Changing how we market and sell treated wood

Friday 11 Mar 2016

 
Over 220 wood treatment and timber manufacturing companies participated in the last Forest Industry Engineering Association’s Wood Innovations event. It ran in both New Zealand and Australia in mid-September 2014. Feedback to the series was overwhelming. To build on the 2014 event, a wide cross section of industry on both sides of the Tasman have been involved in providing input to the design of this year’s Wood Innovations 2016 technology series.

In addition to preservative wood treatment and modification, the Wood Innovations series this year will also be looking at timber durability, engineered wood products and some of the new technologies being developed to mitigate environmental issues around wood treatment. Automation and robotics are changing the face of the manufacturing environment and wood producers around this region are already starting to explore options to integrate this now into their own operations. New manufacturing options will be discussed this year as part of Wood Innovations 2016.

Mobile communications and the uptake of smart phone and tablet technologies by the consumer is also changing at breakneck speed. The monthly internet usage in New Zealand has gone from 10 GB of traffic in 2010 to 55 GB in 2015, this year, 3.75 million Kiwis will be mobile internet users, smartphone ownership has gone from 13% to 77% in 4 years with tablet growth over this same period climbing from 4% to 44% and New Zealand is second in the world for social media usage and daily use of tablets.

This same trend is being seen in Australia. There are currently 32 million subscriptions for mobile communications in Australia and typically, the volume of data is now doubling every year, Australia is one of the top four countries in the world for mobile subscriptions per head of population and smartphone use is around 90 percent of the population at the moment. The question being posed now for wood producers is has the marketing, promotions and channels to educate and work with the consumer kept pace.

“A focus for other recent FIEA events, mobile communications will again provide a major focus for the Wood Innovations 2016 event” says FIEA Director, Brent Apthorp. Randall Cameron, Managing Director Australia for Mobile Mentor will be covering an array of new mobile communications technologies that are being rolled out and just how they are changing how we do business. Gary Converse, VP Koppers, USA touched on this subject with a presentation on US Big Box Store operations in 2014 and will, along with a presentation on the changing face of digital communications, be exploring just how local companies can be more effective in connecting with the wood treatment consumer.

Wood Innovations 2016 will provide local companies with a unique opportunity to assess best practices to improve on-site processing and manufacturing systems, trends and issues from around the globe that will impact on local operations. It will also be profiling an array of new wood treatment and engineering innovations that have the potential to change how business in this region is conducted.

Full details on the event including programmes for both Rotorua and Melbourne can be found on the event website, www.woodinnovations.events




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