FIEA and Innovatek have planned yet another solid year of specialist events that have been designed to cater for almost every facet of forestry and timber industry. Source: Timberbiz
The first cab off the rank will be WoodFlow (Harvesting – Wood Transport – Logistics 2018), scheduled for 20-21 June in Melbourne and then 26-27 June in Rotorua.
The objective, with 30% – 40% of delivered log costs being contributed by transport, is to improve efficiencies through the wood supply chain. It is designed to build on the success of the HarvestTECH 2017. It will provide leading businesses with a unique opportunity to learn about innovations being developed and employed to assist in harvest and transport planning, logistics & operations.
A few months later and the all-important Forest Industry Safety & Technology conference will be held in the two centres, 8 August in Rotorua then 15 August in Melbourne. This event will cover updates and developments in forest industry safety, as well as providing a space for sharing ideas on how people, culture, technologies and systems are being used to improve the safety of our workers.
One month further on and it’s time for WoodTECH with this year’s focus being on dry-mill operations. This specialist event will include timber scanning and optimisation, timber gluing and laminating, finger-jointing, cross cutting, timber machining, kiln drying and timber finishing technologies.
It will be held 11-12 September in Melbourne and then 18-19 September in Rotorua.
The ForestTECH series, which has been run annually since 2007, will again be centre stage in November (14-15 November in Rotorua then 29-21 November in Melbourne). This is now firmly established as the annual technology event for forest resource managers, remote sensing and GIS specialists and inventory foresters from throughout Australia and New Zealand.
In 2017, new systems to manage and process large data sets, results from recent in-forest trials and outcomes of the $1.8 million FWPA remote sensing project along with disruptive technologies such as automation, robotics and virtual reality were for the first time outlined. This year tech updates and the integration of research results operationally by local forestry companies will be the focus.
