Columbia Forest Products Installs its Fourth Meinan Lathe Line

Greensboro, NC, September 18, 2015—Columbia Forest Products has made a $15 million investment that completes the conversion of all of Columbia Forest Products' North American core-peeling activities to Meinan's state-of-the-art peeling technology.

The latest installation was made at Columbia’s plant in Hearst, Ontario.

Columbia’s interest in finding the hardwood plywood core peeling system that delivers the world’s best quality peel, thickness tolerances and recovery available took Columbia engineers and executives halfway around the world to Japan, where Meinan peeling systems are engineered and fabricated.

Andy Frei, lead engineer and project manager for the Hearst installation, noted, “The attention to detail on this system is so high that the entire 200 ft. long lathe line was assembled, tested and disassembled in Japan prior to shipping to Canada.”

Once disassembled, 36 containers holding the lathe, stackers and ancillary equipment were shipped to Vancouver, BC. From there, the Meinan system travelled across Canada via rail, was unloaded in Toronto and then transported to Hearst on 30 trucks.