Description
The aim of the project is implementation of environmentally friendly production technology and new materials in SIA “Ekju”. The project is aimed towards the group of painted products. As a result of the project usage of paint and drying unit will be significantly reduced (production do not need to be dried in the kiln and paint consumption decreases 2-3 times). In order to implement the new production technology, the company will invest in 4 new equipment units and will do a solid research in cooperation with the project partners Norwegian Institute for Wood Technologies and Latvian Institute of Wood Chemistry. Benefits from the project implementation will be; (1) the implementation of the new paint technology will allow product costs in grey and black to decrease about 10%, (2) the final product will be of better quality, (3) the use of grey or black painted garden furniture will become more environmentally friendly
Summary of project results
EKJU Ltd is the largest garden wooden furniture manufacturer in the Baltic countries. More than 95% of production the company exports to Western European countries, including Scandinavia countries. The Norway grant support under the Green industry innovation programme in Latvia allowed to the company to modernise its production process as well to make it more environmentally friendly. Within the project set of equipment were bought, including new sawing machine that cuts the wood automatically avoiding cutting with human hands, that’s now makes technological process much safer and faster. In addition in the result of the project implementation the new technology decrease the paint consumption up to 15 times and CO2 emissions savings up to 16 t/a.
Summary of bilateral results
Within the project bilateral cooperation were established between project promoter, Latvian State Institute of Wood Chemistry (IWC), and Norwegian Institute of Wood Technology (TRETEKNISK). All parties were working in close collaboration, had site visits to each other in order to share experience. In common cooperation new technology for wood surface preparation and painting was created. In addition Norwegian partners helped to create new process equipment placing plan in order to ensure that new technological process decreases inner logistics of the company and creates perfect surface quality with less resources. IWC and TRETEKNISK knowledge gained within common collaboration and testing will use for further researches.