| The map below shows the
importance of the wood products industry in North Carolina alone. In
the July 2002 issue of Wood and Wood Products, Rich Christianson stated
that China now accounts for 32% of all U.S. furniture imports. In
the same issue, Christianson quoted Art Raymond who said that U.S.
furniture sales from foreign sources rose from 20% in 1990 to 50% in
2001. In the first quarter alone of 2002, U.S. furniture imports was
worth $2.6 billion. The goal of the Wood Machining & Tooling
Research Program is to make the U.S. Wood Products industries more
competitive worldwide by providing them with new technologies as well as
educating them on how to proper utilize the new technologies.
Most of the research conducted in the
WMTRP is of an applied
nature. This involves defining
problems of significant interest to the wood products industry and related
machinery or tooling manufacturers
and applying available technology to these
problems. In the Research,
Development, and Demonstration cycle, the WMTRP tends to focus more on
development and demonstration than on basic research. A wealth of
technology is currently available for use in all sections of
manufacturing, however, the “missing link” is the development and
demonstration. The WMTRP uses
the NCSU Hodges Wood Products Laboratory to develop new technology for use
in the wood products industry and local plants to demonstrate the
technology. |
