LEXINGTON — EGGER Wood Products has begun production on its third lamination line at its Lexington facility, company officials recently announced.
The $21 million investment, which was announced in December 2021, expands the company’s thermally fused laminate production capacity by 50 percent, increasing production to more than 155 million square feet per year and alleviating supply chain and logistical challenges for customers.
In addition, EGGER has also announced an additional $22 million investment to install a decorative paper impregnation line. This fourth production line will supply locally produced, resin-infused decorative papers to the lamination lines, allowing the company to have greater production flexibility to better meet the needs of its customers. Construction is expected to be completed this summer.
EGGER’s Eurodekor TFL boards are produced on lamination lines by fusing resin-impregnated decorative paper directly onto both sides of the company’s Eurospan Particleboard substrate, which is also produced at the Lexington plant, said Markus Frevert, plant manager for production at EGGER.
“Currently, we import impregnated papers from our manufacturing facility in St. Johann in Tyrol, Austria,” he said. “Ideally, the impregnated papers should be laminated within six months for optimal quality. Local impregnation will eliminate up to three months of shipping time, resulting in a longer lifespan for the papers, which will significantly reduce waste and costs, improve our service for special orders and shorten lead times.”
The new lamination and impregnation lines, representing a more than $42 million investment and 40 new jobs, will work in tandem to increase production capacity while allowing EGGER to better serve the needs of its customers in North America. The Austrian company announced plans in July 2017 for its $700 million, 1 million-square-foot plant. EGGER opened in September 2020. www.bizjournals.com