First listed publicly on the Toronto Stock Exchange in 1987 as Noranda Forest Inc, the company took its present name of Norbord in 2004.
In 1988, Noranda bought its first factory outside North America, acquiring the UK’s only OSB mill, Highland Forest Products, in Inverness, Scotland. In 1994, Norbord added a second multi-daylight line to the Inverness factory.
In 1988, there was only Norbord in Inverness, and Isoroy’s factory in France, producing OSB in Europe. That was about to change.
Between 1998 and 2002, five European companies built OSB lines. Capacity went from 500,000m3 a year to three million cubic metres a year in four years and several years of painful over-supply ensued.
Today, Norbord as a whole has nine OSB mills throughout North America (two in Canada and the rest in the US) and two in Europe – the one in Inverness and one in Genk, Belgium.
The Genk Dieffenbacher CPS continuouspress line was set up by Belgian company Agglo in 2001 (a private company with no experience in, or established market for, OSB) and purchased by Norbord in 2004.
Interestingly, Norbord makes no other type of panel product in North America, but owns one MDF and two particleboard lines in the UK, together with a factory making furniture components, mainly for one of the UK’s biggest kitchen cabinet retailers, as well as making veneered panels for the do-it-yourself (DIY) market.
In fact, it is the only UK panel producer to manufacture all three panel types within the country, making it also the largest panel producer in the UK.
The MDF and particleboard lines are located in Cowie in Scotland and the ‘Contiboard’ value-adding facility is way down southwest in South Molton, Devon, England.
Cowie shipped about 300,000m3 of particleboard and well over 330,000m3 of MDF in 2012. The factory also ships combined loads, of these two panels and OSB together, to some merchant customers.
The Devon facility accounts for about 5% of the volume, but a larger proportion of the value, of Norbord’s total European sales mix, as the furniture plant achieves a higher average selling price than do the more basic panels produced at the other plants.
Market distribution is obviously a dynamic situation, but in 2012, Norbord sold about two-thirds of its US$1,150m turnover in North America; and one-third in Europe, even though Europe has a much smaller number of mills. As the US housing market picks up, those percentages will change, but the European operations performed strongly in recent years, while their cousins across the Atlantic struggled with the economic downturn.
The tide began to turn in 2012 as US financial indicators improved, but the figures for sales volumes in 2012 still speak for themselves, with Europe accounting for 34% of volume but 39% of sales value. This is due, at least in part, to the average selling price being higher in Europe because of the OSB product mix.
Nearly half of Norbord Europe’s sales by volume in 2012 were of OSB, while particleboard and MDF were 20-25% each and those value-added products came to 5%.
The Norbord philosophy
There is no doubting that the main focus of Norbord in all its markets is definitely OSB, with the company committed to increasing its presence in that sector going forward.
A major driving force in all Norbord’s factories is that of safety and great efforts have been made over the years to ensure that the health and well-being of employees and visitors alike is given top priority. The company’s accident record speaks for itself, with remarkably low accident statistics in what is traditionally quite an accident-prone industry.
"Safety is the responsibility of every individual in the company – not just management input but everybody’s input," said Canadian-born executive Dave McElroy, who has been based in Scotland for 13 years and provides business development services to Norbord.
Safety takes pole position in Norbord’s list of strategic priorities. It is followed by focusing on customers where the business can grow; maintaining high quality production while keeping a tight rein on costs; focusing on margins; allocating capital with discipline; and pursuing growth in OSB.
These policies go hand in hand with stringent environmental practices.
One example of the latter is the fact that all Norbord’s wood is from forests which are certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). For instance, it was the first panel manufacturing company in the UK to be FSC certified, back in 2000, said Mr McElroy.
In the case of Norbord in Inverness, those forests are located within an average 50km radius of the factory, with a maximum of about 100km.
Another example of environmental probity is the strict control of all emissions – air and water-borne – from the company’s factories: "Norbord’s environmental policy is very important to everyone employed here – it leads to good neighbours and is also good economics," said Mr McElroy.
"The company’s business vision is centred on the themes of trust, excellence and customers. It doesn’t micro-manage people but rather it expects them to manage themselves and provide feedback. The same principle applies in terms of having trust in suppliers.
"Meanwhile, Norbord’s customers are its only source of money and obviously all employees are encouraged to operate in a manner which helps them to be successful.
"Norbord is very good at delivering effectively and efficiently at low cost, every day. Organisational effectiveness is the glue to help the company achieve these, and all its other goals."
European Operations
Norbord’s Inverness OSB factory has two Siempelkamp eight-daylight press lines, giving it an annual capacity of around 330,000m3. It in fact produced more than that in 2012 as demand continued to be buoyant.
All OSB products are branded as ‘Sterling’ and the grades produced are OSB2, OSB3 and Sterling Roofdek, a tongued and grooved (T&G) panel for roofing.
The Genk factory has a 33.5m Dieffenbacher CPS continuous press, which has a nominal capacity of 300,000m3, but this line produced closer to 320,000m3 in 2012.
Sterling is again the brand name and the factory turns out OSB-Zero, square-edge and T&G panels and Sterling OSB-Conti standard boards.
Distribution of Norbord’s 2012 sales in Europe, by value, put the UK as the largest market, at about two-thirds. The next largest markets are Benelux and the Germanspeaking countries, each absorbing 10-15% of sales, with the balance going primarily to Scandinavia and France.
Mr McElroy said he expects that both the Genk and Inverness factories will produce well over 330,000m3 of OSB each in 2013.
The Inverness factory
The logyard is of course the beginning of the production line – and the beginning of Norbord’s attention to detail when it comes to making its OSB.
Logs are of Scots pine, spruce and lodgepole pine and all species are stored separately on site as the company uses different species in different OSB products, according to end-use requirements.
One of the latest investments at the Inverness site was in an Andritz hammermill, which is used to reduce off-cuts, residues and chips to size for burning in the Macconel burners, which provide heat for drying the flakes.
The Geka energy system is fuelled by waste bark, which is backed up by natural gas and provides energy for the many systems in place at the factory.
The logs are debarked in a Kone Wood drum debarker, from which stones and other ‘pollutants’ are removed, and the bark goes to the hammermill.
The de-barked logs then pass to one of two Carmanah flakers via diverter gates.
The flakers have 48 double-sided knives set up with scoring knives and cutting angels so as to produce flakes of as uniform a length, width and thickness as possible; the target is 95 x 45-50 x 0.8mm, respectively.
The knives last 12-18 hours between sharpening, with the changeover taking an impressive 25 minutes.
Debarker and flakers are controlled from one control room above and beside the line.
There are three triple-pass drum driers: one for the surface layer; one for mixed core and surface layer; and one for core layer material.
Small particulates are removed at this stage and the flakes pass to the screening process.
The flakes are then conveyed to the dry bins above the CAE (now Carmanah) glue blenders – one each for core and surface layers. Resins used are pMDI in the core and urea formaldehyde in the surface layers.
The forming station is comprised of four spreading heads, with two for the core layer and one each for the surface layers.
It is never easy to align the flakes accurately to make a proper three-layer OSB board, but Norbord has achieved a very high degree of accuracy in aligning surface layer flakes longitudinally and those in the core layer transversely.
In the control room it is quickly apparent that, while the presses may date from 1985 and 1994, Norbord has continually invested in upgrading them, and the management of the line, with the control room boasting much state-of-the-art equipment for efficient, high quality production. For instance, moisture content and temperature of the mat are displayed in real time, as the relationship between the two is critical to production.
Similarly, resin quantities, blender atomisers and forming line speed are all closely monitored and final board weight is shown in real time trending and has an accuracy of plus one to 3%.
Thickness measurement and 10-track blow detection are afforded by equipment from Imal of Italy.
The master panels leaving the presses are 16 x 8ft (4.8 x 2.44m) and every panel is dateand time-stamped to give full traceability.
"They will still be traceable in five years time, too," said Steve McTaggart, technical manager at Inverness. He joined the company in 1986 on a government sponsored Youth Training Scheme and his long service with Norbord is something he has in common with many of his colleagues.
Rail transfer trucks take the panels to the Giben cut-to-size angular panel saw system, which serves both press lines and delivers boards to the quality control and packing line.
Those boards destined to be T&G – about a third of total production – go to the Torwegge line for machining.
"Every hour, two staff check the fit of the T&G panels with each other and check the dimensions of the panels and those panels are also traceable right back to the raw board," said Mr McTaggart.
Sales of T&G boards are mainly to the continental European market.
The factory is perhaps lucky to still have its Bison sander. It may be quite ‘old’ but they have a solid reputation (literally) and this one sands boards to a tolerance of plus or minus 0.1mm, according to Mr McTaggart. With that kind of tolerance, who needs a new machine?
A well-equipped laboratory ensures that the factory maintains CE compliance in all its products, with a range of equipment to test internal bond, modulus of elasticity, etc. Samples of OSB also undergo a 21-day soak/freeze/dry cycle to meet V313 standards.
A Hydroair wet electrostatic precipitator (WESP) takes care of cleaning all gaseous emissions from the driers and presses, condensing the gases, while heavy particulates fall as sludge and go for fuel to the energy system. Hot air is blown into the top of the WESP stack to reduce the appearance of the steam plume.
When Highland Forest Products owned the Inverness mill in the mid-1980s, it achieved an output of around 65,000m3 per year in a five-day week, explained Mr McElroy.
As soon as it was in charge, Noranda increased that to 100,000m3 in a 24/7 operation and in 1994, when the second press line was added, that annual output rose to 200,000m3.
In 2001, the company added a third dryer and went from urea formaldehyde gluing throughout the panel to pMDI in the core. This increased the capacity to 300,000m3 a year from the two lines.
In terms of product development, in line with its commitment to further develop OSB markets and end-use applications, Norbord introduced four new product lines at the EcoBuild Exhibition in London’s Excel Centre in March 2013. These are: Sitecoat – a semifinished product for site hoarding and other applications; Decorcoat – T&G OSB flooring boards which provide a highly attractive, finished flooring system; Roofcoat – a specially treated water-resistant roofing board suitable for flat roofing; and Armorcoat – a range of fire-resistant products for the UK timber frame market.
The first three of those products were released for sale in late-April, while the Armorcoat range was the subject of some final testing and accreditation and was scheduled to be available late in the second quarter of 2013.
As already stated, 2012 saw production at Inverness reach about 330,000m3 and in 2013 it is anticipated that even more boards will be produced.
However, there must be a limit to how much can be squeezed out of two multiopening press lines and Mr McElroy admitted that plans are under discussion for investment in the Inverness mill. The Genk mill could also be in line for investment to increase its capacity.
No timetable for further investment has yet been set in either case but assuming demand continues buoyant, as all western European OSB makers seem to think it will, then one suspects that that time may not be so far away.
