Siempelkamp has announced that they had 15 plants accepted in 2021, majority of which with customers from the wood-based panel industry.
Among the 15 projects, five were in North America and three in China. Two further plants were accepted in Turkey, and one each in Thailand, Vietnam, India, Russia and Brazil.
The 2021 acceptances reflect Siempelkamp’s positioning in the wood-based panel industry. According to a press release by Siempelkamp, in the Asian market, plants for medium-density fibreboard (MDF) production formed the focus, while the other projects were realised for particleboard or oriented-strand board (OSB) production.
One short-cycle press line was accepted in North America and one in Brazil, and a multi-daylight line for OSB production was also accepted in North America. All other plants for the wood-based panel industry accepted in 2021 will be producing according to the ContiRoll concept.
“The ongoing pandemic situation with the associated travel restrictions and quarantine conditions was ambitious. In addition, the workload of the projects shifted from 2020 to 2021 due to the corona-related interruptions at the customer construction sites. The same applies to the seven start-ups we carried out in 2021,” said Egbert Schulte, who as head of project management, claims management, and logistics at Siempelkamp had to consider unique framework conditions with his team.
Nine of the accepted plants are produced by Siempelkamp regular customers, six by new customers, which meant that the respective dialogue took place under different conditions and requirements. Personal coordination with plant operators on site had to take place less intensively than usual due to special circumstances in 2021.
“All these successful acceptances are based on our very good preparation phases and the willingness of our start-up specialists to work even under permanently changing travel and quarantine conditions,” said Jürgen Philipps, spokesman for the management board of Siempelkamp Maschinen- und Anlagenbau. “In cases where we were nevertheless limited, projects could be realised by using the remote service for additional plant components. Ultimately, each individual acceptance could only be carried out this successfully because the contact with all customers was as intensive as it was constructive. For this, we would like to express our sincere thanks to all those involved.”
