Finnish kaizen in the plywood industry

What to do with products when the market already has the necessary types of goods, and the growth of production continues? Your answer was presented by the Director for corporate communications “UPM-Kymmene” Natalia Malashenko. This year the company launched three new special purpose products.

In the production of WISA BioBond plywood, bioclay is used, where 50% of phenol-formaldehyde resin is replaced by lignin. The glue developed by the research staff of UPM. According to its technical characteristics, plywood on a bio-binder does not differ from the performance of plywood made using 100% phenolic glue. The product is already being bought in foreign markets.

For car manufacturers, the company offers WISA TopGrip Evo2 plywood with a special anti-slip coating. Its use ensures fast and safe loading and unloading of products, reduces the downtime of the truck. Now you do not need to use anti-slip mats for transportation of goods. The load is put on the floor and fixed. And the third innovation of the Finnish company is WISA-Form BirchMBT plywood for formwork with a special coating against moisture. Plywood can be used more cycles (up to 80). A special coating prevents the formation of ripples on the formwork and as a result eliminates the appearance of waves on the concrete surface.

To date, the plant in Chudovo is the main asset of UPM in Russia, where for 18 years produced 2 million m³ of plywood. In Russia, it was UPM that became the first company to start producing large-format plywood. Today, the company employs 600 employees.

Basically, plywood is used for formwork, transport engineering, flooring in trailers and ships that carry liquefied natural gas (plywood for LNG[1]-tankers). In Chudovo is not yet available plywood on biomasses. But the company has set several goals to increase its output. First, in the future all plywood plants will use glue with 50% lignin. And secondly, develop glue, where lignin in the composition is not 50%, and 100%.  All over the world, consumers are switching to environmental and safe products. While in Russia there is a great demand for these groups of goods. But our country does not live in isolation and Natalia Malashenko is sure that our products will be widely used.

Ekaterina Matyushenkova

[1] LNG – Liquified Natural Gas – liquefied natural gas.

[2]Kaizen is a Japanese philosophy or practice of continuous improvement. “Kaizen” in business-continuous improvement of business, management and internal corporate processes in the company, from production to senior management.