Magnus Plywood: Meeting Industry-Specific Demand
Mahesh Gupta, Managing Director, Shri Ram Panels, discusses the company’s flagship Magnus brand of plywood products, and increasing demand due to their superior quality, sustainability, and applicability across various industries.
ISO 9001 & 14001 certified Shri Ram Panels is a known name in the construction, transportation, industrial and interior/exterior industries. Its Magnus brand ranks third in the industry for its superior quality plywood products that include Panels, Boards, Pallets, Flooring, Planks, Beams and Runners. The company has continued to retain its position in the market due to its highly specialized and sustainable manufacturing processes, focus on quality, and technology upgradations from time to time. Over the years, it has acquired an impressive portfolio of clients from diverse industries in both private and government sectors.
Shri Ram Panels has been catering to the construction and infrastructure industry for over 20 years as a supplier of formwork and shuttering products, production pallets, metal reinforced truck flooring, high abrasive truck flooring, aluminium-surfaced flooring, laminated veneer lumber (LVL), densified veneer lumber (DVL) for making door frames; 3D-surfaced all-purpose doors, containers, etc. For the interiors, it offers BWP, BWR, MR- grade plywood, block boards, flush doors, and decorative plywood. Its wood-based panels are used extensively in the transport sector, especially in the manufacturing of commercial vehicles, public transport, private coaches, luxury/vanity coaches, fishing boats, luxury yachts and ships. The company always believes in brining innovative ideas which will obviously outclass the low-grade products.
Magnus Film Faced Shuttering Plywood is manufactured using CPGL technology that gives the plywood extra strength as compared to the ordinary film face ply, making it structurally stronger and better bonded. The plywood is being used in the construction of bridges, flyovers, metro projects, ship building, water tanks, cooling towers, and high rise buildings. It is most effective in RCC constructions, and has a smooth mirror like finish on both surfaces, and saves up to 45% of cost compared to similar products. Its cross laminated structure between Face veneer, Core veneer and the Film enhances its strength, while salvaged plywood can be further used for paneling, roofing, flooring, partitions, etc.
LVL plays a crucial role in the construction and housing sector worldwide. North America alone produces more than 50 million cubic feet of LVL in 18 different facilities, saving millions of dollars in natural resources. In India, LVL is being indigenously produced, and as a substitute to conventional forest timber such as Silver Oak and Pine, it helps save natural resources. Magnus LVL is produced with FSC-certified plantation timbers. It is very cost-effective and a reliable building material with attributes similar to large-sized timbers. As of 2015, India was importing 61,200 cubic meters of wood/timber worth Rs.11,489.24 crore, and by replacing this imported wood with LVL/DVL the country can save millions of dollars.
In fact, LVL is superior to forest wood in many aspects. A cross-laminated engineered LVL pole is dimensionally stable with multi-directional strength, unlike wood, which naturally has uni-directional strength as it grows northwards. Also, LVL is almost defect-free and unlike wood has a precise size. Since it is available in many dimensions with lengths up to 2.95 meters, LVL enables increased application along with design flexibility. What’s more, since LVL can be used 8 times more than wood, one can bring down prices per repetition cost in the long run.
End-users can choose products that meet their requirements from the Magnus range that meets regular specifications such as water proofing, fire retardancy, termite resistance, and the advanced specialty shielding. There is a right product for each application in multiple sizes for reducing wastage and greater convenience. LVL has a high reusability quotient. The film faced plywood reduces cost of material as it is available for repeat shuttering work. Once a piece becomes unsuitable for its primary task, it can be repurposed for tasks like paneling, roofing, flooring, partitions and other constructions.
Magnus Scaffolding Planks have a base of high strength, are lightweight, and mature timber veneer. Its special manufacturing technology delivers a product guaranteed to perform as per expectation. Magnus H-Beams are manufactured for heavy load bearing. Features like chamfered corners, standard shapes as per international norms, and plastic capped corners make them a preferred choice. As an engineered product the beams are structured with two flanges and one web beam. The flanges are lightweight but have high strength. The web beams are shaped from composite plywood. They are suitable for heavy load bearing applications like ceilings, walls, bridges, tunnels, platforms, structure, shuttering, platforms, formworks, and columns.
Magnus has two manufacturing facilities, each dedicated to the production of densified and non-densified products. The company has recently launched its third unit, which will be exclusively for the production of various kinds of doors like PVC Membrane Doors, Fire Rated Doors, Laminated Doors, Acoustic Doors, OST and BST Doors, OSL and BSL Doors and more.
In the category of door frames, Magnus has launched Multi Layered Engineered Wood (MLEW). As the name suggests, it is multi-layered, high density, borer and termite proof, and BWP grade sheet. It can be cut into varying sizes and thickness, and is most suitable for making door and window frames (‘chaukhats’).
“Generally, after the erection of the basic structure of a building, finalizing and fixing of doors and windows, one has to select chaukhat vendors, carpenters for fixing the chaukhats, selecting door suppliers, fixing the doors, cutting and resizing, painting and polishing, etc, all of which is very tedious work. With MLEW, Magnus will provide a one-time solution for this task. A builder / contractor can procure both frames and doors from one single supplier, which will help reduce the hectic process of sourcing and bargaining with several vendors. Our aim is to increase production, expand our product range, bring in more variety, enhance our quality, develop innovative new products, and apply industry-specific manufacturing strategies at our modern facility in Punjab,” informs Mr. Mahesh Gupta.
NBM&CW December 2016
