BUSINESS INTERVIEW
Mayr-Melnhof Holz Paskov s.r.o. is located
in Staříč in the Frýdek-Místek Region,
where it operates the largest sawmill in the
Czech Republic. They annually process
around 1.5m cubic metres of spruce wood
and produce more than 100,000 tons of
pellets. The company specialises in the
manufacture of sawn wood for industrial
processing, but they also supply secondary
sawmill products like sawdust or shavings
and are also an important supplier of chips
for dissolving pulp production, which
is later processed into environmentallyfriendly textile fibres. The company is
a part of Mayr-Melnhof Holz Holding AG
international concern with its registered
office in Leoben, Austria.
Mrs Director, you have worked in the
Mayr-Melnhof Holz Paskov from the very
beginnings, that is, eighteen years. It is
not very common for a wood processing
company to have a female director. How
did you get into this field?
I joined Mayr-Melnhof Holz Paskov in
2003; I was successful in the competition
which I applied to via a job agency.
I basically switched ‚from heavy industry
to heavy industry‘--I had previously worked
as a financial director in the steel and
engineering works in Vítkovice. You can
say that it was not a big change for me;
moreover, I don‘t manage the production
directly. But I did not have any closer
relationship to the wood processing field
before, that‘s true.
Who are your customers and what
products do you offer?
Our main product is sawn wood, i.e.
boards of various width, length and quality.
These are dispatched either fresh, or we
dry them in our own drying rooms to the
humidity needed for further use, based on
the customer’s request. The biggest added
value is represented by dried and smooth
boards. The dried sawn wood can be used
mostly in the construction industry, where
it is processed, thanks to its irreplaceable
qualities, into a number of products, such
as laminated or cross-glued girders, squared
timbers or surface elements of floor, wall or
ceiling and roof constructions. Production
of these construction products takes place
mainly in our sister companies in Austria
and Germany. The produced sawn wood
is also used in the production of packaging
and transport products. We gradually added
pellets -- since 2006 we have been making
this high-quality heating medium from
sawdust and shavings that are produced
during sawn wood production. Important
secondary products are chips that we supply
to the Lenzing Biocel Paskov company. From
what I mentioned above, you can clearly see
that we work as per the ‚no waste principle‘:
we process 100 % of the valuable wood
material, nothing goes to waste. We burn
the bark in our heating room and supply
the whole plant with heat. 80 % of our sawn
wood is dispatched both within Europe and
more distant destinations, which includes
Japan, South America and countries in
Northern Africa. Of course, we supply
also within the Czech Republic. It is very
important for us to provide our customers,
who request more and more, with a timely
supply within their needed quality, service
and special range of products.
You are located in the region of FrýdekMístek. Why did the management of the
parent company decide to place one of
the largest wood processing plants in
Europe specifically in this area?
The strategic location of our plant played
a big role here. It enabled continuous
supplies of round logs that we buy from our
contractual partners -- the state enterprise
Lesy České republiky (Forests of the Czech
Republic) and private owners from the
Moravian-Silesian Region and also Slovakia
or Southern Poland. We process only wood
from sustainably cultivated forests, mainly
from Jeseníky and Beskydy. We are also
very strict with the value chain observing,
as our sawmill is a PEFC certificate holder.
Another important factor was also the
synergy between the Mayr-Melnhof Holz
Paskov sawmill and the neighbouring
company Lenzing Biocel Paskov, purchaser
of our secondary product, which is chips
that are transported to their premises by
a conveyor system directly linked to our
production line.
How many employees does your
company currently have?
The current number of the sawmill
employees, together with the MayrMelnhof Pellets Paskov pellet factory is
350. We appreciate the long-term work
relationships very much and we are happy
that we have loyal employees. Currently,
we have enough of our own personnel, we
are an eminent employer in the MoravianSilesian Region and I would like to thank
our employees for their professionalism,
commitment and loyalty which they show
in their demanding jobs.
Do you have any space for innovation?
What are the current trends and how
do you meet them?
The space for innovation is huge. It is
very important to have the newest, latest
technology in Mayr-Melnhof Holz Paskov;
the continuous modernization of the sawmill
was always a priority for our owner. The
common denominator of all realized and
planned innovations is bigger productivity,
bigger depletion of the entry material,
increased added value of the products
and, of course, automation of production.
A group of innovation regulations can be
basically divided into the organizational
field, including more effective processes in
production and technological field. In the
technological field, we realized several big
projects and we keep preparing others.
Could you be more specific?
We finished construction of a third biomass
boiler with the power of 12MW, which was
an addition to already operating devices with
a total power of 20MW. We successfully
finished the construction of four more
drying rooms with the additional annual
capacity of 120,000 m³. We further realized
the full automation of round log supply
management and supply registration from
the gates up to the entry into the sorting line
with the ‘electronic supply note’, which has
already been successfully used in the MayrMelnhof Holz Leoben sawmill in Austria.
We also plan to implement the automation
of the production of the drying room sawn
wood packages. Last but not least, we are
going to focus on the installation of scanners
which will help with quality assessment,
because they automatically detect sawn
wood defects. This is another device that will
make the sorter‘s work significantly easier
and will increase the accuracy of the sorting.
You invested in new technologies and
equipment in the past. What are the
other projects that you managed to
finish?
We have finished several projects over the
past years. For example, the installation
of higher-performance suction on the
cutting line has reduced the dusting and
pollution of the machines and increased
technical availability. We also installed new
main ripping saws, which increased the
performance of the cutting line by 60 %. An
important change was also the installation
of five new devices for 3D measuring
of the round logs in the warehouse and
before entering the cutting line. The result
is more accurate measuring of the shape
and size of the round logs and consecutive
control of the cutting so that the highest
depletion possible is achieved. We also
installed the vapour recovery system for
the residual heat from the drying rooms
because sustainability and ecology play
a very important role in all companies of
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