New strand for furniture makers
OSB may offer higher recovery and lower manufacturing costs to beleaguered Canadian furniture manufacturers.
Canada’s upholstered furniture manufacturers are facing severe competition from Southeast Asia. One change that could make domestic companies more competitive is using cheaper, commodity-grade oriented strandboard (OSB) instead of hardwood lumber for structural components. There is strong evidence that with design adjustments, OSB could be an effective structural substitute for hardwood.
The research focus now is on developing methods and materials to fasten OSB components together, because conventional fastening methods such as staples and screws do not work well, particularly along the edges. This is even more pronounced once the fastener is driven within the thickness, where splitting could develop.
“The challenge is for furniture manufacturers to learn more about the structural differences between OSB and hardwood, and to work around those differences,” says Bob Knudson, national team leader for composites at Forintek Canada Corp. “Once they know what they have, companies have shown great ingenuity in coming up with effective and efficient designs.”
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In 2001, China surpassed Canada as the number one exporter of furniture to the US, and today, the value of furniture exports to the US is double that of Canadian manufacturers. As nearly all Canadian furniture exports go to the US, competition from China is having a severe impact on the competitive position of Canadian furniture manufacturers.
“Canadian manufacturers are now finding that there is a lot of pressure on upholstered furniture prices,” says Forintek’s Furniture Group leader, Torsten Lihra. “So they are looking for ways to reduce costs, show that Canadian products have better performance, and that dealing with Canadian companies offers extra value, particularly in areas like service support.”
Should OSB prove itself a reliable substitute for hardwood in upholstered furniture manufacturing, this will mark a significant achievement for OSB manufacturers who are eagerly searching for new markets. OSB is now widely used as roof, wall and floor sheathings in building construction. However, depending so much on this one market sector leaves OSB makers subject to the ebb and flow of building trends. Knudson says the furniture structural component market represents a significant new market for OSB. He adds that furniture products are affected by different market drivers than building construction, which is what makes the market all the more attractive.
Forintek has recently completed a study showing how minor design changes had little impact on the overall cost of structural components manufactured from OSB, at the same time substantially increasing the strength and stiffness of the assembly. The focus now is to develop an effective OSB component fastener system.
“We are not claiming that we are going to come up with a new and innovative fastening system,” says team leader for the Structural Group in Forintek’s Building Systems Department, Mohammad Mohammad. “In the coming year, we intend to try different joint designs and configurations with some of the available options that are typically used in the building industry, and will conduct extensive fatigue testing on such assemblies to see how they hold up in what would likely be typical furniture use in a home environment.”
Some of the options include the addition of OSB or plywood gusset plates in combination with conventional fasteners like staples and screws, as well as investigating the use of metal plates as fastening devices, which are currently used extensively in roof truss manufacturing.
The possibility of switching to OSB has many financial advantages for Canadian furniture manufacturers. It offers potential savings in material costs and manufacturing efficiency. It delivers an 85 to 90% recovery factor versus only up to 70% for hardwood lumber. The bottom line is that there is significantly less waste when using OSB, and much more uniformity in the appearance and structural integrity from one OSB panel to the next.
Secondly, Forintek’s research shows that OSB offers a 10 to 20% cost reduction per structural component. Considering that there are as many as 40 structural component parts in one piece of furniture, that’s a significant cost saving.
Finally, the uniform 4x8-ft structure of OSB also offers opportunities for greater automation, production of larger component pieces, reduced handling, fewer processing steps, fewer parts, and standardization of parts.
One North American furniture manufacturer that produces 3,000 furniture frames per day has already switched from using hardwood lumber to plywood to manufacture structural components. Using CNC routers, the company applies nesting technology to cut out pre-designed frame components that may then be assembled without further processing.
“Our Canadian furniture manufacturers have noticed this investment, and have also shown interest in the potential use of OSB instead of plywood as a cheaper alternative,” says Lihra.
The Bottom Line is a collaboration between Canadian Wood Products Magazine and Forintek Canada Corp. A regular feature, it reports on research results that can impact your bottom line. More info a www.forintek.ca.
