AUSTRIA – Three Weinig engineers are among the illustrious group of winners of the 2015 Schweighofer Prize. Richard Rister, Erhard Jung and Georg Reis received the prestigious award for the innovative “butt-joint block gluing” technology in front of 700 invited guests in Vienna. 

The Schweighofer Prize, awarded by the Austrian Schweighofer wood industry family since 2003 recognizes ideas, technologies, products and services across the entire value chain in the wood sector every two years. The objective is to improve the competitiveness of the European forestry and wood industry sectors. For the trio of Weinig engineers, winning the innovation prize was a reward for almost five years of development work. Their “butt-joint block gluing” provides a cost-effective production process to counteract the dwindling margins in the sawmill industry. At the heart of the project is expanding the potential for value creation.

The outstanding efficiency of the new technology is attributable to specific processes in planning, cross-cutting, gluing, joining and automation. Originally developed for producing central layers, the technology is extremely versatile in its application. The glued block is just an intermediate product for a range of other end products that can be manufactured on the same system by splitting as required.

In their acceptance speech, the three winners said that they were convinced the innovation will open up new production potential for numerous companies in the wood industry worldwide. They also recognized the great importance of exchanging production experience as well as engineering and design know-how during development. The trio added that only comprehensive co-operation will lead to success going forward and sincerely thanked their supporters at Weinig. Weinig CEO Wolfgang Pöschl believes that winning the Schweighofer Prize is a testament to the high standard of innovation within the company. “The pioneering spirit has always been one of the qualities that makes Weinig great. The award demonstrates the high standard of Weinig’s development work.”