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(This english version is very limited... please, see french version for more details)
Industrial Chair on Engineered Wood Products
for Structural and appearance applications
Engineered Wood Products :
an approach of design centered on the end user requirements
THE CHALLENGE: Develop a competitive strategy based on innovation
The wood products industries are of major importance in Québec and Canada, but they are under threat. On one hand, the resource is getting more expensive and of lesser quality, while on the other hand, market access is becoming increasingly difficult for commodity products. Canadian softwood lumber exporters to the US live under a regime of duties and ongoing trade dispute. With this challenge of restricting wood supplies and limited market access for commodity products, the wood products industry has no choice but to develop competitive strategies based on innovation. Michael Porter highlighted recently that innovation was the most important factor if specific industry sectors are to create wealth in a country. He pointed to the fact that the most wealth creating companies are competing on the basis of a product and/or a process unique in the world.
In order to achieve this, it is necessary to develop innovative business strategies based on appropriate science and technology and adapted to the wood resource. The secondary wood industries were developed traditionally in Québec to serve the domestic market. It has become obvious in recent years that Québec wood parquet, furniture and structural engineered wood products, to mention a few, are experiencing a strong growth of exports. In order to face global competition, they have to become more productive. The wood industry, if it is to become a major global competitor in secondary wood products has to go through a major paradigm shift. The main challenge lies in developing innovative products using wood and wood based composites as well as in reducing costs through better processes and lean manufacturing. For that purpose, it must develop innovating products, better answering customer requirements, improve productivity through automation and optimization and as well reengineer its business models taking advantage of technologies of information and communication in order to embrace differentiation or focus strategies.
MISSION OF CIBISA
The mission of CIBISA is to develop and transfer products, processes and business models to the wood products industry such as to help the development of value added strategies and to contribute in improving the competitive position of the chair members.
At the heart of the Chair concept lies a customer-centered scheme of integration. The starting point of everything is the understanding of the attributes desired by the end user of wood products, in the analysis of existing business processes as well as of innovative ones, in order to ensure that the customer is the driving force of business development. Servicing customer and business processes, the functions of product and process development should be found, that would enable the reengineering of the whole approach of the wood products industries. In order to develop these concepts, we intend to develop three main research axes within the Chair. The first is about the design of innovative products, taking advantage of alternative wood materials through the approach of wood engineering. The second touches on the development of new and improved production processes aiming at improved productivity, flexibility, taking advantage of technologies such as CNC, optics, automation and optimization. The third axis, above and beyond technology, touches on the development of new business models. It lies on the concept of the networked organization and it takes advantages of technologies of information and communication and their enabling capabilities in order to put forward niche and differentiation strategies. Those three axes will be treated across three fields: Structural products; Appearance products; and Composite panels.
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Dr Robert Beauregard is senior chair holder of the Industrial Research Chair on Engineered Wood Products for Structural and Appearance applications (CIBISA). His area of expertise is the modelling of manufacturing systems for the forest industries. He develops comprehensive approaches to the design of business models taking into account the interactions between the wood resource, process development and innovative products for better business performance. Currently, Robert Beauregard supervises a team of nine Ph.D. students, seven M.Sc. students and one research professional, not to mention courses and research opportunities to undergraduate students. In 1995-97, he was research scientist with the New Zealand Forest Research Institute. From 1997 to 2000, he has been at the Eastern Laboratory of Forintek Canada Corp. where he was instrumental in the creation of the Department for Value Added Wood Products. Robert Beauregard is a director of the Canadian Institute of Forestry. He has been for many years a member of the Society of Wood Science and Technology as well as of the Forest Products Society. He maintains collaborations with scientists across Canada, in the U.S., Sweden and Chile.
Dr Alexander Salenikovich is the junior chair holder of the Industrial Chair on Engineered Wood Products for Structural and Appearance Applications (CIBISA) at the Department of Wood and Forest Sciences of the Université Laval. His area of expertise is timber engineering, including testing, modeling, analysis, and design of wood structures. He is focused on development and improvement of high-wind and seismic design methods for wood-frame structures. Furthermore, he is interested in research of mechanical connections for timber structures and furniture, in improvement of prefabricated housing systems, and in the development of wood engineered composites and structures. Currently, Alexander Salenikovich supervises two doctoral students, one research professional, and he is responsible for two undergraduate courses in timber engineering. Alexander Salenikovich was appointed at the department in August 2003 after finishing his doctoral studies at Virginia Polytechnic and State University and post-doctoral education at the Mississippi State University. Previously, he graduated with the diploma of Civil Engineer from Vyatka State University in Russia. Alexander Salenikovich is a member of the Society of Wood Science and Technology, the Forest Products Society and the American Society for Testing and Materials. He is cooperating with numerous researchers in Canada and the United States.
GOVERNEMENTAL AND INDUSTRIAL PARTNERS
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Partnership with Forintek, CRIQ, MRNQ, CRSNG |
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For more information contact the project coordinator Benoit St-Pierre Email : Info.Cibisa@sbf.ulaval.ca, Web site: www.cibisa.ulaval.ca |
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