Linking NZ and Australian sawmills
FOR OVER 20 YEARS NOW, SAWMILLERS
and saw-doctors have been meeting every two years in New Zealand and in Australia. The occasion? The WoodTECH series. It’s run by the Forest Industry Engineering Association (FIEA) and designed with industry and key technology and equipment providers.
The event provides an independent showcase for local companies to evaluate the latest in innovations, technology and operating practices around saw design and operation, mill maintenance, wood scanning, sawmilling and mill optimisation. It’s also one of few opportunities that mill production and operational staff get to come into one location, get away from the day-to-day production for a couple of days and network. Plans are now set in place to run the 2021 event again. At this stage, it’s expected to be one of few that will be run in 2021 – anywhere around the world,” says FIEA Director, Brent Apthorp. “The format has been modified though based on the expectation of border and travel restrictions still being in place for international equipment suppliers.
For the first time, the New Zealand and Australian event is going to be run in both countries and at the same time. This means sawmillers and saw-doctors will be connected over the two days with presentations being given from both countries – in person and virtually – from around the globe. “The virtual component enables us to access expertise that ordinarily wouldn’t be able to travel into both countries in the past,” says Mr Apthorp.
Details on the two-day programme have just been uploaded onto the WoodTECH website. It’s extensive. In addition to new innovations around sawmilling and saw maintenance, a feature of this year’s event will be the number of practical workshops being given (saw guides and lubrication, fine tuning your circular and band saws, making use of machine data in the mill, real time data collection for machine diagnosis and troubleshooting and the like). There will also be a focus on one of the major constraints to increased production – retaining and attracting younger skills into the industry. A series of presentations around new timber treatment and wood modification technologies have also been built in to the event.
WoodTECH 2021 runs in Rotorua, New Zealand and Melbourne, Australia on 3-4 August.