Style Limited (Melbourne, Australia) has developed modular manufacturing technology that serves as a transportable strand woven flooring factory. The company is currently in discussions with multiple wood flooring manufacturers to license the technology, which it said can be added to "existing wood flooring finishing factories anywhere in the world."
Style Limited CEO Peter Torreele said the technology carries with it a similar cost base to manufacturing strand woven flooring in China but is now viable anywhere in the world due to advanced automation.
According to Style, the new automated modular factory uses locally available softwood species from any country. Popular input-material choices include poplar, Australian blue gum, oak and hickory. The company began producing strand woven flooring in 2004 using moso bamboo from China, and it claims the end result is a "solid floor that matches the strength and durability of a 150-year-old exotic hardwood rival, thereby saving tropical forests and native hardwood plantations."
The add-on manufacturing technology was developed through a partnership with Flinders University's Molecular Technologies Research Centre in Adelaide, South Australia; the 12-month research project was partly funded by the government of Australia.
