E-mergo & CBM, circular together!

As digitalization partner of the Royal CBM, E-mergo has built a sustainable and scalable solution in Mendix to support the circularity of wood waste in the furniture makers' chain. The Royal CBM is the trade association for interior construction and the furniture industry. The Wood Loop app is the result of the collaboration with E-mergo. In this blog, we discuss the CBM Wood Loop initiative, the ambitions and challenges around Wood Loop, the Wood Loop app we built, and how we provide digital support for the entire chain.

CBM introduces: Wood Loop

"Getting more than 9,000 furniture companies and interior builders to produce only circularly after 2050, without wasting materials and raw materials." That is the mission of Dirk van Deursen, innovation manager at CBM.

The Dutch furniture sector makes heavy demands on the natural resource wood. Around 635 kilotons of wood are used every year. Unfortunately, 20% of this is lost during the production process, and the lion's share is MDF and particleboard.

This loss can be reduced if the recycling of wood waste is organized on a larger scale and in a way that is easier, cleaner and more efficient. That is why CBM started the Wood Loop initiative. Wood Loop is an innovative organization that enables every wood processor, retailer and board material producer to recycle MDF and particleboard easily and affordably.

The challenges of Wood Loop

In the existing situation, it was not possible to separate wood waste cheaply and easily within the chain. First, there is the logistics: it had not been determined which party would take care of the fine-grained collection of wood waste. Moreover, the aim is not to add extra trips, as this causes additional CO2 emissions, which is exactly what you want to save. In addition, the packaging used (crates) must not get lost. It must therefore be possible to track the packaging throughout the entire chain and at every transaction. Furthermore, the intention was for the entire chain to get one scalable and robust solution. The data is stored in one place, which CBM also has access to and which provides up-to-date insight into results and transactions. A solution was also needed to physically separate the waste properly, so that the material can go straight to a recycling company. Finally, it of course has to be easy and consistent to use.

Mendix: the ideal platform for the solution

Mendix was chosen to build this solution. Mendix is a low-code software platform for building web or mobile applications. With low-code, developers can build applications through visual modeling. This makes app development more manageable, more flexible and much faster than developing with traditional coding. For more information about Mendix, you can view the product page here.

The Wood Loop app

Within 4 months, E-mergo delivered a robust, extensible multi-device app. We are of course very proud of that. The app connects the furniture makers and wood suppliers in the chain and digitally supports the entire wood waste process. When logging in, the app recognizes which role a user has. Based on that role, the right pages and functionality are shown.

Separating wood waste into MDF and particleboard starts at the furniture maker. In the app, furniture makers can easily order empty crates and return full crates by scanning a QR code (every crate has a unique QR code). When delivering newly ordered materials, the wood suppliers will deliver empty crates and collect full ones. It is therefore a small addition to everyday logistics: no extra trips, and all the information needed to plan the logistics and the trips is available from the app. In addition, every crate in the chain can be traced. Every empty or full crate is tracked automatically, and the transaction data is stored centrally.

The full crates are also weighed to determine the net mass of the wood waste (or rather, the new raw materials to be used). This is an essential contribution to making the chain circular. Each furniture maker's personal contribution to CO2 savings is tracked. That way, every furniture maker knows exactly how well they are contributing to the Wood Loop objectives. CBM also gains insight into the data of the entire chain.

The pilot will start soon with a selected group of furniture makers and one large wood supplier. We are very curious about the experiences that will come out of it. The intention is that after the pilot, many more (and eventually all) furniture makers will use the app. An important step towards separating wood waste more easily and cheaply. Circular together!

Want to know more?

Do you also want to have sustainability and circularity supported in your chain? We would be happy to show you the Wood Loop app and to discuss your specific needs.