To keep up with the rapid changes in wood coding and marking technology, it’s crucial for any lumber manufacturing and processing company to prioritize innovation in their business practices and teams. It’s simply good business.
Fundamental shifts are taking place on a global scale with increasing automation and the use of smart machines. Across industries, successful companies are constantly evaluating their methods, ideas, and products against industry standards and trends. Here are the top three innovations to pay attention to in the forest products industry to increase operational efficiency today, as well as a peek at what’s coming in the future. Make sure you stay ahead of the curve.
1. Technology
Technology has improved the speed and accuracy of conducting business for the wood industry. Pallet Management Group shares how advances in GPS and driving technology guarantee that drivers take the fastest, most efficient route, ensuring deliveries arrive without delay. Saving fuel and time reduces the overall cost for everybody, especially the consumer.
Advances in communication across various technological platforms allow for the smooth pickup, locating, recycling, and delivering items like wood pallets.
REA JET inkjet printers are an example of a versatile and innovative technology, able to mark not just wood, but a variety of items from rubber, cardboard, and other packaging materials, all the way to organic materials like consumer goods, providing the flexibility that meets the rigid demands of a wide range of production industries. Streamlined and consistent communication is crucial for success.
Standards put forth by Western Woods Products Association provide valuable information about using different types of wood to ensure reliability and safety in construction projects. Lumber grade stamps are an innovative and universal language that consistently communicate the properties of a given material to engineers, builders, inspectors, and consumers.
2. Robotics
Employing robots to complete tasks formerly done by hand addresses issues of slow, error-prone, manual processes while providing technical assistance to humans, aiding with arduous and unsafe tasks, and providing people with a sense of security and certainty. Integrating robotics into the wood industry results in better product consistency, streamlined organization, and a safer workplace.
REA JET watches trends in robotics, manufacturing processes, machinery, hardware, and other technologies with a focus on interconnection, information transparency, and decentralized decisions for our partners and us.
3. Process Improvements
Despite recent technological advances, people are still the heart of every business. It takes dedication, patience, strategy, and knowledge to create and implement effective business processes and exercise leadership in any industry, including the wood industry.
As all industries fluctuate in response to external and internal shifts, continual process improvement is necessary for survival and growth. We all strive to work more competently, allowing more time for the things that matter most, while ensuring that our companies have a reputation for consistently providing a great product and service. REA JET can ensure your message, branding, and standards are clear and consistent, no matter the surface.
Process improvement and simplification allow your people to work as productively as possible, from leadership to individual team members. By taking care of the basics, you empower your employees to spend their time and energy asking questions, innovating, transforming, and fostering a culture that strives for continuous improvement, a key ingredient in remaining a company that produces results. By allowing technology to do its job, and people to do theirs, you can ensure your company remains a leader in the industry. Process improvement looks vastly different from one industry to the next, and even from one company to the next within the same industry. It is an ongoing process that grows with your company. Technical assistance from a company like REA JET, with expertise and experience across multiple industries and a diverse set of companies, can allow your team to focus on decision making and problem-solving, while machinery handles more mundane tasks.
What’s Next?
The past few years have taught us the need to be prepared for major changes in our workplace and our world. Organizations must be prepared to quickly shift strategies and be receptive to new opportunities. Innovation and flexibility in the way we work, communicate, and collaborate allowed companies to survive the challenges and changes brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. As we navigate into the future, with production ramping up again, yet facing new and unique challenges, we seek a union of human efforts with technology, hardware, data, and other components of the digital world.
One innovation that demonstrates this marriage of humans and hardware is the implementation of exoskeletons in some industries. Exoskeletons have been shown to protect workers from injury, increase productivity, and boost workplace morale, with employees feeling protected and technically assisted by this hardware.
Other innovative practices look toward a balance of stewarding the planet and its natural resources while maintaining production in a manner that meets the expectations of clients and consumers. New materials such as biomaterials and nanomaterials are being developed to provide more strength and durability using wood, currently produced at the rate of five trees planted per person, per year, in the United States. These innovations allow the industry to meet consumer demands for strength and durability while stewarding the environment by continuously seeking ways to employ renewable resources in place of non-renewable ones.
Improvements to the wood industry will continue to make manufacturing, recycling, refurbishing, and construction safer, simpler, and more energy-efficient. For over thirty years, REA JET has kept innovation at the forefront, embracing technological shifts and advancements, and we want to partner with your business to do the same. The success of our partners and our industry is of the utmost importance to us, and we are always evaluating changes in robotics, interconnectivity, and automation to stay on the cutting edge. Please, let us know how we can partner with you today.
