Keith Corbett, managing director of Clifford Jones Timber, likes to sum up the company’s approach to business in one short sentence: "Nothing leaves the site without an invoice."
It indicates how Clifford Jones (CJT) has added value while also addressing not only the question of what to do with residues, but also how to make money from them.
Manufacturing fence posts (around 3 million each year), rails and playground equipment from British timber is the mainstay of the company’s business but the problem of what to do with the 900 tonnes of residues produced each week from its sites in Ruthin, north Wales, and Hunter Wilson in Scotland, has led it into producing heating products, and flattened the peaks and troughs of a seasonal business.
Now the only true residue, and the only thing that escapes the accounts system, is a small amount of ash which is given to local farmers.
CJT installed its briquetting and pellet-making machinery in 2008 after Mr. Corbett and chairman Alan Jones attended a conference in Austria and saw how commonplace wood fuel was in Europe. It was a bold move, considering there was really no market for the products in the UK but, five years on, things have changed.
"When we started making briquettes in 2008, 100% of sales went to Germany; there was no market in the UK," said Mr. Corbett. "Now we can’t make enough of them, and we don’t export any."
The wood fuel business has also produced steady, year-round business for the company.
"Traditionally our post business was very busy in spring but winter was low. We wanted a product that filled the downtime," said Mr. Corbett.
And now it’s done more than fill the quieter winter months; demand for pellets and briquettes has grown to such an extent that it’s given the company the confidence to produce and store the fuel all year round.
"We’re well established in the machined rounded side of business so now we’re pushing the green energy side," said Mr. Jones.
CJT produces an average of 400 tonnes of pellets and 100 tonnes of briquettes each week from its Ruthin facility. This output forms the basis of many products such as fuel pellets, and briquettes for log burners, which are also used to power the steamboat on Lake Coniston. The company also produces its own CJ’s cat litter and Blue Ribbon horse bedding. Cuts of briquettes are produced to fire chimeneas and the pellets have even been used for flood clean-up. Bark is graded and sold as either grade one or mulch. In all, over 20 products are produced from the residue.
The residues that don’t go into these added-value products are used to fire the company’s two biomass boilers. A 5MW unit was installed in 2008 to dry the residues for the pellets and briquettes, and last year a 980kW boiler was installed to heat three new kilns – two 200m3 boxes and a 60m3 facility supplied by Kiln Services. Come this winter, it will also heat the offices and qualifies CJT for the Renewable Heat Incentive. Eventually it will also extend to the pre-heating shed where the timber is warmed – or thawed sometimes in winter – before production.
"Every single thing is used," said Mr. Corbett. "That’s part of our sustainability culture that includes using sustainable timber from Welsh and Scottish FSC-certified forests."
The new kilns, new energy-efficient dust extraction system, which replaces the work of five units, a moulder and lamination line are all part of the company’s latest investment in adding value – this time to produce British grown laminated timber.
Previously CJT imported laminated sections from Finland or made its own by gluing airdried sawn timber and clamping the sections together for three days. Now the process can be completed in a matter of minutes thanks to a new radio frequency laminator which dries the glue in just six minutes. The impressively fast process can produce up to 100 pieces a day and has eliminated supply issues, enabling CJT to have laminated timber available in days rather than weeks.
Prior to laminating, the timber is dried in the smaller kiln on a 12 to 14-day cycle.
"It dries it very carefully so the timber doesn’t crack because we want the best quality to make laminate," said Mr. Corbett.
The round sections are then passed through a new nine-head Kentwood HD9 moulder installed by Advanced Machinery Services last December. This produces a perfect flat surface to be glued, and a smooth finish on the outer curve.
"It’s a beautiful finish; it’s like silk," said Mr. Corbett.
Laminated square sections up to 200x200mm can also be produced.
The laminated timber, branded Ecolam, has a ready market in children’s playground equipment, which CJT manufactures to order, and lamp-posts but Mr. Jones hopes it will also be taken up by the construction industry.
"Laminating widens timber’s applications," he said.
Kiln drying all timber has improved preservative penetration on its treated timber which is done on site in two treatment vessels but, with some customers wanting extra assurance in the wake of premature fence post failures, CJT now offers Poly Posts. The posts, which have a protective layer sprayed onto the area in contact with the ground, carry a 35-year guarantee from the company.
The kilns have also enabled CJT to add logs – the offcuts from the fencing posts – to its range of fuels.
"It gives us another market," said Mr. Jones. "We would never have entered the log market before but now we have the kilns, we can do it. It’s another product that helps keep the business on the continuous level."
With the new kilns and laminating line in place, the investment doesn’t stop there.
The next project is a new pellet press to cover downtime – the equivalent of four weeks a year – and increase capacity in the pellet mill.
"The pellet press takes five hours to cool before it can be touched so a second press will reduce downtime and lost production," said Mr. Corbett.
Also planned is a new chipper that will deliver the "perfect chip" and replace the current chipper, the Beast, which is rented.
Also on the wishlist is an automated bagging line for pellets to replace the current manual handling. The line would do everything from filling the bags with pellets, to loading them on a pallet and shrink-wrapping the load.
All this is designed to help what Messrs Jones and Corbett agree is the "difficult process" of making pellets.
"You have to have everything right," said Mr. Corbett. "The moisture content is key and the plant wears during the process over a five-week cycle so you’re constantly changing the controls – the feed, the speed, the heat, the fans."
To make the pellets, the residue must be dried at 467°C, easy if you just have to turn on the gas, but more difficult when the biomass boiler’s performance can change daily, even hourly.
"Your operators have to be really switched on," said Mr. Corbett.
Investment at CJT is not just about machinery – in the past year it has spent £15,000 on staff training, for everyone from directors down, as part of efforts to develop a corporate structure. The next goal is to achieve Investors in People accreditation.
Mr. Jones gives a wry laugh when he talks about the decision, back in 2008, to install a "small" pellet mill. The wood fuel business has expanded beyond that initial vision and, while he admits it has extracted a lot of "sweat and tears", it has ensured that CJT is busy, whatever the weather.
Clifford Jones at a glance
Clifford Jones Timber has grown out of the business – haulage contracting to the timber industry – that Alan Jones’s father, Clifford, set up in 1948.
Alan joined the company at the age of 16 and, in 1987 he bought the site in Ruthin, Denbighshire, to set up timber production.
In 1998 the company embarked on an investment programme which continues today.
In 2005 Clifford Jones bought Hunter Wilson & Partners in Gretna, Scotland. The purchase provided Clifford Jones with extra production capacity and closer proximity to Scotland’s forests.
Alan Jones’s son and daughter are involved in the company, and the business recently extended to the fourth generation when his grandson joined the payroll.
