Western India Plywoods is a wood-products manufacturer that has spent eight decades turning fibre into engineered materials - it began in 1945 making basic plywood and hardboard, and today runs a single factory in Kannur, Kerala, that produces everything from waterproof boat-building panels to densified-wood gears for transformers and neutron shields for reactors. The thread that runs through the whole story is an in-house R&D unit that management calls “one of the best in the wood-based industry” - it keeps finding new raw materials (currency-paper waste, invasive trees, oil-palm bunches) and new applications, so the company never stays a commodity plywood mill for long. # Business segments A single integrated wood-products engine - one factory, one operating segment, but multiple product families that span decorative panels, industrial fibreboards, and high-specification densified components for automotive and electrical infrastructure. ## 1. Engineered wood panels: the industrial and decorative core **The company makes fibreboards, plywood and pre-finished panels from a widening palette of raw materials - including waste that others throw away - which lets it serve construction, packaging and furniture customers while keeping input costs flexible.** - **Three revenue anchors** - hardboard, plywood and softboard (low-density fibreboard) are the main money-earners, covering everything from EV-component packaging to boat-building and concrete shuttering. - **Waste becomes board** - the softboard line runs on waste sludge from currency paper mills and Empty Fruit Bunches from oil-palm trees, so the company turns other industries’ discards into a saleable panel with both domestic and export demand. - **Plywood that handles water** - BWR and BWP grade waterproof plywood goes into boats, concrete formwork and outdoor furniture, while extra-large dimension sheets reduce joints and material waste in modular interiors and wall panelling. - **Pre-finished, ready to install** - the pre-finished board and flooring division sells WIPLAC panels for furniture and ULTRAKLIK engineered wood flooring, recently adding oil-based finishes and pre-assembled false beams for interior projects. - **A decorative layer on top** - the Kohinoor Luxury Veneer Collection puts pre-veneered surfaces on plywood for high-end furniture and interior markets, moving the product up from plain structural panel to design-led sale. ## 2. Densified wood and industrial components: performance materials for machines **When wood is compressed and impregnated, it becomes a hard, durable engineering material - and this company makes more than a dozen variants of it, sold into automotive body-building, transformer insulation, railway coaches, chemical filtration and even aeronautical tooling.** - **The automotive workhorse** - densified wood is a preferred material for bus and truck body building, where it competes on durability and weight. - **Insulation for the electrical grid** - WIPLAM electrical-grade insulation wood goes into transformers and switchgears, with healthy domestic and international demand from electrical infrastructure manufacturers. - **A catalogue of specialised grades** - the range includes WIPCHEK (chequered floor board for automobiles and railway coaches), COMPREG SLATS (railway panelling), WIPWOOD (textile-mill accessories), WIPROC (jig-forming tools for aeronautics and neutron shields for reactors), WIPBEAR (bearings and gears), and WIPCHEM (filter plates for dye, chemical and oil-extraction industries) - each one a niche where wood replaces metal or plastic. - **High-purity pulp board** - WIPCOM / WIPRESS is made from imported virgin softwood sulphate pulp with high purity and excellent electrical and mechanical properties, aimed at the transformer industry, while DAP is a plastic-moulded material for high-tech components. - **Seating that takes a mould** - densified moulded seats go into railway coaches, auditoriums and restaurants, showing the material can be shaped as well as pressed flat. # Research and sustainable material development **The R&D unit is the company’s renewal mechanism - it finds new raw materials, invents new products and stretches the definition of what a wood-panel business can make, all while keeping the board 100% natural fibre.** - **Invasive trees become timber** - a collaboration with the Kerala Forest Department turns Senna spectabilis, an invasive species threatening the Western Ghats, into a replacement for high-value construction timber. - **Acoustic tiles from fibreboard** - the team developed ceiling tiles that absorb sound, opening a building-materials niche beyond flat panels. - **Soil-less potting mix from wood waste** - a novel treatment process converts wood waste into an organic growing medium, creating a product entirely outside the panel business. - **Chemistry from ash** - lab-scale trials are replacing caustic soda with boiler ash in the synthesis of PF and MUF resins, the glues that hold plywood and fibreboard together, which would cut chemical costs and reuse a waste stream. - **Bioethanol and tissue culture** - a second-phase bioethanol project is optimising ethanol production from wood chips, while tissue-culture work on select wood species supports timber micro-propagation for the plywood industry. # Group structure and partners **The parent company runs the Kannur factory and holds four subsidiaries - a Malaysian veneer mill that feeds it raw material, two Indian wood-products companies, and one subsidiary that is pivoting into metal injection moulding.** - **Malaysian veneer supply** - ERA & WIP Timber JV SDN BHD, originally a joint venture, became a 65.87% subsidiary after the partner did not invest; it manufactures veneers and meets a major portion of the parent’s raw material needs. - **A subsidiary in a new material** - wholly owned Southern Veneers and Wood Works Limited has started a Metal Injection Moulding unit, with trial runs and marketing surveys underway, taking the group into a manufacturing process far from wood. - **Two dormant holdings** - Kohinoor Saw Mill Company Limited (90.82%) and Mayabandar Doors Limited (88.68%) are Indian subsidiaries; Mayabandar Doors suspended factory operations at Mysore in February 2026 citing financial unviability.