WISA-Truck Plus: Crème de la crème of plywoods

When UK supermarket giant Morrisons needed a tougher surface for its delivery truck trailers, UPM worked with them to develop a special solution. The result of their collaboration was WISA-Truck Plus from UPM Plywood − now the crème de la crème of plywood products for the transportation industry.

Morrisons is the UK's fourth largest food retailer with more than 420 stores and 134,000 employees serving more than 9 million customers each week.

UPM Plywood started working with Morrisons in 2000 and they became the first customer to fit WISA-Truck Plus in 2001. Since then all refurbished and new vehicles have been fitted with this hard-wearing plywood product. The advantage for Morrisons is that this flooring is resistant to damage from the wheels on roll cages, reducing downtime when floors need to be replaced.

Plywood is one of the oldest known composites with mechanical properties second to none compared with other panel materials. Plywood is the primary choice in many industrial applications where dimensional stability, elasticity and tolerance to extreme conditions are required − for example in truck trailers, liquefied natural gas carriers and various construction applications.

Standard birch plywood has superior strength-to-weight ratio and, as in the case of WISA-Truck Plus, strength and durability can be further enhanced by adding advanced materials to the structure or the surface of the plywood.

UPM's close collaboration continues with Morrisons, who have reported on the performance of WISA-Truck Plus and aided UPM research and development with other product developments.

Supermarket giant Morrisons and UPM Plywood
collaborated to create
a special solution for Morrisons' delivery truck
trailers − now used for
their entire fleet.

Long service life means savings

John Ward, head of Morrisons' Vehicle Maintenance Unit at Wakefield in Yorkshire comments: "We started working with UPM soon after we noticed that trailer floors were failing due to the design and make up of the material − our usual high expectations of the original product were not being met.

"Working with UPM we came up with the new product that had to withstand heat caused by friction from our loading/unloading methods. We trialled several types of topping materials and found a solution − and to date we have seen a longer life expectancy than our old product and reduction in remedial repairs creating a reduction in whole life costs.

"This is testament to UPM and their willingness to work on a new project and listen to what the end user required, and supply a solution which has proved very successful."

WISA is a well-known brand

UPM's Chris Smith, Account Manager, UPM Plywood explains plywood prospects for 2010 and beyond: "The WISA brand is well recognised by both vehicle builders and end users. WISA-Truck Plus is widely used as a solution by other leading supermarkets, as well as being utilised in more unusual hard- wearing applications such as the floor for brick carriers where a prefitted crane grabs the pallets of bricks − a particularly challenging end use. WISA-Truck Plus with a proven track record has every chance of growing in popularity as a solution for end users who require a hard wearing plywood flooring solution."