Our history
Since 1988, Les Pliages Apaulo inc. has been manufacturing high-precision molded plywood components. In close to four decades, the company has changed markets without ever changing trades: mastery of curved wood, applied first to the furniture industry and then to corrugated board converting. Here are the milestones along the way.
1988 – Founded by the Compagna family
Les Pliages Apaulo inc. was incorporated on July 5, 1988 by the Compagna family in Waterville, in Quebec’s Eastern Townships.
From the outset, the company specialized in molded plywood components for the furniture industry: chair backs, seats and structural parts formed by pressing glued wood plies in dedicated molds. It is a demanding process, requiring tight control over wood species, adhesive, pressure and curing time to produce parts that are simultaneously light, strong and perfectly repeatable.
1988–2004 – Supplying North American furniture manufacturers
For more than fifteen years, the company supplied furniture manufacturers across Canada and the United States. This is the period in which the expertise that would later make the difference was built: the ability to produce, in volume, molded plywood parts whose geometry.
2004 – The offshoring of the furniture industry
Beginning in 2004, North American furniture manufacturers moved production offshore to Asia on a large scale. Within a few years, the furniture industry in Canada and the United States contracted sharply, taking with it most of its local supplier base.
For Les Pliages Apaulo inc., the historical market disappeared. The company made a choice: rather than follow its customers offshore or shut down, it redirected its expertise toward other industries.
The pivot – from furniture to rotary dies
The company turned to molded plywood components for other sectors. One market stood out quickly: corrugated board converting, which requires high-precision wooden rotary dies.
A rotary die is a curved plywood board, mounted on a cylinder, into which steel cutting rules are inserted. Rotating at high speed, it cuts and creases corrugated board in a continuous process. The wooden board has to match the cylinder radius exactly, hold the steel rules under tension, and retain its geometry despite mechanical loads and the humidity swings of a production floor.
In other words: precisely the same industrial problem as the molded furniture part, applied to an entirely different use. The know-how accumulated since 1988 transferred directly. This was not a reinvention – it was a change of market.
A deepening specialization
Over the years, the company earned a strong reputation among its customers on the strength of its die quality. The product range gradually expanded to cover what is today more than 300 combinations of diameter, thickness and length – enough to serve virtually every rotary press configuration in use across the industry.
That catalogue depth is the direct result of decades of accumulation: every new configuration developed for a customer adds to a body of expertise that cannot be acquired quickly.
March 2022 – Acquired by Eastern Townships entrepreneurs
In March 2022, a group of entrepreneurs from Quebec’s Eastern Townships acquired the company, intent on giving fresh momentum to this Quebec manufacturing flagship. Jean-François Beaulieu, co-owner, took the helm as President and Chief Executive Officer.
Today
From its Waterville plant, Les Pliages Apaulo inc. employs more than 100 people and ships to over 20 countries. The company is today the world leader in wooden rotary die manufacturing by units sold. [TO VERIFY — see the wording alignment note in the French file.]
The trade itself has not changed since 1988: bending wood with precision.