Holzbau Sud | Wood lies at the heart of every project
Timber construction technologies
Holzbau Sud was founded in 1990 and has grown by focusing on modern style and an international market with solutions for large public buildings and residential architecture which stem from the encounter between modern technologies and the antique Italian culture of wood. The decision to choose an SCM AREA 5-axis machining centre ensured the optimisation of production time, eliminating numerous manual operations and guaranteeing precision and speed, assisting with the assembly and installation of structures, among the largest in Europe.
Holzbau Sud is highly specialised in the structural timber sector and is particularly knowledgeable about the processing of curved beams which, thanks to the purchase of the 5-axis machining centre SCM AREA, has become easier at the assembly and installation stages.
Workers at the company show spontaneous enthusiasm for the new machine which has made a huge difference, because when the beam goes to the worksite its precision is impeccable. Considerable appreciation has been shown for the fact that each order now takes 40% less time and there is a chance to discover the machine functions with new tools, in order to continually try out new kinds of machining operations.
The atmosphere we experience at Holzbau Sud is unusual, because it is a blend of friendly and welcoming people combined with the programmed, audacious interaction behind the important works created here.
We spent the whole morning with the Sole Administrator of Holzbau Sud srl, the engineer Alina Greco and we started by discussing the sector the company works in.
«For over thirty years, Holzbau Sud has been working in the laminated timber sector in Italy and abroad. Nowadays, it is the most important company in this industry in central-southern Italy. In specific terms, Holzbau Sud is involved in the design, production and installation of large structures in laminated timber and timber houses.
The company is spread across 55,000 square metres and a covered surface area of 15,000 square metres split between three factories. The internal organisation has an admin. office, sales office, and technical and production departments».
It has always been a family-run business, ownership of which was handed over to your family in 2020!
«Our business has thirty years of history behind it! This plant was established in 1990 in Calitri in the province of Avellino, and after the earthquake in Irpinia, it equipped itself to build large timber houses. It developed its know-how over the years and after expanding in the production of wooden beams, including curved ones up to forty metres of light, it began the construction of large buildings abroad as well as in Italy. Since 2020, when ownership passed into the hands of the Greco family, the new management immediately committed not to only continuing the historical inheritance but to simultaneously giving a new organisation to the company’s activities. The company focus has always been on client satisfaction, their well-being and above all their comfort. The aim is to increasingly focus on technological and digital innovation, by expanding and optimising our operations».
A company from southern Italy specialised in the production, design and installation of any kind of engineered wooden structure and timber house. Holzbau Sud has a wide-ranging market thanks to its international approach!
«Internationalism – explains Alina Greco – has been determined by the need to grow and gain different advantage with respect to the Italian market that was fairly static a few years ago and unfortunately still is. Nowadays, we can prove that the growth of wooden structures in Italy has been significant, but up until a few years ago, the talk was all about cement. The new path, managed by a new generation, has focused its development on digitalisation and pinpointed a more modern approach of doing business. And yet, at the same time, it has been a process of continuity in maintaining the company’s consistent supply of employment and recognition for the area. As a result, the company has thirty employees as well as a sales network
Design, production and installation is all done internally both the unfinished product, the so called “advanced unfinished building”, and the ‘turnkey’ product. In 2022, we completed projects in timber with end certification. Holzbau Sud works right across the country and abroad with important works in Qatar, Syria, Congo, Malta and Israel.
For the last eight years, we have been working on a large job in Qatar complete with luxury bungalows with direct access to the sea. For the World Cup, we created vast resorts in laminated timber and villas in CLT with the main client being Qatar Airways. In Congo, we built the villa for the former president of Congo and in Syria we rebuilt a church that had been bombed in Aleppo, and in Malta a large warehouse for tin can recycling. In Naples, we created a 5,000 square metre roof in laminated timber and curved CLT, the largest in the whole of Europe and the first structure to have a roof in curved CLT. This company is skilled in creating large structures and plenty of light: we have completed dozens of churches where the wood is ideal for its purpose. We have completed a number of shopping centres where the request is for ample light. The church in Rionero was completed last year and its morphology retraces Christ’s rib».
As far as processing raw materials is concerned, it stands out from the crowd for its all-round production process!
«Holzbau Sud uses unfinished wooden planks for its raw materials in different size and thickness from Austria. Using the timber production and engineering process, the planks are transformed into straight and curved beams in line with the design created by the technical department. We are one of the main manufacturers of curved structures for large buildings like gyms, swimming pools, shopping centres, tennis and padel courts as well as, more recently, residential construction. The laminated beams and CLT walls offer two different machining processes.
Laminated wood is created by gluing lamella sheets. It then becomes a long beam which can reach up to forty-two metres in length, although normally - outside of Holzbau Sud - it has never exceeded forty for transportation purposes. We manage to create the curvatures with this element.
Our core business is laminated wood as well as CLT which we buy and process to manufacture panels for walls and lofts. At the plant, we can produce large beams, pushing ourselves to produce curvatures which fall into the category known as micro-laminate. The machines and plants installed together with the SCM AREA numerical control machining centre can guarantee a production capacity of more than 20,000 cubic metres per year».
You’ve lived through the technological shift in the last few decades, have you noticed a change in mentality at the production department with the purchase of SCM’s AREA?
«We have gone from full artisan workmanship to our current-day technology: I have seen the workers who used to perform operations by hand moving onto using machinery. Initially, they were a little sceptical but then AREA completely changed the operations. Let’s just say that this choice was mainly due to the fact that we install our works so we need to have maximum precision in order to then speed up assembly. The adoption of this machining centre has resulted in optimised production time. Furthermore, we eliminated the manual operations which used to condition the production process.
The choice of the SCM AREA machining centre has proved to be crucial in reducing machining time by 50%, eliminating numerous manual operations and guaranteeing precision and speed, and making the assembly and installation of our structures easier.
Despite the fact that the machining phases are now carried out directly by the machines, other phases require operator intervention. The technical department plays a key role as it designs the structures and produces the drawings which, codified in the AREA machine’s language, ensure faster, error-free operations».
We are talking about the technical department with the Holzbau Sud technical director, the engineer Dario Curlante: how important is the digital language?
«With the installation of the SCM AREA machining centre, Holzbau Sud has completed its 4.0 digital transformation. Nowadays, the technical department is fully interconnected with the production and the digital designs of the structures travel in LAN between the technical department and the plant. The files are read and transferred to the machine via an intuitive and simple operator interface. All the project choices are contained in the CAD files which, with precision and dependability, will be reproduced on the wooden elements. So, the transfer from the office to the machine is certainly simpler as well as its management, because the technical department together with its team of designers draws up the itemised list which is then automatically sent to the machine, and this allows everyone to see how the product will turn out: this is a genuine integration between machine and operator. It should, however, be pointed out that our technical department consists of professionals who have understood wood for many years and one of the most important features of Holzbau Sud is precisely the fact that the technical department manages to always find solutions for unusual problems which other companies can’t manage to solve».
Together with the head of production at Holzbau Sud, Luca Fratianni, we discuss technology from a highly pragmatic angle.
«Holzbau Sud selected the SCM AREA machining centre to automatize the operations and maximise precision. Using a video-surveillance system, we can control the process in real time and the software helps us planning and checking the result remotely prior to implementation. The technological sensors installed in the machine also allow us to monitor the situation in real time. SCM customer services is available for anything we may need. The SCM AREA machining centre cuts, drills, routes and completes all operations on the curved and straight beams up to 40 metres without the need for additional controls».
How have the general production lay out technologies integrated?
«The pre-existing numerical control machining centre does not process the curved beam, which requires a specialised technology. The know-how was already there and today it has been further digitalised, applying it to the curved beams as well. Even if we already designed in CAD, this design capacity had to be transferred to a new machine capacity: the technical department was established to comply with a new way of working. This meant that the designers who originally limited themselves to using CAD had to retrain, in order to communicate with the SCM machine, eliminating those limitations which previously had to be set for the pre-existing numerical control machine. If we think of the arch structure with canvas, a sector where we lead the market, normally the curved beams are made in three pieces. When it exited the clamp, the worker had to take the unfinished curved beam, plane it, square it by hand and machine it to achieve the end profile; produced in three pieces, the worker had to match them to be sure that they were assembled exactly before going to the worksite, and this took up huge amounts of space in the plant and cost time for moving the beams. Nowadays, the unfinished beam exits the clamp and goes directly to the SCM machine which does all operations and there is no need to match the pieces because precision is guaranteed.
Since the machine has been functioning, we haven’t had a single complaint, because when the beam goes to the worksite the precision is impeccable. Furthermore, we have cut the machining time for each order by 40% and can work on several orders simultaneously. That’s not all. We are gradually discovering its functions and always adding new tools in order to continually try out new kinds of machining. Now that the machine has been working for six months, we understand its potential».
From a comment made by the specialist Holzbau Sud operator, Giuseppe Orabona, the change in mentality that has been brought about by the AREA machining centre emerges!
«I have been working manually for over 30 years to square, trace and follow all the machining finishing work on the beams. I was very sceptical when the SCM AREA machining centre arrived. Then, gradually through training, I learned to control the machine and appreciate the precision and quality of the processing work which a high performing technology like this one can guarantee.
There has been an important change in our production department. As I gradually began to process the beams and I was amazed by what the machine could do I then decided to make the most of the machine. The added value of the SCM AREA is incredible. We are delighted with this machine, because we designed its customised features together».
What is the company’s ‘outlook’ considering the objectives already achieved?
«The future goes hand in hand with specialisation and skill – concludes the Sole Administrator of Holzbau Sud, Alina Greco – Following a consolidated experience spanning more than thirty years, matured in the timber sector and in virtue of its own technical department, in the future I think Holzbau Sud will be able to strengthen its position on the market as a player capable of offering not only a product but above all complex and competitive design solutions for timber structures and houses. We are already there but we want to increase that presence, moving further towards new machining technologies and staying constantly abreast of the times; and I also imagine that all this experience and ability of the technical department will allow us to combine growing market demand with what we offer. For example, in the case of public tenders like schools where anti-seismic structures need to be built with specific characteristics or for residential building stock which requires a high thermal performance. In the past, wood was regarded with suspicion while in reality it is the only material that is genuinely fireproof offering very high-performance levels. Now that the market has realised the performance levels of wood, it is time to design public structures with this material to introduce a building sector which is genuinely eco-sustainable. There are now calls for bids with integrated tender and we are receiving a large number of requests, so this is our challenge and I hope that this business strategy advances: we use wood for its sustainability, performance and its beauty. Our company holds every imaginable and possible certification. Lastly, I would like to point out that Holzbau Sud has a legality rating of 2 stars+ with an excellent reputation».
Sonia Maritan (STRUTTURA LEGNO 06/2023)
Holzbau Sud
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