Fletcher Building, New Zealand, orders Dieffenbacher's new Cebro Fine OSB plant
Fletcher Building, New Zealand, orders Dieffenbacher's new Cebro Fine OSB plant
The GM of Fletcher Wood Products Ian Jones and Dieffenbacher CEO Christian Dieffenbacher seal the cooperation with a handshake
Fletcher Building has ordered a complete Cebro plant, including the newly developed Belt Dryer, to produce Fine OSB from German machine and plant manufacturer Dieffenbacher for its Laminex site in Taupo on North Island, New Zealand.
The new Belt Dryer is an example of how Dieffenbacher technology supports the sustainability of the new plant. Along with digitalisation, advanced plant engineering and operational excellence, sustainability is one of the four pillars of Dieffenbacher's smart plant concept Cebro.
The Belt Dryer has a low thermal energy consumption and works at lower temperatures than drum dryers. It can use low-calorific energy from the waste heat of other plant components that would otherwise remain unused. It can also be used in combination with cogeneration.
“It’s only a small part of our new plant, but the Belt Dryer is a perfect example of Dieffenbacher's advanced solutions”, says Paul Thorn, Fletcher Wood Products, capital works manager at Fletcher Building. “We chose Dieffenbacher for this important project because we are assured they will help us move our business forward sustainably”.
Fletcher Building’s new Cebro plant will have the flexibility to produce Fine OSB and conventional OSB. Fine OSB is a special type of board consisting of an OSB core layer covered top and bottom by layers of particleboard. It combines OSB’s excellent mechanical properties with the surface quality of particleboard.
Besides the new Belt Dryer, Dieffenbacher will supply an energy plant, a debarking line, purchased material infeed, strand production, a Maier impact mill, the screening and air grading, material recovery, glue preparation, glue dosing and glueing systems, the forming station and forming line, a CPS+ continuous press with Press Emission Control System, raw board handling, pneumatic systems, electrics and automation, the digitalisation solution Evoris and the digital service platform MyDieffenbacher.
In addition, Dieffenbacher subsidiary B Maier Zerkleinerungstechnik is responsible for engineering the wood yard up to the strander.
The Fletcher Building new CEBRO Fine OSB plant project received a traditional Māori groundbreaking and blessing ceremony
The Cebro plant will replace a particleboard production line featuring an almost 50-year-old single-opening press supplied byDieffenbacher in 1974.
“It’s remarkable that our old press served us so well and for so long. With the right maintenance, we believe our new Dieffenbacher plant will last at least as long", says Thorn.
Construction will begin in early 2024, with start-up scheduled for the fourth quarter and full-scale production by mid-2025.
