There is a lot of buzz around engineered wood these days, and rightfully so as there is tremendous potential for market growth in engineered wood products.
But a Vancouver, B.C.-area company, Richmond Plywood (Richply), is ramping up its technology and production in one of the original engineered wood product areas: plywood.
Richply recently completed a new Con-Vey Argos panel repair system at their plywood manufacturing facility, located in Richmond, a suburb of Vancouver.
The panel repair system features state-of-the-art machinery/equipment for repairing defects on plywood surfaces, combining robotic technology with Artificial Intelligence (AI) to perform work previously done manually, and is part of a $18.7 million upgrade at the plant.
Natural Resources Canada provided $6.7 million through the Investments in Forest Industry Transformation (IFIT) program to Richply, and the company received a further $2.3 million in funding from the B.C. government, through the Manufacturing Jobs Fund program, to support its wood products manufacturing. Richply is employing this funding to purchase and install new equipment to enhance its manufacturing processes using second-growth fibre and waste wood.
The project will result in improving job skills for 24 employees and create 14 new jobs at the company.
“Having state-of-the-art technology reflects the commitment of Richply to minimizing material waste, reducing cost, and increasing production to stay competitive in today’s marketplace,” says Bhavjit Thandi, Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Richply.
The company has a unique business model in an industry that is dominated by public and privately-owned wood product operations.
Richply is a worker-owned plant, and was originally established in1956. Operating on a 27-acre waterfront property on the Fraser River, it employs over 400 people, including 248 shareholders who work in production. A non-shareholder management team of seasoned professionals working in tandem with a board of directors oversee the interests of the company, and results in what the company says is a winning combination that has established Richply as a leading manufacturer of value-added engineered wood products.
Today, the mill peels an average of 500,000 cubic metres of logs per year, and with two high-speed lathe lines, three dryers, four presses, and a full range of other sophisticated machinery, turns out annual softwood plywood production of approximately 225 million square feet on 3/8” basis, that includes almost everything from sheathing to high-end specialty panels.
Ongoing investments in plant and process, together with reliable management, product quality and flexibility continue to secure Richply’s success in the plywood industry, says Thandi.
The five wood species that Richply works with—spruce, pine, fir, hemlock and balsam—come from their own tenures, those of Mosaic Forest Management, Western Forest Products (two major players on the B.C. Coast), as well as First Nations tenures.
The current upgrade project, he reports, is progressing well. “The patch line is in, and a composer and layup line are still to come,” he explained. The total costs of these upgrades and additions is about $18.7 million.
“We are also looking to install a new dryer—we have a dryer that is almost as old as the plant, that has been updated multiple times,” he added.
They are looking to start that project, which involves the installation of a Raute dryer, as soon as this fall.
With the current upgrade, Con-Vey Argos provided the panel repair system, Raute provided the layup line, with Japan-based Hashimoto Denki Co., Ltd. providing the composer line.
The projects were well planned out, notes Thandi. “This kind of machinery is custom built,” he notes. “It’s not like you are buying something off the shelf—then there is the engineering and installation.”
Richply uses the B.C. office of Mid-South Engineering as a consultant on its projects, as was the case for this current upgrade.
The timeline for the completion of the project is mid-2025.
Richply now peels an average of 500,000 cubic metres of logs per year, and with two high-speed lathe lines, three dryers, four presses, and a full range of other sophisticated machinery, turns out annual softwood plywood production of approximately 225 million square feet on 3/8” basis, that includes almost everything from sheathing to high-end specialty panels.
The upgraded equipment will help in several areas, including productivity and keeping product quality high, says Thandi—all of which are key to staying on top in a very dynamic wood panel market.
“We have to stay competitive. We are using more second growth wood now, and have to work harder to produce a superior product.
“We face competition from South America, China and Vietnam,” Thandi said, which can produce plywood at lower costs, though it is not comparable in quality to Richply product.
In addition to its quality and selection, Richply also distinguishes itself in the wood products marketplace with third party certifications, such as FSC and Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC).
But it’s strategic investments that will help secure a solid future for the almost 70-year-old company, says Thandi. Since inception, Richply’s shareholders have applied a philosophy of continually reinvesting resources into the business to modernize and streamline its manufacturing processes, to remain cost-competitive, and to consistently respond to the evolving needs of its customers and markets.
“In order to compete in the global market, we have to put in equipment that makes us more efficient, reduces waste and makes us more productive—we need to be able to deliver on the goal of doing more with less wood.”
Richply has a unique business model in an industry that is dominated by public and privately-owned wood product operations. Richply is a worker-owned plant, and was originally established in1956. Operating on a 27-acre waterfront property on the Fraser River, it employs over 400 people, including 248 shareholders who work in production.
While the new equipment in the current upgrade is very automated, and makes use of some Artificial Intelligence (AI) features, it does not mean the operation will be reducing employees. “It’s not AI replacing people,” says Thandi. “People will have different roles—we are upscaling the work.”
He noted that they have already successfully automated their paint booth.
“There will be a great deal of training with this new equipment—we have had our people go out to different operations, to see this equipment in action.”
State-of-the-art technology is only part of the equation, says Thandi. Richply’s people are also a key to their success. The workforce is highly motivated; since most are owners, they understand it is in their best interest to focus on producing quality value-added products in the most efficient way possible in order to earn customer business.
And because the business is 100 per cent employee owned, staff turnover is low; Richply doesn’t have to constantly train new people, and it is not prone to production disruptions from labour disputes. While there is some turnover, it is minimal, meaning that the company does not have to compete as much with other manufacturing operations for potential employees in the Vancouver market, with its low unemployment, and high living costs.
Achieving a well-run co-op business that has lasted for close to 70 years has required a lot of hard work on the plant floor, and industry experts at the helm. This combination has steered Richply into position as the only surviving coastal plywood mill, with the closure, acquisition, or relocation of the other plants on the coast to the interior.
The current upgrades have created a sense of excitement around the plant.
“We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us,” says Thandi, with a big smile.
With this latest equipment upgrade, Richply looks forward to not only surviving, but thriving, says Thandi. The company, he says, stands at the forefront of an industry that takes pride in turning B.C. wood into the original engineered wood product: high quality, world-renowned Canadian plywood.
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Richmond Plywood: reinvesting in the business for 60-plus years
In 1956, 300 men shared a dream: self-sufficiency through their own hard work. They purchased a large tract of farmland on the banks of B.C.’s Fraser River, where logs from one of the world’s most prolific coniferous forests arrived by tow and were lifted onshore to a massive manufacturing plant, to produce plywood.
And that dream of a highly successful and enduring plywood producing co-operative came true with Richmond Plywood (Richply). The company shares a rich B.C. wood products heritage—the first Canadian plywood was produced at Fraser Mills, down the Fraser River, in New Westminster, in 1913.
That co-operative approach continues to be lived every operating day at Richply, says Bhavjit Thandi, the company’s Chief Financial Officer (CFO).
Thandi outlined what has been behind that success—starting with its employee-shareholders and employees, supported by the latest in equipment.
The current company president, Harbinder Athwal, is typical of many of the Richply employees. Athwal, who works as a boilerhouse engineer and is now 50, got his first job, at the plant, when he was 16-years-old.
These days, Athwal and his colleagues at Richply have new equipment to work with on the energy side: a newly installed energy-efficient Cleaver-Brooks back-up boiler. The back-up system accompanies the operation’s main boiler, which was supplied by Wellons, and installed in 2007.
“We originally put in the main boiler back in 2007 because we wanted to be steam-powered—even then we wanted to be ahead in terms of being clean, and energy-wise,” says Thandi.
Ongoing strategic investments are expected to continue to secure Richply’s success in the plywood industry. Since inception, Richply’s shareholders have applied an approach of reinvesting in the business, says Thandi.
As a co-operative, the company puts any capital project proposals to a vote of members—and a 75 per cent approval rate is required for a project to move ahead. Co-op members elect a seven-member board of directors, all of whom have to come from the rank and file at the plant—no member of management is on the board. The president also comes from the worker-members.
In the past 10 years alone, Richply has made multi-million dollar investments at the green end in the form of a log processing facility with Raute equipment, a new Nicholson debarker, increased log conditioning capacity, and more recently the approval and installation of a new Raute lathe line in response to changes in its fibre diet.
Inside the plant, major capital has been spent on a new composer, and automated patching (see main story).
The installation of the boiler with a three-stage electrostatic precipitator has drastically lowered the mill’s consumption of natural gas, reducing the mill’s carbon footprint, and contributed greatly to improved air quality in the region—now supported by the new backup boiler.
As a result of these investments, Richply has been able to use fiber more efficiently, increase production speed, and reduce waste.
All of this is part of planning for the future, says Thandi. “We’ve been here for almost 70 years, and we want to be here for the next 70 years,” he says.
Through these projects, the company has worked with equipment suppliers, as noted, to improve their operations, and update equipment. It has worked closely with Raute to optimize machinery at Richply. The company integrated Raute machinery into various stages of the production process including veneer peeling, veneer drying, veneer patching, and plywood processing.
Willamette Valley Company is another supplier, on the paint, patch and sealant side, that the company has worked with to turn out quality plywood product.
The five wood species that Richply works with—spruce, pine, fir, hemlock and balsam—comes from their own tenures, those of Mosaic Forest Management, Western Forest Products (two major players on the B.C. Coast), as well as First Nations tenures.
Another business partner, this one on the water, Hodder Tugboat, does towing and storage of those logs for Richply. In addition to providing log and barge towing services, Hodder is also a leading company in the management and operation of log storage water lots. With a strong presence in the Canadian Marine Exchange (CME) Flats area, located at the entrance to the North Arm of the Fraser River, Seaspan Marine Transportation does towing of chip barges, for Richply. Much of the wood chips from Richply are transported to another co-operatively owned forest industry operation, the Harmac Pacific pulp mill in Nanaimo, on Vancouver Island.
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