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EGGER Wood Products

Highly Automated Wood Manufacturing Facility.

EGGER is a family-owned wood panel manufacturing company founded in Austria in 1961. The company’s extensive, value-added products include thermally fused laminate (TFL), edge banding, raw particleboard, medium density fiberboard (MDF), MDF moldings, and more.

 

For its 20th manufacturing facility worldwide and its first in North America, the company knew it was time to expand production to the U.S. The customer selected Gray to build the 859,000 s.f. manufacturing plant just outside of Lexington, NC.

In Numbers

  • Lexington, NC
    Location
  • 859000 s.f.
    Square Footage
  • 25 months
    Operational
EGGER Wood Products
Lexington, NC
859000 s.f.
25 months
"EGGER is a fantastic company, and this project is a prime example of the excellence that can be produced through an effective partnership. We are proud to be a part of this great facility that will continue to produce quality products for decades to come."
Brett Goode, Executive Vice President, Food & Beverage Market

Gray

The facility creates panel products used in a variety of manufacturing items, including laminate flooring, cabinetry, casework, and residential and commercial furniture. Plant processes for the highly automated facility involve a fully integrated 3D model and laminated wood joist glulams shipped from Europe.

 

Construction of the new facility allows EGGER greater flexibility to provide its North American customer base with an American-made product through more local supply chains with shorter lead times. The new manufacturing operation has brought an estimated 770 new jobs to the region.

 

Carsten Ritterbach, plant manager, Commercial Services, describes this facility as the “most modern plant in the world” for the type of product it manufactures. The Gray team placed a strong emphasis on providing flexible, innovative plant design and implementing safe practices.

 

“Gray and EGGER partnered with full collaboration on all aspects of the project including schedule, cost, and design,” said John Slone, director, operations, distribution & commercial with Gray. “We worked with EGGER and not for them. Both companies joined to essentially become one team, which developed a high level of trust among everyone.”

 

Production automation was facilitated by the latest Industry 4.0 technologies and state-of-the-art production equipment and technology—including 85,000 s.f. of AS/RS—while Gray collaboratively developed a project-wide safety program with OSHA advisors for the 1,150 workers on site.

 

As a result, Engineering News-Record recognized the EGGER plant as the Southeast region’s Best Project in the manufacturing category and awarded it for Excellence in Safety.

Gallery

Charting New Territory

EGGER invests in company's first U.S. operation.
Learn More

The Beginning of a Bright Future

Sharing Our Success

Egger’s North Carolina manufacturing facility wins Engineering News-Record awards for Project of the Year and Excellence in Safety.

See What Makes Egger Special

EGGER Chooses Gray for Phase II

New Recycling Facility Turns Waste into Work.

After the completion of the initial project, EGGER again selected Gray for a Phase II on the same campus—constructing a recycling facility to process waste wood from on-site operations as well as through its raw material supply chain from community recycling centers and industry partners.

 

 

The new recycling center complements the manufacturing facility’s output by sustainably reforming and redirecting materials back to production lines. With the completion of this Phase II project, EGGER can manufacture products made with up to 15% post-consumer recycled wood at its Lexington facility. This effective implementation of cascading-use principals supports the company’s sustainability goals by extending the total biomass availability of its wood materials and improving carbon sequestration.

 

 

Beyond the immediate benefits of upcycling waste material, this new on-site capability provides an opportunity for EGGER to implement vertical integration in its production processes for greater supply chain predictability. The new facility sources nearly 90% of the wood for the operation from within a 100-mile radius and uses rail cars to transport manufactured products to its customers throughout North America. These strategies greatly reduce the carbon impact of the plant’s logistics processes.

 

Finding creative ways to get more out of materials is not only sound investment, but in keeping with EGGER’S philosophy of taking ecological, economic and social responsibility for the role it plays in communities around the globe.

 

“We are happy to say that most of the wood material in our U.S.-produced boards is waste wood from sawmill residues and pre-consumer recycled material,” says Markus Frevert, plant manager for production at the new Lexington, NC, facility. “With the addition of our $41 million recycling center, up to 15 percent of the wood chips used are post-consumer recycled material. Only about seven percent comes from harvested timber, sourced from sustainably managed forests.”

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"At EGGER, where we have a deep respect for the natural resource of wood and are committed to sustainable use of wood, we believe this historic tradition is an appropriate way to mark an important milestone in construction of our Lexington manufacturing facility."
Karl Grasser, Project Manager for Finance/Administration

EGGER

About Gray

Gray is a fully integrated global service provider specializing in engineering, design, construction, digital, equipment manufacturing, and real estate services.