Now in their third year of exhibiting at the show, Irish sawmills Glennon Brothers, GP Wood and Murray Timber Group will be part of a stand hosted by Coillte and Enterprise Ireland.

The fundamental reasons for exhibiting remain the same and all parties see the show as an ideal opportunity to meet current and new customers and reinforce the message that their relationship with the UK market is an enduring one.

"Staying with Timber Expo shows continuity and commitment to the UK market," said Coillte’s director of sales and marketing, Richard Lowe. "And Coillte’s presence shows there is commitment from the log right through the supply chain."

The key themes of the stand this year are sustainability, innovation, traceability and customer focus and each mill has a strong story to tell based on those four strands and, particularly, how they relate to the UK market.

Murrays operates two mills – one at Ballygar, Co Galway and one at Ballon, Co Carlow, the former of which saw major investment in a new USNR sawline in 2005, following a fire.

UK market As with several of the Irish mills, the UK market became even more important when bust followed boom in 2007 and the Irish construction industry shuddered to a halt.

"We needed to get into a position to trade with our biggest and closest export market but the spec was different," said Patrick Murray, sales director. "That led us to make a major investment in two high-speed planers and the latest Microtec Goldeneye X-ray grading technology so we could provide what the UK market wanted – eased edge carcassing. In fact, we were the first Irish mill to offer eased edge as standard, across the board, into the UK."

Rebranding
Another sea change for the company was the rebranding of its products as SNR – Sustainable Natural Resource. It was a leap of faith in the product to give the SNR branding prominence over the Murray name but it’s paid off and the group now exports 65-70% of its output to the UK, the majority of it carcassing.

"We started exporting carcassing to the UK in 2009 and went from zero to 100 miles an hour in a couple of months," said Mr Murray, adding that the carcassing is offered in lengths from 2.4-7.2m.

"The SNR branding has had a huge impact as it’s not being pre-judged as just another Irish product, but is seen as a carcassing product," said Mr Murray. "The UK market’s attitude to quality has changed a lot and we want our products to speak for themselves and for the SNR brand to be synonymous with quality."

Its focus on the UK market has also led Murrays to increase its offering of kiln-dried and heat-treated pallet and packaging material and a couple of years ago it started to produce feather-edge fencing.

"Feather-edge is a huge part of the UK market so we had to gear up to offer it in order to be a one-stop shop," said Mr Murray.

GP Wood is the newest sawmilling business on the Irish scene although Graingers Sawmills and Palfab, which created the company in a 50:50 merger a few months ago, were both long-established companies.

And while the merger took many by surprise, according to GP Wood managing director Niall Grainger, it had been mooted "for at least 20 years" between the two companies.

"The O’Callaghans and Graingers have had a close working relationship since the 80s," he said. "The two mills are only 10 miles apart [Graingers at Enniskeane and Palfab in Lissarda] and the commercial viewpoint of the two families is very similar."

However, he added, their marketing spaces didn’t cross, with Palfab serving just the Irish market and Graingers more focused on exports.

"We’d reached maximum capacity for this site and were at a crossroads," continued Mr Grainger. "We needed space, not just for our primary breakdown, but also to become a more efficient processor and to add as much value as possible to the resource."

The merger has already seen some major investment and reshuffling. The plan is for the Lissarda site to handle the bulk of the primary processing – and certainly the larger logs – while Enniskeane will focus on smaller logs, and secondary processing.

"We’ve already invested over €2m in improving the primary breakdown at Lissarda and are putting a second drop sorter, a second edger and new scanning technology in there," said Mr Grainger. "Some of our more recent technology at Enniskeane – optimising hardware, for example – will also move to Lissarda.

"We’ve also spent €1m on a Goldeneye grading line and €500,000 on a multi-head cross-cut for adding value to the pallet and packaging line at Enniskeane," he continued. Big numbers already but nothing in comparison to the figure being suggested by the ongoing feasibility study. "Our development plan is very ambitious and the capital requirement is in the region of €25-30m."

Mr Grainger added, however, that the intention isn’t to chase more volume but to add more value, more efficiently.

"We’re looking at investing in our drying and finishing capabilities and going into markets we’re not currently in – garden products, for example. And we intend adding a lot of value to the lowest value products on site, including residues."

With the merger GP Wood also owns a 50% share of Eirebloc (the other shareholder being Mid-Cork Pallets and Packaging) and so has an easy route for its residues to the manufacture of the composite blocks. Meanwhile there are plans for further development of the combined heat and power plant at Enniskeane, including talk of a second plant.

"We’re already importing residues and are looking at the wood pellets market in the UK," said Mr Grainger.

Glennon Brothers’ centenary
Glennon Brothers has been no stranger to major investment over its 100-year history – in fact it has invested more than €50m in its Ireland-based operations since 1997. And this year is no exception.

In January the company broke ground at its Fermoy, Co Cork site for a 5,500m² building to house a state-of-the-art planing and grading line. The investment, to the tune of €12.5m includes a USNR linear high grader – the first of its kind in Europe – which combines the three technologies of X-ray, ultrasound and vision grading at very high speeds. The new development also includes a top of the range Ledinek planer, a board sorting facility and cross-cutting facility.

This all-singing, all-dancing line, which also boasts a self-cleaning system, is on track for completion in October.

The company is also investing €750,000 in a group-wide ERP (enterprise resource planning) computer system, designed and installed by Epicor (formerly Progressive Solutions), which will go live in March 2014. The system will integrate IT across the group for the first time, improving customer service and stock visibility.

Value-added products represent a significant proportion of production, with much of it destined for the construction sector. The focus has been on exports, which account for two-thirds of production.

"We’ve doubled our exports in a very short space of time with the biggest market being the UK," said Mike Glennon, joint managing director. "We also started shipments from our Irish production to France in 2009 and they now represent 10% of our exports."

He specifies "Irish production" because the group now produces more wood products and employs more people in Scotland than it does in Ireland through its ownership of Windymains Timber, Adam Wilson & Sons and Alexander Timber Design.

The group’s commitment to its UK businesses has been plain to see. In 2010 it invested €1.75m in a Ledinek planing line and treatment facilities at Adam Wilson, while at Windymains, 20 additional acres were secured for growth and development. Last year a new purpose-built €1.75m automated high-pressure preservative treatment facility was installed.

Now, 95% of the group’s Scottish production and 50% of its Irish output is destined for the UK. "Each facility has core competencies so we use them for different products to add to our flexibility," said Mr Glennon.

He added that another facet of the group, Co Wicklow-based Dempsey Timber Engineering, is now chasing the export market and has the UK in its sights.

Aside from its processing and manufacturing facilities, Glennon Brothers has emphasised its allegiance to the UK market still further by becoming the first home-grown sawmiller to sponsor the TTJ Awards. This year, as part of its own centenary celebrations, it is sponsoring the TTJ Small Timber Business of the Year Award.

Medite and Smartply Take A Stand
"Innovation is key to our presence at this year’s Timber Expo," said Coillte Panel Products’ marketing manager, Joanna Crown.

Products on stand D1 will include the newest product from SmartPly – ToughPly, which is marketed as a sustainable OSB alternative to tropical plywood – OSB3, OSB2 and SiteProtect, a coated site hoarding panel. Nine different families of MDF products will be highlighted, including Medite’s newest general purpose board, Medite Trade MDF and, of course, the award-winning Medite Tricoya.

ECC remains committed
Although not exhibiting as part of the Irish pavilion at Timber Expo, Irish sawmiller ECC Teo says it will "have a presence" at the show, according to managing director PJ Fahy. The UK market remains a key priority for the Corr na Mona, Co Galway-based company which completed a €5m investment in a new planing and added-value production line in 2011.

The development was a response to the UK construction sector’s move to PAR eased edge material and resulted in the ECCedge timber brand being added to the company’s product portfolio.

The line, which further shortened lead times, includes high-speed Microtec Goldeneye grading, Ledinek planing, and a sorting facility, complemented by resawing, pointing, and cross-cutting and has a capacity of more than 500m³ per shift.

"We did a lot of customising on the line – it does so much more than just planing – and this has led to greater flexibility, which is essential in today’s market," said production manager Pat Mullarkey.

Just as an example, he added, the pointing station means a four-way point can be put on a fence post and the line can also apply weather tops to posts. In terms of carcassing material, CE marked C16 timber has been available from ECC for the past couple of years.

Two new high-speed Bes Bollman kilns were installed last year, further improving consistency and quality and bringing down lead times.

Exports to the UK have risen to 75% of output, a situation that was inevitable given the state of the Irish economy, according to Mr Fahy. "We had no choice but to make changes when the market collapsed," he said. "Recession can be an excuse or a motivation and for us it was the latter. There have been challenges over the last couple of years but we’ve risen to them, invested in high quality production and we’ve been very successful." The company will remain committed to its UK customers, he said, adding that he anticipated "a huge surge in demand next year".