The latest innovations in the wood product manufacturing industry

In the uncertain world we live in today with the global supply chain crisis affecting many industries across the world, relying on a wood product manufacturing company that invests in the latest technologies and tools can make the difference.

In this article, we will discuss the actual situation and talk about the newest machinery and systems to improve wood manufacturing.

Wood product manufacturing: why you should prefer a European or U.S. supplier

The chaos in the global supply chain has mainly occurred because manufacturers and distributors have not been able to respond well to the recent sudden increase in demand.

Factories, ports, container ships, trucks, and rail lines have been unable to keep up, causing long delays, an increase in costs, and shortages of goods.

Those companies that relied especially on Eastern suppliers for finished products and components are now suffering the most. They must wait even six or seven months to receive their wares, as ports are congested, and not enough trucks are available to transport goods.

Producing in the U.S. or Europe lets you:

• shorten lead time
• prevent risks & delays
• increase your competitiveness

Moreover, choosing a nearby wood product manufacturing company is a great advantage in terms of communication and support. Your supplier should be a partner in the creation of your project and continually help you shape your ideas.

Being far away means that you must consider the time gap to talk with experts if some problems occur or you can’t see and touch any prototype before production. This is important to understand if the wooden item corresponds to your and your clients’ requirements.

A U.S. or European supplier can also offer dedicated production lines for each product manufactured as well as private stocking solutions. This gives you the chance of ordering specific quantities just in time according to your actual demand and specific customization needs.

Choosing a U.S. or European supplier is also a guarantee of quality

Solid wooden components must be carefully made considering the precise tolerances of wood to guarantee a state-of-the art product. They cannot have knots and discolorations, must have the right level of humidity, and the country of origin must be certified.

Wood must also be FSC certified to ensure it comes from responsibly managed forests. People today really care about the environment and prefer buying sustainable objects.

A competent manufacturer makes many tests and uses the latest measurement technologies to guarantee the quality and performance of products manufactured.

As an example, to create top-quality wooden bow risers, three different tests should be performed during the design phase:

• Degree of Bending Test
• Stress Test
• Breaking Load Test

After production, each riser must then be tested to verify if any anomalies are present, and before shipment, it should undergo final quality control before being certified.

You can discover more about quality tests in this video:

Leading manufacturers invest a lot of money in the newest technologies to guarantee the same precision and the highest quality for each production lot.

Besides making the entire production process more efficient, implementing the most innovative metrological systems ensures the same excellent quality for even as many as one million wooden components.

It is often a quite difficult issue in wood manufacturing, as some items are very small or have an usual and complicated shape.

The latest 3D scanning technology based on blue light enables engineers to quickly generate 3D blueprints of physical objects with a high level of accuracy.

This groundbreaking measurement technology consists of three phases:

• a blue light laser gun is used to scan the product’s surface
• sophisticated metrology software converts the scan into a three-dimensional representation
• the 3D representation is compared with the original technical drawing to verify that nominal dimensions and tolerances are correct

Look at this video to learn more:

This technology improves the entire production process, from the design phase to quality control, with benefits for clients too.

Before production, metrological instruments are used to set up the needed machinery so that it can produce the object according to the technical drawing.

Then you make a prototype that will be scanned to verify if the machinery has been set up correctly.

Only when the wooden object has been completely scanned and the machine doesn’t find any issue can production start.

The process of quality control is therefore integrated into the computer system that controls the machine, ensuring maximum accuracy and efficiency with a very low probability of error.

An efficient production process and quality control are also an advantage for clients

As the risk of error is almost zero if the process is set up correctly from the beginning, you can obtain perfect, top-quality, and cost-effective wooden products.

Overall production time is reduced as well as lead time between development and delivery and time to market.

Thanks to new 3D laser technology and metrology software, the entire process is automated, faster, and more accurate.

If you choose a wood product manufacturing company located in your own country that has implemented the most innovative technologies and software, you will receive your products on time, and you will start to sell them as scheduled.

The Minelli Group has manufactured wooden components for the OEM market for more than 80 years.

Thanks to our internal research & development department, sophisticated software, and cutting-edge machines, we can produce innovative and inimitable objects whose quality is recognized all over the world.

In our European and American production plants, we can produce the highest-quality wooden components and customize them according to your and your clients’ requirements with a very short lead time between development and delivery.

If you have a project in mind, contact us right now!