Construction on Välinge's New R&D Center Begins
One hundred technicians, in cooperation with Välinge’s 80 licensees, will develop and commercialize new flooring technology. The new facility comprises all modern equipment which is needed to produce hard floating floorings.
The new facility will include:
• Pilot production of sheet shaped core materials such as new types of HDF, plywood and other types of new board materials.
• Digital and direct printing.
• Impregnation.
• Surface covering equipment
• Lamination.
• Bonding of various surface materials to core materials.
• 5 full scale machining lines.
• Equipment to produce and insert a wide variety of flexible tongues according to the 5G and 5G+ technologies.
Välinge is also planning to establish several support centers in Central and
Välinge holds 600 patents in 40 countries. Välinge anticipates that pending applications will increase the patent base to more than 1,000 patents in a few years and that the total number of patents covering various aspects of flooring technology will increase to more than 2,000 patents in 2010.
The patent and legal departments of Välinge will also be increased considerably when the new center opens.
Over the years Välinge and its employees have invented and commercialized many new products such as:
• The first laminate floor in 1977
• The first laminate floor with a mechanical locking system in 1994
• The first parquet floor with a mechanical locking system in 1999
• The first laminate floor installed in advanced patterns (herringbone) 2003
• The first laminate and wood floor with a displaceable tongue (5G technology)