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After completion of the case study, students will be able to understand general and specific challenges associated with carrying on a family business that faces market challenges including stiff competition from existing and newer players, understand the plywood manufacturing process and its supply chain management, understand the businesses operating in an organized versus the unorganized market, comprehend the marketing strategies adopted and identify a reasonable solution to address the challenges associated with the operations of a business.

This case study focuses on Gattani Industries (a plywood manufacturing company) located in the northeastern region of the Indian state of Assam. Headquartered at Cinnamara industrial zone of Jorhat district, Assam, the company began its operation in 1992 under the leadership of Makhan Gattani (Director). Gattani Industries catered to both residential and commercial demand. Its clients included the departments of central and state governments in India, public sector undertakings and civil contractors. The company had a wider distribution network across the country and adopted the one- and two-level marketing channels to reach consumers. It aimed to sell its products through dealers across the cities in India. However, in December 2019, Gattani faced the challenge of developing a growth strategy to overcome competition and use the upcoming market opportunities for business growth in the diverse and complex environment that existed in the country.

This case study is designed for use in graduate or undergraduate programs. This case study can be used in strategy, supply chain and marketing courses at Bachelor of Business Administration and Master of Business Administration levels.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS11: Strategy.

As the most common aeronautical timber is SITKA or silver spruce, its main deficiencies will be of special interest. The essential properties and defects appearing in converted timber, i.e., at planed surfaces (rough portions are unsuitable for timber selection) are as follows:

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the static behavior of different type of butt joints for application in a timber sofa furniture frame. In timber sofa structure, butt joints are commonly used between plywood and hardwood members but they are normally designed without any regard to the effect of grain directions of the wood members on the joint strength. The focus of the paper is to look at the effect of grain directions on the wooden member properties and on the strength of the butt joint in order to understand the failure mode to establish a more durable and effective sofa butt joint than the one normally used by the manufacturers.

Experiment tests are conducted to determine the mechanical properties of joint members, the maximum load‐carrying capacity of the butt joints, and the types of the failure in the joints in relation to different grain orientations under transverse loading conditions. Plywood and hardwood members are used in construction of the joint tests. Four types of butt joints are constructed with different condition of grain orientation, glue, and screw used in the joint members. The specimens are tested by fixing the plywood member and applying a transverse load to the hardwood member to simulate the conditions in the sofa frame.

Result shows that butt joint with vertical grain orientation and joint with two screws and glue have the maximum load‐carrying capacity compared to the other three cases and compared to the current joint type used in the existing sofa frame design.

The paper is of value to furniture manufacturing industry, in which furniture members and joints are usually over‐designed without regard to grain orientations or applying sound engineering techniques.

This paper aims to evaluate the effect of multiple additions of sodium hydroxide (NaOH) on the properties of bark‐phenol‐formaldehyde (BPF) adhesives, and to lay the foundations for further studies on bark utilisation.

Synthetic technologies that used multiple additions of NaOH were developed for the production of BPF adhesives. Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), gel permeation chromatography (GPC) and plywood bond were used to evaluate properties of the PF and BPF adhesives.

The number of NaOH additions had an important effect on many BPF adhesive properties, such as gel time, free formaldehyde content in adhesive, thermosetting peak temperature, molecular weight distribution, as well as the wet shear strength and free formaldehyde release of the bonded plywood panels. The study determined that a two‐step process for adding NaOH offers a prospective synthetic technology for BPF adhesive production. This technology made it possible to use 28.6 per cent bark by weight and resulted in plywood with properties comparable with those of plywood bonded with a commercial PF adhesive. However, BPF adhesives prepared with more than two NaOH additions were fast‐curing.

BPF adhesives are very complex systems with many unknown variables, such as the chemical structures of bark derivatives from phenolation and adhesive synthesis. To further improve the curing rate and adhesion of BPF, future investigations should be based on a two‐addition process or attempt to increase the amount of NaOH in the second addition.

The BPF adhesive prepared with two NaOH additions and 28.6 per cent bark was comparable with a commercial PF adhesive in terms of adhesive properties and plywood bond quality. These results indicate that this technology shows potential for commercial applications.

Synthetic technologies using multiple additions of NaOH were developed to produce BPF adhesives. The BPF with two additions of NaOH seemed to be comparable with a commercial PF adhesive.

Adhesives of this kind have in recent years become increasingly important for aeronautical purposes. This has been a consequence of the gluing processes adopted in German aircraft manufacture about 10 years ago. Although the application of phenole formaldehyde (bakelite) adhesives for plywood manufacture had already been investigated during 1916–1918 in this country, and although these adhesives were highly recommended by the Adhesive Research Committee in its Report of 1922, every further research and any intended use of adhesives of this kind was discontinued shortly after the war. This is a good example of the slowness in adopting progressive methods in wooden construction.

This paper devises a method for modelling the bulk orthotropic properties of heavy plywood bridge decking described in Australia as Bridgewood, which can be customized in terms of the number of plies it consists of and also the direction of the grain for each ply to distribute its strength and stiffness characteristics laterally and longitudinally. Modelling plywood decking in finite element programs (FE) represents a problem, as an example a 166 mm deep plywood deck will contain approximately 50 × 3 mm thick single veneers that ideally should be represented individually in any complete bridge superstructure model. When taken over a 12 m span on a 3.2m wide bridge deck the FE model grows to an unmanageable size if element aspect ratios are to be held to no greater than 4 as recommended in Strand 7 (the FE software used). The size of the FE model was reduced whereby Bridgewood was treated as an orthotropic material with bulk elastic properties. A smaller model is used first in which the veneers are represented directly and specific loadings and support conditions applied that enable bulk elastic properties to be determined. To a limited extent, the bulk properties are then confirmed by laboratory testing.

This paper aims to focus on the liquefaction of soybean protein to obtain a homogeneous protein solution with a high solid/protein content but low viscosity, which may improve the bond properties and technological applicability of soybean protein adhesive.

The liquefactions of soybean protein in the presence of various amounts of sodium sulphite, urea and sodium dodecyl sulphate (SDS) are investigated, and their effects on the main properties of liquefied soybean protein and soybean protein adhesives are characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), gel permeation chromatography (GPC), viscosity tracing and plywood evaluation. Meanwhile, the applicability of soybean protein adhesive composed of liquefied protein for particleboard is also investigated.

Soybean protein can be effectively liquefied to form a homogeneous protein solution with a soybean protein content of 25 per cent and viscosity as low as 772 mPa.s; the addition of sodium sulphite, urea and SDS are beneficial for the liquefaction of soybean protein and have important effects on the technological applicability and water resistance of the obtained adhesive. The optimal liquefying technology of soybean protein is obtained in the presence of 1.5 Wt.% of sodium sulphite, 5 Wt.% of urea, 1.5 Wt.% of SDS and 3 Wt.% of sodium hydroxide. The optimal soybean protein adhesive has the desired water resistance in terms of the boiling-dry-boiling aged wet bond strength, which is up to 1.08 MPa higher than the required value (0.98 MPa) for structural use according to the commercial standard JIS K6806-2003. The optimal liquefied protein has the great potential to prepare particleboard.

The protein content of liquefied soybean protein is expected to further increase from 25 to 40 Wt.% or even higher to further reduce the hot-pressing cycle or energy consumption of wood composites bonded by soybean protein adhesives.

The soybean protein adhesive composed of optimal liquefied protein has potential use in the manufacturing of structural-use plywood and has comparable applicability as a commercial urea-formaldehyde resin for the manufacturing of common particleboard.

Soybean protein adhesive is an environmentally safe bio-adhesive that does not lead to the release of toxic formaldehyde, and the renewable and abundant soybean protein can be used with higher value added by the application as wood adhesive.

A novel liquefaction approach of soybean protein is proposed, and the soybean protein adhesive based on the liquefied protein is obtained with good technological applicability and desired bond properties that extend the applications of the soybean protein adhesive from interior plywood to particleboard and exterior or structural plywood.

NO technical development in all our industrial history has been as highly glamorized as the subject of plastics. It has shown an amazing degree of popular appeal for several reasons, including probably the idea of synthesis from “coal, air and water”, the beauty of colour and finish in decorative effects, and the fact that the objects of early manufacture were those of common use by the general public. Feature writers have regrctably enjoyed a general field‐day revelling in the subject, and unfortunately there has been a tendency towards certain misconceptions and exaggerations in such writings. Plastic aeroplanes now flying, plastic automobiles and plastic homes of the future have been described. Actually there is no such thing today as the plastic aeroplane. The plywood airframe has attained great importance owing to the advent of plastic glues, and what might be termed a “plywood plastic” aircraft is still actually a high‐grade plywood. The plastic automobile bodies envisaged today are secondary structures to be built over a metal framework. The post‐war homes will undoubtedly have dozens of items in which plastics will play a part, but primary load‐carrying structures are not among these components as yet. The plastic industry itself has recently become somewhat concerned about the dangers attendant on over‐glamorization and some remedial action has been studied.

The idea that worker co‐operatives offer the possibility of increasing productivity without sacrificing workers' safety and health is investigated. Ten worker co‐operatives and four conventional capitalist firms in the Pacific Northwest plywood industry are studied. Co‐operatives have worse productivity and safety records than conventional firms. Lower productivity is due to the unexpected behaviour that emerges in co‐operatives relying heavily on hired labour. Higher levels of accidents are due to different reporting practices arising from different social relations in production. Co‐operatives tend to over‐report their accidents whereas conventional firms under‐report accidents.

THE increase in speeds of modern aircraft types has brought with it many stiffness criteria for the prevention of flutter, entailing an accurate estimate of the stiffness and rigidity of structural parts, and if the skinning of such plywood stressed skin units as fuselages, wings, and control surfaces is to be of reasonable weight, and the relevant Air Ministry requirements are to be simultaneously satisfied, it becomes essential that more rigid methods of stiffness estimations of plywood panels should be employed than has been done hitherto. The difficulties in getting theory and practice to agree are many and may be enumerated as follows: