nowadays it’s much better that we also have the ability to share documents, experiences and even make a factory acceptance in this virtual way. “We used cameras to show the machine running in our factory before shipping to a customer in the US. It was very, very effective. We could use the camera to show all the details.”
Above: Imeas testing facility at Villa Cortese WBPI | October/November 2021 |
www.wbpionline.com
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