Ligna 2025 in Hannover (May 26 to 30) will once again be the global meeting place for an industry that faces three major challenges, from craft businesses to industrial groups: complete digital networking, establishing the circular economy and developing intelligent products.

“With its focus topics of connectivity, sustainable production and engineering wood Ligna 2025 will bring together international solution providers for these three central challenges,” says Stephanie Wagner, Ligna Project Manager at Deutsche Messe AG.

The exhibiting companies will demonstrate their efforts to advance the complete digital networking of all components of the value chain, aiming to create production paths for an ethical economy that produces intelligently designed wood products.

In collaboration with the VDMA (German Woodworking Machinery Association) Ligna has developed a close interlinking of its focus topics to simplify the localisation within a complex industry, she explains.

Digital integration

For instance, those who have successfully implemented the digitalisation of specific process steps are now frequently confronted with the challenge of digitally integrating them into the entire value chain.

The increasingly important vertical and horizontal integration of in-house services is coming up against established systems with which interfaces need to be created.

The newly developed focus topic Ligna.Connectivity aims to provide solutions for all participants in the woodworking and wood processing value chain, regardless of their level of digitalisation.

“The concept of connectivity refers to the process of linking together various systems within the woodworking trade and the wood industry,” explains Bernhard Dirr, Managing Director of the VDMA. “Ligna 2025 aims to find solutions for seamlessly connecting different systems within a value creation network, rather than mandating all participants to use the same system.”

However the solutions for end-to-end connectivity have been configured and disruptive technologies such as AI and machine learning integrated, it is clear that processes must become more sustainable in order to be fit for the future. Against this background, the new focus topic of sustainable production brings together economically viable strategies for the woodworking trade and the industry that prioritise environmental protection, resource conservation, and improved working conditions for future generations.

Engineered wood

Particularly when it comes to timber construction, the industry is making the construction industry more climate-friendly with its products and machines, for example with production lines for industrial timber house construction in the factory.

Developments that primarily benefit the latter area, the climate-friendly construction industry, will be represented by the third focus topic at Ligna 2025.  It encompasses the full range of intelligently designed wood products, which are transformed into composite materials for a variety of uses through the binding or fixing of wood strands, particles, fibers, veneers, or panels.

The focus topic of engineered wood ranges from CNC machines for processing wooden panels and beams to automated production lines for manufacturing cross-laminated timber (CLT) and other solid wood products.

The topic will include robot systems for assembling wooden elements, handling technologies for finishing wood and software for the planning and production of mass-timber structures.

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