As one of the largest and leading companies in the European Timber Industry, Mayr-Melnhof is a market leader in the Manufacturing 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 underlines the company’s innovative strength, but also represents an important step towards sustainable and efficient wood processing.
The successful implementation of the new production line demonstrates Mayr-Melnhof’s commitment to meeting the increasing demands of the market while offering environmentally friendly solutions. To achieve the target productivity of well over 100,000 m³ per year, a plant-wide control system is necessary. In this article, we take a look at the background, significance, and details of state-of-the-art automation in such a production plant. With its extensive expertise in the field of digitalization and automation, ABF was commissioned to implement an ideal complete package of software products from the OneBase® product platform for Mayr-Melnhof’s pioneering CLT plant in Leoben. Martin Klingenbrunner, Production Manager CLT at Mayr-Melnhof Timber, 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, based on these, to control the entire production line, as well as the post-processing of the cross-laminated timber panels up to the picking of the finished elements.
In the production process of CLT panels, two finger jointing lines are supplied with timber packages via automatic shuttles, lifting gantries, and buffer storage. The intralogistics module of the ABF solution ensures optimal material flow in this area to guarantee ideal utilization of the production facilities and prevent downtimes.
Realization of a manufacturing execution system (MES) for the manufacturing of cross laminated timber panels (CLT)
Strong Partnership
“We have already realized 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, optimized warehouse usage and a uniform presentation of the efficiency of the entire CLT production.”
