Panels & Furniture Asia November/December 2023

PANEL MANUFACTURING
4
the highest-purity fractions of nonprocessed
wood, we provided them
with advanced sorting technology
that featured the necessary
technology to address complex
challenges. Today, with Tomra’s
X-TRACT and AUTOSORT with GAIN
deep learning technology, we believe
that the panelboard producer is
well-equipped to meet their quality
targets.
Legend
3 AUTOSORT
and GAIN
deep-learning
technology
for wood chip
purification
4 Removing
impurities from
unprocessed
wood with the
latest sorting
technology
quality levels. Thus, they strive to
create the cleanest fractions. “Since
we use Tomra’s sorting technology, we
remove most impurities. This enables
us to realise purity levels of up to 98%
and manufacture products with up to
50% recycled content,” said the plant
technologist.
“LITTLE DOWNTIME WITH HIGH-
QUALITY OUTPUTS”
The plant technologist’s facility has
been using Tomra’s X-TRACT since 2017.
However, with the need to remove MDF
and separate wood by type, they had to
innovate. This included investments in
new sorting equipment for which they
consulted us. As such, we helped them
find the best solution — which was
AUTOSORT and its add-on GAIN.
“Since operating the machine, we are
impressed by its results: we have little
downtime and high-quality outputs.
Also, as this smart technology removes
as many impurities as possible, our
machinery is less damaged, which
means that it can run longer and
require less cleaning effort. At the
same time, we can process higher
volumes and produce a clean end
product. In a nutshell, the technology
enables us to meet the industry’s
standards while maintaining profitable
operations. That is a win-win
situation,” she said.
COLLABORATING WITH TOMRA
Tomra’s aim is to support our
customers in meeting their goals.
As our customer wanted to produce
3
The plant technologist has described
their collaboration with us as having
a “reliable partner at hand who
follows the same mission: enabling a
circular economy for wood”, and the
collaboration has helped them “find
a solution for a previously unsolved
sorting challenge”. We at Tomra also
believe we had so much potential we
can unlock together, after working
together with them for years.
“In the early phases, we regularly
visited [Tomra’s] test centre in
Germany to test our materials on their
machines. Based on these results,
they proposed the best suitable
solution for our case. Convinced of
the results and their commitment,
we decided to invest in their latest
technology that makes it possible
to increase our qualities and meet
our customer’s expectations alike,”
concluded the plant technologist. P
32 Panels & Furniture Asia | November / December 2023