News

Complete materials handling and press technology from MINDA

The Canadian company STRUCTURLAM is expanding into the US. A new plant for the CLT and GLT production will be built there. MINDA / Germany is in charge of the complete materials handling, the press technology, the production control technology and the project management.

Hardy Wentzel, CEO of Structurlam Mass Timber Corporation, informs about the company's investment in a new plant in Convay, Arkansas during a press conference.

STRUCTURLAM was founded in 1962 in Penticton and is located in the central south of British Columbia. In North America and Japan they have made their marks in innovative and trend-setting timber construction projects using GLT and CLT. 
The company was also the first to recognize the possibilities of constructive CLT in the project business due to its many years of experience in GLT production and invested in a production facility as early as 2011.

STRUCTURLAM also attracted attention with smaller CLT elements, the so-called "access mats". Lined up side by side, they are used as soil-conserving driveways, for example to develop oil sand fields or to build wind power plants in impassable terrains. 

For the next two years STRUCTURLAM will concentrate its investments of approximately $90 million US in a new plant in Conway, Arkansas. 
The group of investors also includes the world's largest retail chain Walmart, which employs 2.3 million people worldwide and generated sales of $US 514 billion in 2018.
The first 35,000 m³ of CLT elements from the new production facility in Conway are planned for the new Walmart headquarters, where 15,000 employees will find a workplace. 
This so-called "campus" is, amongst others for ecological reasons, only produced from local Southern Yellow Pine. This should make it the largest all-wood building complex in the world.

MINDA was primarily in charge of the detailed planning of all production steps starting with the automatic quality sorting, to the finger-jointing line and the area storage system, to the two lines for GLT and CLT as well as to the final processing of the products.

The entire production including the integrated machines, partly of American origin, is controlled by the MINDA Control System (MCS).

In the middle of next year, the new CLT and GLT production will start in an existing hall complex and offer new jobs to 130 employees.