New and Update Wood First Program for 2022-23.
BC Wood is pleased to announce that Provincial funding for the Wood First Program has been approved for the coming year. Beginning April 1st, 2022, we will be coordinating and delivering an exciting line up of activities to assist you in your marketing and business development! These activities include:
Marketing and Business Assessments
A marketing professional will review and evaluate your company's activities and strategies. Next, you will receive a comprehensive summary report that identifies each activity, recommended changes or improvements, and new activities/strategies that should be considered. Along with the report, you will receive recommendations on how to accelerate or improve your marketing strategies, as well as how to strengthen and improve your overall brand and messaging to further set you apart from competitors and achieve your desired business goals.
Company Projects
Company-Specific Projects use information gained from assessments to help improve competitiveness, address gaps, and strengthen your company’s supply chain. With this help, you will learn to manage your business and market your product more efficiently and effectively: ultimately growing your company.
Workshops
We will be offering a variety of workshops throughout the year at cost-shared rates to help manufacturers overcome their barriers to growth and move their business forward while encouraging networking and collaboration within the industry.
To find out how BC Wood can assist you with your marketing and business development, contact Kit Crowe at kcrowe@bcwood.com or 604-716-0944. |
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Wood First: General Assessments
General Assessments are a free, confidential conversation with BC Wood that will help identify the specific areas limiting your company’s growth. Typically, there are three general areas of concern for most value-added wood manufacturers: Marketing and/or Business Development, Technical Expertise, or Product Development and Design.
Once the assessment has been completed and gaps to growth identified, we will work to develop programming intended to build the skills and capabilities within your company. BC Wood can help by providing cost-shared professional business development services at your company level, or to groups of companies with like needs, either related to business organization, marketing, product development, or enhancing manufacturing processes.
For now, all assessments are done virtually, but once it is safe to travel, we would be happy to meet you at your place of business! Please contact Kit Crowe at kcrowe@bcwood.com to arrange your general assessment.
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WMC Management Skills Training
UBC - Online Managements Skill Training Courses
Jason Chiu | 604 822-0082
UBC – Centre for Advanced Wood Processing (CAWP) will be offering the following “online” courses; Production Planning (8 weeks) and Sales & Marketing (6 weeks) will start on March 28th, 2022.
These wood products industry-specific courses are designed for owners, managers, supervisors or management tracked employees. These are not academic courses and the skills learned can be applied immediately to the workplace. Each part-time course is led by a tutor with extensive industry experience.
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17.75 AIBC Core Learning Units Approved!
Robot Made: Large-Scale Robotic Timber Fabrication in Architecture
June 4th to 8th, 2022
Assistant Professor David Correa from the University of Waterloo and Associate Professor AnnaLisa Meyboom from UBC SALA, will hold a technical workshop on robotic fabrication, in collaboration with UBC Centre for Advanced Wood Processing (CAWP). While many industries have made leaps and bounds in adopting highly flexible and fully automated fabrication workflows using robotics, the construction and design industry is only just starting to open the door to these technologies.
Recent developments in robotics combined with more accessible design-to-fabrication tools can now offer architects, designers and fabricators unprecedented access to a new design paradigm.
We are pleased to welcome two experts to UBC, to share their knowledge and experience with students and practicing architects. Using a state-of-the-art eight-axis industrial robotic work cell in the CAWP manufacturing pilot, the workshop will guide participants through the unique technical and conceptual foundations that underpin robotic milling in wood, through the development and construction of a full-scale fabrication project.
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Join us for BUILDEX VANCOUVER
Visit the BC Wood Pavilion at BUILDEX VANCOUVER at the Vancouver Convention Centre West, March 23-24, 2022 with a free expo pass!
BUILDEX VANCOUVER is the largest building industry trade show in Western Canada and features products, services, and technologies relevant to those designing, building, and managing real estate of all kinds. The audience includes Architects, Designers, Engineers, Construction Managers, Contractors, Developers, Property Managers, and Industry professionals. The 2022 show will see new and innovative products for the built environment, diverse speakers and continuing education seminars, installations focused on the future of design and construction, industry networking and meaningful dialogue, an enhanced online experience, safe and secure face-to-face event, and a reconnection experience.
The event will be organized in accordance with official government and local authority guidelines, as well as any venue or location-specific regulations. BUILDEX Vancouver aims to deliver the highest levels of hygiene and safety, providing the community reassurance and confidence that they are participating in a controlled environment.
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From “Woodshock” to “Woodwar”
Russia’s campaign of mass slaughter and destruction has unleashed suffering in Ukraine on a scale not seen in Europe since the horrors of World War II. It has also brought back the fear of global nuclear annihilation not felt since the height of the Cold War in the 1980s. Against such a backdrop, worrying about economic issues and wood supplies seems trivial. However, with last year’s “Woodshock” still very fresh in the minds of the Japanese construction industry, everyone working in this industry is now very worried about the consequences of the war on European supplies to the Japanese market.
According to Japanese Ministry of Finance trade statistics, in 2020 the EU was the largest wood supplier to Japan, accounting for ¥133 billion (CAD $1.48 billion) compared to ¥72 billion (CAD $800 million) for Canada. Eurostat data for 2020 lists Finland, which is one of Japan’s main suppliers, as being third in EU production with approximately 11 million m3. What is concerning about that is that 80% of Finland’s fibre supply is derived from Russian forests according to Forest2Market. With the war-related economic sanctions and a general Western ban on commercial transactions with Russia, where will European sawmills source their wood? In turn, where will the Japanese zairai home construction industry, which is dependent on the EU for its engineered posts and beams, get its structural lumber going forward?
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Upcoming Shows in the USA
Today’s announcement that the required COVID testing will be dropped on April 1st is huge and will make travel between Canada and the United States considerably easier. The testing was an added burden and expense, not to mention the anxiety of waiting for your results to see if you can get on your flight home. With testing no longer required it is expected that our industry will once travel once again to meet face to face with US buyers and distributors. It’s been a long two years.
BC Wood’s US program has a number of high-profile events taking place this spring that will provide an excellent opportunity to meet directly key US buyers and influencers. For those manufacturers selling into the growing multi-family sector, we will participate in the Multi-Family ProConect event in Dallas Texas April 24-26. This event brings leading developers, contractors, and architects together with suppliers from across North America for one-to-one meetings. The ProConnect event we participated in Nashville in December was excellent and we expect the same for the Dallas event.
For those interested in the single-family and custom home sector, BC Wood will participate in the annual PCBC Builders show June 22-23 in beautiful San Francisco. This event draws builders, contractors, and distributors from across the West Coast of the United States. Prior to the Pandemic, PCBC drew upwards of 30,000 folks from across the residential construction sector to the event. BC Wood will have a coordinated Wood Products Pavilion and will be organizing a mission to meet directly with select builders and architects prior to PCBC.
With today’s announcement of the lifting of COVID testing for return to Canada on April 1st, it feels like conducting business with our US friends and important trading partners is returning to normal. The US program has some proven and high-quality market development activities taking place this spring that the BC Industry can take advantage of.
If these events are of interest or for more information on the US market, please feel free to reach out at dfarley@bcwood.com.
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Sunrise Kitchens
Sunrise Kitchens manufactures cabinetry for the multifamily sector throughout BC, Alberta, and the west coast of the United States. They are a family-owned business that was started in 1983 by Sohan Singh Bhogal, with his son and current President, Paul, joining the company shortly after and his spouse, Harjinder fulfilling the position of Accounts Payable Manager. Sunrise boasts a high level of service and warranty by a dedicated and responsive team.
Sunrise had humble beginnings as a small shop employing around 15 people. The company has grown immensely, moving to their current, much larger facility in 2010 on Comber Way in Surrey, BC where they proudly employ 150 people. In 2017, Sunrise invested $12 million dollar in an expansion that added 35,000 sq ft to create an 80,000 sq ft state-of-the-art manufacturing facility. This new facility has allowed a 50% increase in production capacity equating to 25 kitchens per day. They also now have an automated cabinet and parts wrapping system with RFID shipment tracking.
Paul Bhogal stated that the easiest part of the expansion was to go out and buy machines. The toughest is having the right team to implement everything which he feels lucky to have had. This team involves a third generation of the Bhogal family, with his daughter, Amrita as the People and Culture Leader and son, Navjot as Business Analyst having joined the team.
Sunrise Kitchens will soon be launching a showroom in Vancouver where they will celebrate their 40th anniversary next year. To learn more about Sunrise Kitchens, you can visit their website at https://sunrisekitchens.com/.
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Wood Design and Building Awards Winners Announced
Wood Design & Building magazine announces the winning projects of the 38th annual Wood Design & Building Awards program. The influential awards program recognizes and celebrates the outstanding work of visionaries around the world who achieve excellence in wood architecture.
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Supporting BC Businesses that Manufacture Wood Products with Dave Farley of BC Wood
Build Magazine
Today Ted speaks with Dave Farley, Director of U.S Program at BC Wood, a not-for-profit trade association that has represented British Columbia’s value-added wood products industry for over 25 years. BC Wood’s mandate is to assist BC’s secondary wood product manufacturers to grow faster by helping them access and exploit markets they would not otherwise enter.
With 18 years of experience under his belt, Dave has seen a number of changes in the forest industry, from the perspective of both manufacturers and consumers.
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On-Line Lumber Grading Class for Dimension Lumber
Stuart Sing | Canadian Mill Services Association
Canadian Mill Services Association (CMSA) is pleased to announce that we have just launched the first nationally accessible On-Line Grading Course for Dimension Lumber.
In these COVID times, we have taken a page from the Universities and schools and have moved from In-person Lumber Grading Classes to an On-Line version so that training can take place in the safety of our offices and our homes.
This course is not just for the training of Lumber Graders but also to give all those who work in the Forest Industry a working knowledge of the language of Lumber Grading.
Supervisors, Sales Personnel, Administrative Staff, Lumber Graders in training, all your employees will all benefit from this training.
In addition to learning about Wood Structure, you will learn about the main Canadian Commercial Softwood Species, the Lumber Grades most commonly quoted, and most importantly, how to grade a piece of lumber.
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Podcast with Nate Bergen of Kinsol Timber Systems on Installing Mass Timber
naturally:wood
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Mother Nature’s Fingerprints
Victory News
Vancouver architect Michael Green is internationally known for his inventive, enviro-forward building style—especially when it comes to wooden buildings.
His accolades and awards are numerous, but he is not interested in lingering on past achievements. Instead, Michael appears to leap effortlessly from one passionate terrain to the next, as he amasses adventures and fulfills his creative drive through architecture and storytelling.
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This Startup Is Transforming Used Chopsticks Into Beautiful Furniture
Diana Hubbell
Since 2016, Böck has been on a mission to rethink disposable chopsticks. Rather than try to eliminate them, the engineer has been building a circular economy by giving them a second life. In their homebase of Vancouver, company staff pick up around 350,000 used chopsticks from 300-plus restaurants every week, all of which become book shelves, cutting boards, coasters, desks, and custom decorations. According to Böck, the startup has saved more than 50 million pairs of chopsticks from landfills since its launch.
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Green Gold: Mass Timber is Modern Alchemy
Jeff Davies
Everyone in B.C. has an image of a lumber mill: hard-hatted workers at the controls, saw blades screeching, sawdust in the air, logs going in, lumber coming out, and yards full of two–by–fours, neatly stacked.
But enter the Kalesnikoff Lumber mass timber mill at South Slocan, near Castlegar, and it’s a different kind of world. Inside a low, sprawling building full of electronics, machines are cutting, gluing, trimming, shifting, stacking. The only noise is a background hum. The workers look as though they’d be equally at home in a tech plant or an aerospace centre.
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Clayton Community Centre Wins Wood Design Award
Remi Network
The Clayton Community Centre was honoured with a Citation Award at the 38th annual Wood Design & Building Awards. The influential awards program recognizes and celebrates the outstanding work of visionaries around the world who achieve excellence in wood architecture.
The awards this year showcase an eclectic mix of structures. Winners include a social housing apartment in Spain, a ski club in Canada, and a flagship restaurant for a major chain fast food chain in the U.S. Also among the winners is the first Passive House–certified community centre in Canada – Clayton Community Centre.
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Google + YouTube Are Using This Vancouver Island Business
Business Examiner
Welcome to episode 57 of the Business Examiner News Group‘s From the trenches podcast. Mike Marshall, Partner and CEO of Kinsol Timber Systems, joins host John MacDonald on the latest episode. Mike and his team were integral in the construction of the world-class Malahat Skywalk project, and are involved in building one-of-a-kind mass timber offices for Google and YouTube in the United States. Their conversation covers the company’s origins, future outlook, leadership lessons, and much more.
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The Nature of Wood: An Exploration of the Science on Biophilic Responses to Wood
naturally:wood
Humans seem to have an innate affinity for nature—a phenomenon known as biophilia. This connection has become the subject of many research initiatives exploring how different experiences of nature affect humans both physiologically and psychologically, leading to the recognition that designing elements of nature into the built environment can have health benefits including stress reduction, improved cognitive performance, enhanced moods, and increased preference for spaces. These benefits are often referred to as ‘biophilic responses’.
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