The panel industry and secondary furniture industries that use panel products in Canada are currently facing an intensive competitive pressure from overseas. With proper engineering design and unique light weight structural features, wood fiber resources in these novel sandwich panels can be more effectively used and the performance of each component can be maximized. We are currently working on developing FEM models, which can help us identify optimum structural parameters of this type of sandwich panels for furniture and shelving applications and on developing novel prototype light weight panels for automotive applications.