SCA's new SEK35M solid-wood shelving plant in Kramfors, Sweden, will process timber from Bollstabruk sawmill into products for IKEA

Michelle Rivera

SUNDSVALL, Sweden , August 25, 2010 (press release) – Solid-wood shelving for IKEA creates ten new jobs

On Wednesday, 25 August, County Governor Bo Källstrand inaugurated a new plant in Kramfors for production of the Gorm solid-wood shelving unit. The Träteam company processes timber in the plant from SCA’s sawmill in Bollstabruk and will produce at least one million shelving units per year. The plant is the result of a SEK 35m investment, and has created ten new jobs in Kramfors.

The Gorm shelving unit in solid-wood is a veteran in the IKEA range, and has been popular with IKEA customers for many years. SCA Timber and local business partner TräTeam have developed a production set-up that cuts costs in the supply chain from raw materials to product in stores, and as a result is highly competitive.

“The production facility is complex and we’ve had to develop new automated solutions for both nailing and packaging,” says Lars-Erik Frage, Plant Manager at TräTeam in Kramfors. “We are still fine-tuning our processes and running up production rates, but we expect to meet our production goals, not least because of our dedicated and enthusiastic staff.”

The right quality timber is cut to the right dimensions in SCA’s sawmills, mainly in Bollstabruk but also in Munksund. The kilned products are transported in stacks from Bollstabruk to TräTeam in Kramfors, where they are planed, scanned and trimmed to finished shelving components. In the next stage of production, robots nail the components into shelf segments. The shelving components are then fed into an advanced packaging machine where they are flat-packed into cartons together with a bag of screws and instructions. Then the shelves are distributed to IKEA stores across the Nordic region, Benelux and Germany.

Around 45,000 cubic metres of pine is required for the production.

“This represents one-tenth of the production at Bollsta sawmill,” says Katarina Levin, Sawmill Manager at Bollsta sawmill. “We have invested and developed the operation to a stage where we can take on complex production set-ups like this. Not many other sawmill companies can offer the same equipment, expertise or volume.”

“We’ve seen many closures and cutbacks in the timber industry,” says County Governor Bo Källstrand. “Any new ventures and investments have led to greater competitiveness and better prospects, but at the same time involved more rational production processes and fewer employees. That’s why it’s such a great pleasure to take part in the inauguration of an investment that has created more employment opportunities and new jobs. The fact that it involves a popular product that is sold all over the world by a well-known Swedish company is an added bonus.”

Bollsta sawmill has an annual production capacity of about 450,000 cubic metres of pine solid-wood products. Some 140 employees and contractors work at the sawmill. TräTeam produces around 85,000 cubic metres of planed pine products per year for Bollsta sawmill and employs 50 people.

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