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Positive signals at Ligna!
In May, Valutec was once again one of the exhibitors at the world’s largest sawmill trade fair, Ligna in Hannover. From the company’s perspective, the experience was that after a few challenging years for the industry, there is now renewed confidence in a bright future.
“For us, it is always valuable to meet people from the sawmill industry. It’s a great opportunity to look ahead and be inspired with new ideas,” says Eric Johansson, Marketing Manager at Valutec.
At Ligna, Valutec presented its patent-pending solution “Closed Loop Drying,” which enables energy savings of up to 50%, attracting great interest.
“There was very strong interest in ‘Closed Loop Drying,’” Eric says. Energy costs have risen sharply worldwide in recent years, and lumber drying is one of the most energy-intensive processes in sawmills. This makes the invention highly attractive for sawmills around the globe, as was evident at Ligna.
The sawmill industry is in the midst of a transition, with megatrends such as automation and sustainable transformation as key focus areas. There is strong interest in solutions that can help sawmills move forward, but they must also be practical and commercially sound.
“Our analysis is that advantages related to both automation and sustainability must be easy to use and integrate with other processes at the sawmill. Moreover, they should ideally contribute to increased quality; an absolute minimum is that they never compromise on this factor,” Eric explains, continuing:
“That mindset is behind, for example, the optimization we offer in Valmatics 4.0 — you have to be able to optimize all parameters simultaneously. It’s the same for a sawmill making sustainable investments; they want to make a good business deal while also improving the working environment around the dryer.”
Ligna attracted 1,300 exhibitors from 50 countries. The fair, held from May 26–30, estimated early on that around 80,000 visitors attended.
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