plantation shutter louver prep

In the top three photo's below you can see how I am cutting the pins in the louvers. I am using a plastic pin to go between the style and the louver. the pin is very handy, the first shutter time I made the shutters I made a round tenon right on the end of the louver. Not only labor intensive but not as good as the plastic pin. on the plastic pin there is a 1/32" washer built right in it that separates the louver from the style, which is important to me because I am painting the shutters. I drilled the styles with a cordless drill using a template for each style. the louvers I drilled them as you can see here on the horizontal drill machine(mortising machine). I have seven of the 19 shutters glued up, and am ready to start ordering the hinges so I can get them fitted into their windows. I will stagger the production of these.

our van

the picture below shows our van with the best set up we have ever had. After 12 years of ownership this set up is the best performing one we've had. You can see here it is fully loaded with kitchen cabinets on two levels and still we have the tools with us. We are here at day one of an install we have the fridge cabinet on the upper level and then all the pedestals for the other base cabinets on the lower level. this particular job doesn't have any upper cabinets so we will start with the base cabinets starting with the fridge cabinet first. I like to start with fridge because it is the biggest and most difficult to move. so that goes in first and everything plays off of that. on the second level of the van I have 55" horizontally across the doors because it is above the wheel wells. the supports for the second level easily come out and store in the van when not in use

what makes a good staff meeting

we had a very good staff meeting this week. there was lots of feed back and even some new ideas. I think now I have a team that will turn into a very effective work group, that is after all what I am trying to achieve. In addition to creating woodwork, being a part of an effective work group is a very rewarding experience on a personal level. Apart from the monetary gains that the members can achieve there is the shared experience of great accomplishment and the satisfaction of working together with other people for a common goal. It brings meaning and purpose to work other than the work. I have four main ideas that I continue to teach to create an effective work group.
1. having a sense of dependency among team members.
2. having a structure and order in what we do.
3. creating a sense of inclusion among team members.
4. having constructive conflict among team members.
why do I do this. because an effective work group will out perform an ineffective work group in any market at any time. The largest most improtant value of KBWC is longevity, I want to leave behind me a woodworking company. to do that we need to be able to compete in good markets and bad markets. Creating exceptional woodwork is one thing, creating a living for myself and employees through making wooden products is another. one thing that I have chosen to do is create a company culture that promotes people working together.

trying to keep up

We have been so busy that I haven't had time to write any post in the blog since 12-29-09. It is a good time to busy given the economy, I think I might have sold some jobs at artificially low prices to make sure I had work that now we are to jammed out with out the ability to hire additional personal. Although some clients don't want to here that I have hired additional personal, they want me to do the install regardless. That is a compliment to my ability but really unnecessary, I have to respect the wishes of my clients. I don't think that I am all that good at install, maybe I am just immune to it and don't see it for what it is, perhaps I am really good at it and it just seems easy to me. we have hired some help for our install needs, his name is Paul Ferrier out of Stoughton, he is really good and comes in only on a part time basis, 2 or 3 days a week. He runs his own company as a cabinet builder and installer I would recommend him to anyone.

who helps us

eagle woodworking is where we buy our drawers, that is Patrick sitting at the desk in the photo below, I guess he counting the money or something. no just kidding Patrick we love you here at KBWC. never, ever have I gotten a drawer the wrong size from Eagle. There is something happening at Eagle in the quality assurance department. if they even have departments at Eagle, they are a progressive manufacturing facility so they may not have departments, but either way all the drawers are made to order and always in the time frame the say. Which is a huge help to me, I can order drawers and know when they will be ready, and I can rely on the quality. In this photo you see the front office and also where I pick the drawers up. most folks get the drawers sent to them, but me I like to pick them up. I like to talk to Patrick about production issues, and general economic issues, and just see how they are doing. Behind this office is a huge wood shop that makes only drawers and drawer inserts, I marvel at their success in building just one thing.

drawers

here is where i get my drawers. they are the only thing we out source. this business is called eagle woodworking, it was founder is still involved with the business. it is one of my favorite place to go. It is a true wood shop manufacturing facility. right hear in Massachusetts. That is Patrick in the photo he is the general manager of the business. In over ten years of buying drawers I have never returned a drawer for any reason.

door stock

the picture below is taken from the top edge of a door. You can see clearly how the veneer is on the wide surfaces and the solid wood is on the short faces. This is how it is done throughout the industry, Although Doors of Distinction in Wisconsin still only uses solid wood for their styles and rails. the center material is some kind core, in this case it is strand lumber, I have never used this type, usually we use solid wood core such as poplar or pine, small pieces finger jointed together, I would like to try this strand lumber as I have seen some warpage in the finger jointed stock.
Also in this door one side of the veneer is thicker than the other side, I am not crazy about that, Gagan says it's no problem but I wonder about the effects of an unbalanced stick, ie the thicker veneer will absorb more moisture than the thinner side of veneer.
We didn't make this door, I just took a photo because I am interested in the strand limber core.

cirles vs parabolas

I was on the moda cocina web site today. they are a primarily a cabinet maker in Hyde Park, although it looks like they are making flooring and are willing to do Mill work as well. I have to say that is a very good web site, I spent alot of time there it shows that much thought went into it. they seem like a very good company with loads of skill and experience, they have a CNC machine and do thick highly polished finishes.

I attended an NKBA meeting today at the design center in Boston, it was very interesting being the first time I have been there. It is much bigger than I thought, and it looks like the business opportunities for me there are endless. I spent some of my own time looking at the cabinet makers there, all the big name guys have showrooms there. I was attending the student chapter of the NKBA meeting. that is students of the Boston Architectural College. there is another NKBA meeting that I hope to attend Oct 27th, it is a seminar focused around estimating in a bad economy, that one should be interesting.

The work kept going at the shop, Esteban is working on job 119, that is the mahogany library, he is building the panels now but not gluing them up just cutting the parts and getting ready for the glue ups, which we will start to do next. Marlo our newest hire has been working more with the finishing, sanding, priming. Gagan started working on some curved top cased openings for job 99. WE use a vacuum press for doing the laminating. We are making a elliptical top cased opening for this same job. We have made several samples of the ellipse for the client to approve. the first one was a perfect ellipse and it looks kind of stale, perfect circles and ellipses do that when you incorporate them into a design. SO we made another sample with a French curve or better known as the parabola. All the samples are up on the wall where they will be going in full scale for the client to approve one of them. DOing all the samples was is how we provide our clients with better service, we are actually trying to exceed the expectations of our clients.

our way

today we were working job number 115, it is in Cambridge, and is a decent size job. It is the first one with this customer. We are doing our best work. I am heading up the install, and so far have been very successful it is not a kitchen but instead many other cabinets laced through-out the house. We have been pretty successful about executing the way we intend. We are trying to mimic how a restaurant serves food. I take the order from the customer and the shop or kitchen prepares the food or cabinets. I bring to the customer exactly what they want in the amount that they want it at the time they want it. I do this by monitoring the progress of the job sites myself. my hands and head are involved. I can maintain several jobs at one time and still make each person feel like they are my most important client. We are trying to execute each cabinet install in a 2 or 3 phase strategy. so I don't bring the items needed for phase 3 until we are in phase 3. when we bring an item to a job site we have a specific intent of installing the item.

single piece large face frames

this next set of pictures is how we install a wall cabinet that has walls on both sides and a face frame that needs to be scribed to both walls. first I hang the wall cabinets. then you can see the face frame setting on some cabinets, it is all one piece with backer boards that slip in around the boxes and to which I screw into to hold it in place. I can put the frame up one side at a time to scribe it against the plaster. And then push it in after cutting away the scribes. I use hollow wall anchors to pull the plaster tight to my scribe cut. In the end you have a perfectly installed tight fitting wall cabinet and a joint free face frame that is eight feet long. This is the best way I have for installing such a cabinet.

re-org phase one

Gagan and i have spent the last two days re-organizing the shop. WE still have more work to do but we made a good dent. WE have moved the table saw, plywood inventory, and the edge bander all to one section or wing of the shop, where as it previously was in the center of the shop. The idea is that the work in progress will be in the center of the shop now. Our work in progress at the moment is scattered and unorganized. Making it extra challenging to track everything. The re-organization of the shop will make our process work better and help us add value to the product line. One of the benefits of the slow economy is that we have time to do things like this. At the end of this recession the buisnesses that survive will be so much better than before. At the other side of this recession consumers will want more value for their money, and buisnesses will have to show how and what they are doing to add value. in the woodworking shop we add value by streamlining our process and looking at how we do things.

hungry coyote cabinets

Staff meeting today was difficult. the awkwardness of it still resonates among the team members. I think we really grew as a team though. it is the difficult meetings where the growth happens. the meeting was longer than normal, and there was more than normal participation. i suppose I demanded participation. By focusing on the negative I was able to get participation, that is my only hang-up with the meeting is that I focused on the negative. I tried to not get emotional, but it happened anyway. I want you guys to remember that when conflict happens it is a good thing and although awkward it is necessary. We need to have the confidence that we can call each other out on stupid unproductive behavior. Remember that conflict comes and ebbs and goes away, with out it we have artificial harmony. I give you guys that kind of feed back with the expectation that you will give me the same feed back back. this is professional conflict, not to spill over into personal life. We have a professional dependency on each other because we are an effect work group. And this dependency will yield conflict. conflict is good and we should heated discussions more often.
Do to a bear economy I am going to start a side project. So many people are asking for an economical solution to California closets, a slightly more pricey alternative to pottery barn cabinets, and an economical solution to wooden desk tops. We already have the clients and existing machinery, and we are investing in some new machinery to make all this possible. We are acquiring a beam saw which will increase our speed, accuracy, and safety of cutting panels. Also we are acquiring a machining center which will process the panels after they are cut. The plan is to introduce this line of cabinets to our existing clients and see what is possible from there. how will we compete in this price structure? for one the line of cabinets will be fixed, the client will have to give over all licensing to us relative to means and methods. with our skill set and knowledge of products we will bring the best at the best price by controlling means and methods. the product will speak for itself. We will have a predetermined material offering, a slight up charge for any color you want, slightly less for primer only, and offer the cabinets installed or delivered only. the side project is called hungry coyote cabinets, focused around 100% lean, where every fiber of the project is towards keeping cost down through value engineering. think about a hungry coyote, is it concerned with frills, no, just value, just function, it is not focal point cabinetry.

rigid standards

this past week we brought our vacuum pumps out. We had to buy a new bag and make a new base board for the bag but the pumps that we have are in fine shape. We are gluing up some curved panels for job 77. They are valances over the sink and the hood, the hood itself has a curved front and two curved sides. the use of the vacuum has not been existent for a few years in my shop. the primary reason was I never had the time to get it set up. Gagan took the reins on that and spent some time this week going thru our system and buying what he needed from the manufacturer. It is a system that is made locally by "quality vac" in Concord. It is a great business. The owner Ed started the company in his basement and now it is considered the best in the industry. The assembly of the units is still done in Concord. We are going to be using the system much more. I want to make a table that we can glue up panels of different sizes. being able to glue up a 30" by 120" piece would be very handy. I think that as I develop closet cabinetry and office cabinetry to compete with California closets a veneering operation system is critical. particularity for the desk tops. People always ask me to price out there wood tops with plywood and solid wood nosing. The problem with that is that the veneer you get is usually shabby and the plywood is warped. but being able to control those items I can create wooden tops economically that meets my rigid standards.

loyal opposition

this past weekend I attended the home show at the Shriners auditorium. It was a little smaller than the build Boston shows I have been to in the past. I was there primarily to get to meet the owners of General Contracting firms in the vicinity. There is simply no other way to meet the owners of these companies. I try to get know these companies as well as I can at the show, try to get a sense of weather or not I want to do business with them. I look for the companies that are well established or young and show promise. Most of the GC's at this show already have cabinet makers that they use and many of them have showrooms where they cabinet displays of the lines that they carry. I call that loyal opposition. They are loyal to there respective cabinet companies and there fore opposed to doing business with me. It is my job help them look at me as someone who can do a variety of mill work, like custom doors, paneling or shelving that is not available from a big cabinet line. Sure I want all there cabinet business but truth is that I can't compete with the national cabinet brands. Not yet that is.

There were two companies that I was really interested in. Foxhill out of New Hampshire and All construction out of Sagus Ma. Foxhill is the established leader and All is the young company with "mojo".

On the horizon we have the RDC show coming in Boston in April. This year I will be working in the seminar suites. Last year I focused on the exhibit floor this year I will be doing my note taking and prospecting in the seminars. Many GC's pride themselves on being unnoticed not in the lime light and they won't do an exhibit, but they want to attend the show to see the new products and attend seminars to learn about marketing and trends, which is very smart. That is who and where I will meet them.

What makes us different

One of things that is hardest for our clients to understand is how we operate our shop and the creative process behind it. During the bottle neck of q4 08 one of my clients came to me shouting "I thought all this was built already". To a degree we do in fact build as much as possible before hand. But some of it has to be built as we go. Truth is generally speaking the job site can change with out me knowing, and I am expected to accommodate those changes, which is fine, but to do that I leave some ends unfinished. I know where my variables are and I wait and see what the job site will dictate. This is frustrating for the client but also it is where the highest value is obtained by the client. This is where my cabinets look like they grew in place as opposed to 6" fillers and the such.

We have been working on job 77 the past few weeks, I have been doing the install this week and I am very pleased with how that has been going. We started with the top first, that is we installed a pedestal of sorts at the ceiling and then we are working down. WE installed the soffit his week and it is at this point proving to be a very good idea, as the bottom of the soffit is co-planer and all the inside and outside corners will be perfectly square. We have one last piece to install and the frig panels and I will be able to install all the upper cabinets. Once that happens the kitchen will take on a level of completion.

Gagan's mahogany doors are coming along very well. All five of them are glued up and they will be sanded and molded ready for finish next week. Esteban will make the moldings, Ventura will install the moldings.

My team is working very well right now. Last few weeks we have brought our "a" game. I know this by productivity and quality. I hope I can keep this existing team together, we are putting out the best work ever right now, in very fast turn around times, I know that some of my clients would beg to differ with me on that (the timing thing that is) but you just don't understand the quality and how long it really takes to do what we do and the amount of work that we need in order to stay in business. One of my clients said to me of Gagan who was working on there project, "he really cares about what he is doing". I would present to any of my clients how hard it is to find anybody who "really" cares about what they do, I mean some one who serves the cause. At KBWC we really care, it is not a sales con, fact is we really do care. That is what makes us different.

how am I rewarded

we had a annual staff meeting this past monday. It went as well as could be expected. one of the most important changes that I am making this year is connecting the Kaizen events to a bonus. So for all the employees if they want to get their year end bonus they must lead four kaizen events, that's one every quarter, and we have them every two weeks so there is plenty of opportunity. I don't think they liked it that much, I guess it is just rules in general that people don't like. I tried to explain to them that all I am really asking for is 5% of their time that I employ them for to be spent on making shop improvements. Shop improvements help everybody the client and the employee. I don't think that my staff really thinks that kaizen events are important. so to help them understand I have attached a monetary reward to it. In essence I am rewarding the behavior that I want. I want employees that contribute to making the run book, which kaizen events are. the run book is how we do what we do.

As far as the bottle neck of q4 08. I have been thinking about that and trying to understand it. One of the things that I learned is that it began in July of 08. We were supposed to start to install a job in the beginning of July, but due to the job site not being ready for us we couldn't start until end of August. that put me back 6 weeks at least. Now people might ask why don't you just hire more people to get the work done. It is just not that easy, it take a person 6 months to get up to speed to how we like things done. Not mention the financial commitment of another employee, which is a risk I don't feel comfortable taking now let alone last September or any time during q4 08. So from that I learned that one thing I need to do is explain how important the schedule is to the clients, and possibly state in the beginning of a project that if installation schedule is not maintained then we will run late, we will not be able to adjust our schedule. the schedule is a very real thing and there are consequences if your job site falls behind. Those are strong words, I try to be everything I can even more to my clients. It is not a perfect world and adjustments need to be made. Truth is I don't want to sound like a pre-madonna, I want to come across as flexible and able to accommodate any situation. But I have to look at the limits of my company and its staff me included. There is more that I have learned from the bottle neck of q4 08 I will share later.

On a positive note, as I get caught up and am starting to progress on the jobs that I really fell behind on I am getting a new sense of energy and excitement about my work. Seeing the jobs come to completion and the new ones starting to take shape is so very rewarding to me.

I love this stuff

We had a kaizen event Saterday. Since I have enforced a 50 hour work week maximum nobody is working Saterdays and it was myself and the lowly shop lacky who held the event. We moved a piece of equipment out of the main production area. This is part of the TPS system, get rid of idle assets. It will help us move the work more efficiently through the shop, and allow us to better focus on quality.

We are really looking at our own finishing capabilities. We have switched suppliers in an hope to get more consistent deliveries. We are most interested in getting consistent results in wood staining. Right now we are using shellac to prevent blochiness, we have several stain jobs, small but still requiring accuracy.

survival steps

at todays staff meeting we talked about how kidder blaisdell is going to survive if the economy really slows down in the next three business quarters. I certainly don't know what is going to happen with the economy, but I want a plan if things get bad. I feel like I should share my plan with the staff.

Step one: regulate hours available to work. By controlling the amount of over-time hours that an employee can work we can reduce our biggest expense, payroll. Now, each person is only allowed to work 10 hours over time each week. Our next step would be to cut out OT completely, Then to reduce hours down to 32 per week per person, then to ask for volunteers to take time off.

Step two: continue to build the cash reserve account. Now we automatically save 2.5% of all sales.

step three: to try and get to a COD basis with all of our suppliers. Currently we pay cash with a few of our suppliers, and it really helps us to buy only what we need and to pay closer attention to how much and how often we buy. What happens is we spend like crazy for a month fall behind with the vendor go a month with-out purchasing, then pay extra fees, and the cycle starts again.

step four: Do more with existing assets. This is where the kaizen events come in. To continue to try and improve our system of doing things. Good systems with decent machines out perform bad systems with the best machinery. We are all going to have to do more with less.

If the economy continues like this or gets worse I want to learn as much as possible from the experience. It may be difficult but it won't put us out on the street. With an aggressive strategy in place we can actually come out a better company ready to handle adversity now and in the future.

We started to install 77. We have started at the top and are working down, on this job. I think this is going to be a very good move, one of things that always happens is that we start the install at the floor and when we get to the ceiling we realize that we have misaligned something and it is to late to fix. And the ceiling line is the focus, people tend not to look at where the cabinet meets the floor.

staff meeting

tomorrow's staff meeting. tomorrow morning we will take a look together at the goals for the week. What do we have to accomplish, what is urgent vs. what do we only need to maintain. The staff meeting hand outs also doubles as the time sheet has changed significantly over the years of use. IT started out pretty simple, it has become something very powerful. It has become the main flow of information in the shop, both inbound and outbound information. Everyone has the same goal sheet, and they are expected to have it with them at all times, so they can at a glance see who is doing what and who may need help to get their tasks done. It primarily spells out who is to do what in the upcoming six days. I am trying to change that, I don't want to have to spell out who does what on a constant basis, rather I want to spell out team goals. With the theory being that each person knows what his strengths are and also knows what is expected of them, knows what others weakness are. By knowing what the team goals are they can focus on what their contributions are to the team.

The effective work group doesn't need individual direction, but instead group goals, and the members of the group just know what needs to be done, and they help each other. So on the goal sheets and the staff meetings we are focusing more on group goals and less on individual goals. How the team is performing as a whole is what we talk about at the staff meeting.

passion as fuel

I lost the spirit there for a week. I think the spirit was taken from me by some angry clients. The clients have the right to get angry but it doesn't do any good to get emotional about it. In fact when you are dealing with some one like me who is passionate about his work it can be very diminishing. Crafts people are sometimes fragile because our work is out their in the open to be examined and criticized. Look at the leaning tower of Pisa. Did any one notice how many straight towers where built, no people just focus in the bad one. For me there is no back up plan, pioneers didn't go east I can't turn back I have to press on and go forward, when you work from passion you know that there is nothing else for you to do on this earth but fulfill your destiny. When the angry clients rain on me I have to revert back into the shop and work on infrastructure. I make lean material tags, or work on the next kaizen event, or try to analyze the value stream in the shop. Those types of things make it all seem worth while. Angry emotional clients are the worst, the make me want to leave the business and I know I can't. This industry chose me, it is how I have always felt. And so I serve the cause and the cause serves me.

We are not perfect. We will make mistakes, we know we are going to make mistakes, and we work on being able to fix them right away. How we handle problems is more important than the problem itself.

Dealing with the negative. It is what I heard about the blog before I started. How will I address the negative. My answer to that was "well dealing with the negative says something about the kind of company I am". So far it hasn't really been an issue because no one has ever commented on this blog before. My answer to that is "Learn". What can I learn from my angry emotional clients, what can I take from the experience and use in the future.

One last comment about working over 40 hours a week. I was talking to a friend of mine and he said that there is a diminishing return on working over 40 hours a week, you actually become less productive. I was telling someone the other day that I dream about my work at night in my sleep, they said ughh you must hate that. Actually I like that. It is my unconscious at work. I get answers to my work dilemmas at night it is like a free resource. That unconsciousness only come from working lots of hours for long stretches of time and working so passionately.