world news - 09.01.2007
EU-funded project tracks wood from forest floor to showroom floor
Indisputable Key, funded under
FP6, will develop methodologies to ensure the traceability of wood
resources from the time they are cut to the moment they are sanded as a
finished product.
Richard Uusijärvi, Indisputable Key project coordinator, is confident
that the project will help protect Europe's forests while helping to
maintain the competitiveness of wood-based industries.
“The forestry and wood sector is one of the most important sectors in
the European Union. This project will enable this sector to improve the
efficiency of the value chain and to be more competitive. With optimal
project results, we hope to see increased production efficiency,
improved logistics, and minimised environmental impacts in sawmills and
other wood manufacturing companies. These solutions will have many
beneficial outcomes on wood product life-cycles as well as the
environment.”
The project participants estimate that the mismanagement of wood
accounts for up to 25 million m3 of wasted resources worth up to ˆ5
billion. To address the problem, the consortium will develop systems
based on the Individual Associated Data (IAD) concept, which
facilitates automatic tracking of data along the forest-wood chain.
This tracking system records the specifications of wood that have
significant bearing on the quality of the wood produced, e.g. breast
height diameter class, log number in the stem and cutting date.
Indisputable Key will improve upon established methods securing the
delivery of such vital statistics throughout the supply chain.
Indisputable Key will integrate ICT tools into a seamless system to
facilitate the transfer of cut wood from the forest to the end users.
Frontline mechatronics, software, nano mechanics and electronics
R&D partners will pool their respective resources and expertise to
develop these systems.
Determining the environmental effects of Indisputable Key systems will
be implemented at different nodes of the forest-wood production chain
by consortium specialists and tested by industry leaders and
fore-runner SMEs at various hardwood and softwood forest sites in
France, Norway, Finland and Sweden.
See also:
- — Philippine Dep't Of Environment Targets Timber Smugglers
- — Karelia-Upofloor acquires Focus Wood to launch parquet flooring production in Russia
- — Family forestry is an important source of raw materials for the wood processing industry
- — The European Union combats illegal logging
- — When Being Green Raises the Heat