“There weren’t just a couple of obstacles – there was a whole pile of them,” admits Ivars Akerfelds, Chairman of the Board of woodworking company Amber Wood, in the “Digitalisation Success Stories” series, describing the company’s journey towards digitalisation. The challenges encountered over two years did not stop the company. On the contrary, they laid the foundation for a major technological breakthrough, bringing traditional woodworking and robotics together.
Based in Jelgava Municipality, Amber Wood is Latvia’s largest manufacturer of oak flooring and is known for its Stalgen® brand. Over more than 20 years, the company has combined craftsmanship with science and innovation, as demonstrated by its European patents. Nothing goes to waste in the production process – even wood shavings and other residues are reused, supporting a zero-waste approach.
“Digitalisation is a very broad concept – you can digitalise company management, sales, manufacturing and many different processes,” Akerfelds explains.
With support from the Latvian Investment and Development Agency (LIAA) and the Recovery and Resilience Facility, the company implemented a project worth more than EUR 217,000, introducing its first robots into production and modernising an important stage of the parquet manufacturing process.
On the production line, robots precisely bond the oak top layer to birch plywood – a process in which every second matters. An error at this stage can affect the quality of the entire product, meaning that precision is not optional but essential. This is exactly where automation demonstrates its greatest strength: it ensures consistent results while reducing the physical workload for employees.
“It increases precision, improves product quality and makes people’s work easier,” Akerfelds emphasises.
He repeatedly stresses that the purpose of digitalisation is not simply to increase production volumes, but also to improve the working environment and use resources more efficiently. Robots can take over physically demanding and repetitive tasks, complementing the work performed by employees.
“The goal is not simply to produce more – the goal is to make people’s work easier,” he adds.
The company’s experience shows that robots do not replace people but complement their work, while also creating demand for specialists capable of implementing and maintaining these technologies. This also increases the need for employees who can manage and supervise automated processes.
The journey to this point was not straightforward. The project was unique, and initially there was no existing example that the company could simply follow. Over the course of two years, Amber Wood encountered numerous challenges, but these were gradually overcome, resulting in a solution tailored specifically to the company’s operations and patented technologies.
“Today is a fantastic time,” says Akerfelds, emphasising that technology and artificial intelligence are opening up new opportunities for smaller companies as well. In his view, the key is being able to identify an idea and develop it, because coming up with the right idea is often the longest and most difficult part of the process.
Such opportunities were previously available mainly to large companies, Akerfelds emphasises.
Looking ahead, Amber Wood plans to continue along the same path by introducing more robotic solutions and further improving its manufacturing processes. Akerfelds expects the boundary between human work and automation to become increasingly blurred, and believes that companies capable of adapting will stay one step ahead of the rest.
Listen to real stories from entrepreneurs about how digitalisation helps businesses grow, compete and export in the “Digitalisation Success Stories” series every Thursday shortly after 14:00 on Radio SWH and Radio SWH TV.
Latvian companies have access to a wide range of state- and European Union-funded support for business development, brought together on the unified business portal business.gov.lv and its subsite liaa.business.gov.lv. Companies can find information there about various programmes, ranging from funding for innovation and new product development, export promotion and international cooperation opportunities to grants for digitalisation, technology implementation and productivity improvements.
The project is co-financed by the European Union Recovery and Resilience Facility (NextGenerationEU) and the Cohesion Policy Programme 2021–2027. The preparation of this article was funded with support from the Recovery and Resilience Facility. The views and opinions expressed are those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Commission. Neither the European Union nor the European Commission can be held responsible for them.
