Success Story

Pioneering digitalisation for state-of-the-art cross laminated timber production

Timber

Customer
Mayr-Melnhof Holz AG
Location
Leoben | AT
Implemented solutions
OneBase®MES | OneBase®MFT
As one of the largest and leading companies in the European timber industry, Mayr-Melnhof is one of the market leaders in the production of cross laminated timber – the innovative building material of the future. The layer-by-layer construction principle with simple connection details guarantees the most economical applications in all areas of construction – from single-family homes to multi-storey buildings.

The company recently set a strong signal for the future of the timber industry by expanding its production capacities. The construction of a state-of-the-art cross laminated timber plant in Leoben not only emphasises the company’s innovative strength, but also represents an important step towards sustainable and efficient wood processing.

The successful realisation of the new production line demonstrates Mayr-Melnhof’s commitment to meeting the increasing demands of the market and at the same time offering environmentally friendly solutions. In order to achieve the target productivity of well over 100,000m³ per year, a cross-plant control system is required. In this article, we take a look at the background, importance and details of state-of-the-art automation in a production plant of this kind.

With its extensive expertise in the field of digitalisation and automation, ABF was commissioned to implement an ideal complete package of software products from the OneBase® product platform for Mayr-Melnhof’s pioneering cross laminated timber plant at the Leoben site. Martin Klingenbrunner, Production Manager CLT at Mayr-Melnhof Holz, is convinced: ‘The combined intralogistics and production control system from ABF offers complete coverage of CLT production at this site.’

The plant-independent production control system (MES) makes it possible to receive production orders from the ERP system and to control the entire production line and the post-processing of the cross laminated timber panels through to the picking of the finished elements.

In the production process of the CLT panels, two finger-joints are supplied with sawn timber packages via automatic shuttles, lifting gantries and buffer stores. The intralogistics module of the ABF solution ensures optimum material flow in this area in order to guarantee ideal utilisation of the production facilities and avoid downtimes.
Realization of a production control system (MES) for the production of cross-laminated timber panels (CLT)

The system is also responsible for recording and specifying the processing steps on the planer, cross-cut saw, laying stations and presses. After pressing, the software solution controls the fully automatic material flow of the panels in post-processing, including the commissioning of mending stations, processing centres (underfloor system) and portal processing systems (PBAs).

Another important aspect is the data supply for manual post-processing in the joinery, the finishing loop and the ceiling turner. The system also handles material tracking for the manual cranes used for transport package picking.

ABF’s warehouse management system ensures a smooth material flow in the automatic crane warehouse, which serves as an intermediate buffer store for CLT panels before the portal processing systems. The fully automatic control of the crane and the transport trolleys optimises the efficiency of the entire process.

A central feature of the cross-plant Manufacturing Execution System is the recording of operating times and downtimes, taking into account a plant and shift calendar. By cyclically recording measured values and calculating the Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE), the new system continuously improves the performance and efficiency of the systems.

A strong partnership

Thanks to the cooperation with ABF GmbH, Mayr-Melnhof Holz was able to successfully realise the new cross laminated timber plant and increase the Group’s production capacity for cross laminated timber from 80,000 m3/year to 200,000 m³/year in the future.

‘We have already realised several projects in our successful partnership with ABF,’ says Martin Klingenbrunner. He is very satisfied with the mega project implemented in Leoben: ‘With ABF, we were able to achieve optimum control and tracking of the production processes, optimised warehouse utilisation and a uniform presentation of the efficiency of the entire CLT production.’

Dokument herunterladen

MES for CLT production


  • MES for CLT production

  • Version
  • File Size 1 MB

Download document

MES for CLT production


  • MES for CLT production

  • Version
  • File Size 1 MB