A Market Lack of Standards
As a major structural component in wood buildings and mass timber structures, Glulam is becoming more popular in hybrid structures as it is a visual application of wood construction. The Glulam industry faces capacity challenges and production quality issues due to a fragmented market that lacks recognized quality oversight systems. Currently, there are more than 20 Glulam producers in China, but most of them are small-scale manufacturers with inconsistent performance.
Certification Program
With the increasing use of wood structures in larger and taller buildings, the quality of local Glulam production is becoming a limiting factor for the development of wood construction. Because of this challenge, Canada Wood China started a program with the Chinese Academy of Building Research (CABR) to identify the strongest Glulam manufacturers and develop a recognized training and certification program for quality control.
Potential for Canadian Species
Through this, Canada Wood China aims to position Canadian lumber as the premium choice for lamina by educating Chinese industry players on the suitability of our species and grades for Glulam production. From a materials perspective, there are a good sales potential either as a finished product (structural lumber for joists, studs, etc.) or as feedstock in Chinese factories that are producing Glulam, cross-laminated timber (CLT) nail laminated timber (NLT), dowel laminated timber (DLT) and so on. The focus species will be Douglas-fir, D. fir-Larch, SPF and Hem-fir.
