The hot topic from the chilly north of the province of Québec, is I-joists. It’s the location of the Chantiers Chibougamau mill, a family-owned sawmill and engineered wood product facility that has an annual plant capacity of 40 million linear metres and which exports 90% of its product.
During the past three years, the focus of its export attention has been the UK and the company already counts four UK timber frame manufacturers among its customers. It is also in negotiations with “some major UK builders, a major UK builders’ merchant and a major Irish builders’ merchant”.
Chibougamau is coy about naming names because of the highly competitive nature of the market here. “Timber frame is very competitive in the UK,” said Bill Reilly, managing director of worldwidebuilderexchange.com and Chibougamau’s export agent. “In Canada we’re more or less all in it together and timber frame manufacturers will often sub work out to each other. That does happen here, but it’s much more sensitive and aggressive.”
That’s one of the reasons Chibougamau might not exactly be a household name yet as, rather than leaping into the UK market with both feet, it has preferred to spend time building relationships and strengthening its credibility.
Learning curve
“It’s been a learning curve for us,” said Mr Reilly. “It’s not that blind North American attitude that ‘what’s good for us is good for the rest of the world’.”
Chibougamau has spent the time wisely, securing British Board of Agrément approval for its I-joists; a process which Mr Reilly says was fast-tracked by the APA – the Engineered Wood Association in the US.
It is also working on CE marking with the help of TRADA and is in negotiations with the organisation to test its flooring system – the Total Engineered Floor System (TEFS). TEFS features a whole package of components from the I-joists themselves to the IBS load sharing connectors, hangers (provided by Canadian market leader MGA), PL Premium sub-floor adhesive, Quik Drive screw cartridge gun, decking (it recommends SmartPly OSB which it describes as a “terrific product”), design software – and so on.
Software breakthrough
Cracking the I-joist design software code has been a real breakthrough for Chibougamau. Until very recently the software provided to them by US company Keymark was in imperial. “We were having to do the conversions into metric for our customers, which was mad,” said Mr Reilly. Now, however, the all-singing, all-dancing software, which is supplied free to any I-joist buyer and which can design a whole house as a package and export information to autoCAD, is suitable for the European market.
The logistics of getting product from a site 600km north of Québec City to Liverpool dock and beyond have also been addressed. Shipments travel by rail to Montreal and are loaded onto 40ft flat racks which are slid into the belly of an ocean container. These then take around seven to eight days to cross the Atlantic. From Liverpool they head directly to the customer’s yard or to Kettering and logistics company Knights of Old, which handles further distribution. As business takes off, satellite distribution bases will be set up with the aim of achieving just-in-time deliveries.
Chibougamau has certainly done an impressive job of setting up the infrastructure in the UK, but how will its product stack up? The strength of its finger-jointed, machine stress rated solid wood flange, said Bill Reilly, lies in the raw material – black spruce, which just happens to grow by the multi-million in Québec.
“It’s a slow-growing tree with a very tough, long fibre and very high density,” said Mr Reilly. “That’s probably the biggest single advantage we have.”
As well as product demonstrations within the UK, Chantiers Chibougamau has hosted mill visits which, without exception, have resulted in orders. “Anyone who has come over has purchased,” said Mr Reilly. “When they see they have the power of the mill behind them and the magnitude of the place – we’re one of the largest solid wood I-joist producers in the world now – they get a sense of the support they’ll get.”
The company offers two business models: “One is ‘factory direct’ where we’ll load up the flat rack, mix and match with 241 and 302 I-joists and glulam beams and ship it right into your yard. The other is our added value service where, for example, if a builder wants a flooring solution, we’ll put a floor pack kit together and deliver it to the site.”
Glulam facility
Chibougamau has also just opened a 150,000ft2 glulam production facility which now offers UK solutions for ‘disproportionate collapse’, ring beams, stairwell openings and vertical columns.
With its current market entry level status, going the extra mile in terms of customer service is seen as crucial to developing new business. As is establishing a strong brand image for TEFS. “We want to become the ‘intel’ inside the house and promote floor performance as the most critical part,” said Mr Reilly.
A little way down the line the worldwidebuilderexchange website will offer real time solutions to site workers, so whether it’s 7am in Canada or lunchtime in the UK, the best practice solution is just a mouse-click away. The site will also offer the facility to download PDFs of the APA installation manual, plus any relevant creative material that the builder might want to use in his own publicity.
“I firmly believe that everything starts from the field up,” said Mr Reilly. “If you have a site foreman who’s not happy it gets back to the head buyer and if he’s not happy you’ve got a real problem.”
It’s taken a while, but Chibougamau believes it now has the ability to keep that site foreman pretty sweet. “You have to build relationships,” said Mr Reilly. “I’ve seen a big swing in the last three years from price only to price and performance. The code changes to Part L and Part E have scared the bejeezers out of everybody, but we’ve responded by adding some other bells and whistles to our programme here.
“Everything is on the table. If we’re going to see a commitment and a long-term relationship, we’ll do our utmost to keep our customers happy. We feel very good about what’s going on right now and I think this could be a break-out year.”
