Fiberwood has reached an important milestone in its material development journey. The company is now producing wood fibre-based insulation materials at industrial customer scale in its demo environment in Järvenpää, and the first deliveries have already been shipped to customers.
The demo line moves Fiberwood’s development work from laboratory and pilot phases into an environment that mirrors a full-scale industrial production process. Through demo batches, Fiberwood optimises the process, ensures consistent material quality and gathers data for the design of its future production facility.
“The demo production line brings our process into a real production environment in a controlled way. We can now manufacture customer products in their actual size and structure while verifying material performance at an industrial scale,” says Tomi Siira, Plant Manager at Fiberwood.
First boards for customer testing
The first boards are heading to customer line tests, where the material will run as part of customers’ own production processes. After these tests, development work will continue in customer pilot projects, where product performance and further development will be evaluated in practical operating environments.
The first customer delivery also served as an important test for Fiberwood itself.
“The pilot batch stress-tested the entire process, from raw material handling to finished product quality assurance. We successfully met the required standards and gained valuable experience from continuous operation at the same time,” Siira says.
Next, the demo machine will expand into new production tests and customer deliveries. The versatile environment enables the manufacturing of products for several different end uses and customer applications.
Expertise visible in every phase
Building the demo line and completing the first deliveries have required specialised expertise in material development, automation, production and quality assurance.
“We have built everything ourselves, starting from the line design. Now that work begins to turn into customer deliveries. The first pilot batches demanded flexibility and commitment from everyone involved, and each person played an important role in making them successful”, Siira says.
Fiberwood will next increase capacity by further expanding the demo line. The development work receives partial funding from the EU LIFE Programme. At the same time, the company is evaluating location options in Finland for its future production facility.
