Features

Room to Run

An exciting decade lies ahead for manufacturers of composite panel-based residential and office furniture, kitchen cabinets, store fixtures and organizational units. This issue of Surface & Panel offers plenty of support for that view. In the Ahlstrom-Munksjö feature that begins on page 56, Executive Vice President of Décor Norbert Mix points out that while Europe and North America have similar populations...

Groupe Lacasse Finds Its Sweet Spot with TFL

Casework for corporate offices or for medical exam rooms. One-off custom or production runs. Drawer fronts or desktops. Textured or high-gloss finishes. Doesn’t matter. Groupe Lacasse has a solution, and it invariably involves thermally fused laminate (TFL). “We offer a variety of products, but we really go to market trumpeting our thermally fused laminate,” said Dominic Aubrey.

Multi-Dimensional Design: B&N requires creativity at every desk while making impactful, artistic panels

Headquartered on the San Francisco Peninsula, close to Silicon Valley, B+N manufactures and distributes panel systems that carry a local sensibility to a global customer base. The collections are funky, eclectic and unique. The underlying processes boldly wield existing and emerging software, equipment and material technologies. B+N’s guiding principle of being “design-driven” comes through in both object and method.

Grayling’s the spot

The leaders at ARAUCO North America knew they had a critical need for a panel manufacturing plant in the Midwest. As it turned out, the Midwest needed ARAUCO, as well. The result? ARAUCO is constructing a $400 million, 750,000-square-foot mill in the north-central Michigan city of Grayling. Construction began in April 2017, and the plant will begin producing particleboard and thermally fused laminate in late 2018. It will be one of the largest board plants in the world.

WOW Factor: Alfatherm's SERICA Offers New Standard for Super Matte Finish

SERICA is an innovative, silky matt surface finish launched by Alfatherm at interzum 2017 in Cologne. Incorporating anti-scratch and anti-fingerprint technology, SERICA is designed to cover all types of furnishings in homes, offices and stores and is an excellent choice for exhibition contractors and specialized projects. “We have come a long way from the time when foils used in the furniture industry looked and felt like inferior imitations,” said Barry Berman, Alfatherm’s marketing manager.

The Art and Science of Custom Component Matching

Interior design inspiration and cabinet trends have a way of traveling west. This has certainly been the trajectory for 5-piece cabinet doors using engineered materials. Spotted in Europe in the late 1990s, 5-piece doors have gained heavily in popularity over the past few years in the North American market. Scour both the social sphere and other media, and you will see a dominance of shaker style cabinets in kitchens, bathrooms and home organization spaces.

It’s all about timing

The timing could hardly be better for the panel processing industry. Sales of recreational vehicles are setting records just as the smooth, clean, simple lines of European and contemporary styling are making their way into RVs in a big way. That adds up to more sales for businesses that specialize in composite panels and decorative surfaces, which are essential elements in contemporary design, and the trend isn’t likely to abate any time soon.

Serving the Market Better with Digital Décor

Worldwide, the market for digitally printed surface décor is expected to exceed 118 billion square feet by 2020. The projected growth, cited by market researcher Freedonia, is based on two related trends in panel processing—one on the demand side, one on the supply side.

Categories