Need literature to support selling cnc to cabinet shops

[finalcut]

Does anyone have any literature/articles/ presentations that show cabinet shops the benefits of outsourcing parts cutting?
IE: if they out source the cutting of the parts that it would cost them less, make them more money,and would allow them to do more installs in a month.

I would really appriciate someone sharing your docs with me. Converting the shops in my area is tough going.

Thanks

Don Smull

[den73160]

Don, I have been having the same problems here. All the shops here tend to try and keep thier way of doing things to themselves. So, they not listening or hearing that I can be of help to them, not take away business from them.

[menewfy]

why don't you offer to make them a set while they are making a set and show them the difference in time and labour costs, you deliver it to them when you are done and they are not it will show how cost effective it can be assuming ofcourse they dont go and buy one themselves.

just a thought

[Towersonline]

I too tried to break into this market. I personally walked into 9 or 10 shops in Maine. Not one of them was interested in improving production and cutting costs. One shop I was at had one craftsman making small wooden boxes all day everyday. When I tried to explain that I could produce the same box for less money and let him free up a craftsman. He responded that was the way they have done it for years and that was the way he was going to continue.

I did come upon a shop that has 3 Thermwoods runnig 2 shifts per day punching out cabinents for the retail display industry. So yes, there are some proressive thinkers out there.

[jhicks]

Just a suggestion but here's another way to approach it. For starters its unlikely that you can make square or rectangular panels for less than they can be made in house. 2nd, the shop would still have his guy there standing around on the clock if you did so unless he simply can't keep up with his volume and needs to hire a new guy, cabinet sides, strechers, backs, and bases aren't really that attractive to outsource and cost less on a table saw. By the time you design the file, nest the parts, and get ready to cut a few sheets, the table saw will be done and on to the next set.

What does work a bit better is curved, radius, or fluted work. In those cases, the cabinet makers options are not so efficient.
Draw a pattern, cut a pattern piece or router bit template, maybe band saw it.
In either case then they have the fixtures done, clamp and cut, then sand edges or burn marks out and no two will be exactly alike. Close but not as exact as yours and in this case their guys could be doing more value added work in assembly then making templates and going through the multiple steps for an arch or fluted columns. In general only their more skilled guys will run flutes or make arch templates so again you're the better choice.

At the end of the day, we all find it better to keep our help busy rather than outsource but when you can get them busy on more productive tasks and keep them busy, outsourcing the things you're NOT as GOOD at is the answer. So find something you are better at than they are and it's a win/win.

Arches and flutes you can do better and more efficient then they can with conventional tools. Just check out what stop fluted colums cost and you'll fing there is some decent profit in that area.

Make it easy for your local shop (or any customer) to add your capability to their designs more often because you give them a new upselling advantage over their competition.
They can now get unique accents quickly with no freight or long lead time from their "Local CNC guy".
It's all about what "you bring to the table", not what you take away. That extra accent gets them more work and doesn't threaten their guys or their craft. Just another way to approach it.
good luck

[pappybaynes]

I would have to politely disagree with Jerry..from my experience as a custom cabinetmaker, using traditional methods of tablesaw,jointer,router table, cordless drills and hand edgebanding - to "mill" pieces for an average kitchen, (18-20 sheets), dado, rabbit,edgeband,drill shelf pin holes etc, just to get the pieces ready to make boxes would take days...the same kitchen would take a morning on a cnc router and edgebander. You just need to keep seaching for shops that you can job to. There are a lot of shops in New England that would love to pass on other job shops just so they can keep up on their own work - certainly the suggestion from Jerry to do the curved / radius etc work is great - we have done our share of it and it can be nerve racking! Check out this article from Cabinetmaker magazine: http://www.cabinetmakeronline.com/Articles/0601CMhal2.htm
Good luck -

[rcnewcomb]

Our experience with cabinet shops has been: do the work that is a pain in the neck for them. One of our first jobs was for a shop that was putting in fixtures for a Golf shop. They needed the logo cut as an onlay in 1" MDF that was 3' high -- a pain for them (Joe with a jig saw and a steady hand) but quick and easy for us. It gave us a chance to deliver on time, at a price we both could live with, and demonstrate the quality of our work. They are a repeat customer.

Another shop needed 170 rosettes cut to match an historical restoration. We could cut them in 2 minutes per rosette. His alternative was to carve each one by hand. We have done a lot of additional work for this shop.

Sometimes you take the undesirable projects to get the work you are interested in. A shop needed a table leg reproduced. We didn't want to do it but it was linked with a lot of other work that was a good fit for the CNC. We _had_ to do the table leg to get the rest of the work. OK. My partner is skilled on a lathe. We got it done. Now we are the place this shop calls when they get projects that are a good fit for CNC.

For another shop we worked up some barter exchanges to develop a business relationship. We needed glazing and finishing done on our samples that we take to prospective customers. We gave them some free carving time in exchange for their finishing services. Our carvings gave them the ability to offer 3D relief carvings and we were able to show what our carvings look like as finished products.

I can't emphasize enough the following:
1) They will do business with you because they _like_ you
98) Show how you can do a better job on projects that are a pain in the neck for them
99) Expect to visit a shop 8 times before you get your first order from them

[johnnie53]

As a Cabinetmaker I looked into having a Shop with a CNC make my cabinet parts. I did do a job a few years ago having a shop make parts using the framless method. He does this for builders and other cabinetmakers. He found out it's not easy doing this full time, but it does bring in work for him as they are a custom cabinet shop first and a milling service 2d. I build face frame cabinets, getting into framless costs alot of money in machinery and or improvements on exsisting machinery.So I gave it a try, the parts went together well and the job was a success. If you have a well designed system in place you could offer framless style cabinet parts , where a cabinetmaker or builder could just use a screw gun and a couple of nail guns to assemble cabinets. The great selling point to the cabinetmaker is that he can not turn down jobs or too much work that he couldn't handle like a builder needing 30 homes , when a shop could only do 2 jobs per month. Part of the process would be that you would need a edgebander ( and a good one) to complete the process. A computer program like KCDw where you could work with the cabinetmaker on design and catolog his style and parts ( does this make sense?)To make this a turn key system you should also generate a door list,maybe have a door hinge machine, maybe a setup to process parts for metal system drawers, etc. That and don't overcharge the customer.

If you offer a complete system you can sell to cabinetmakers , builders, home owners.

Cabinetmaker mag is a good resourse here's a link to there online version of the mag. http://www.cabinetmaker-digital.com/cabinetmaker/200702/

You should also check out Cab Parts out of Colorado, A local cabinet maker used them for all of his sheet good parts for framless cabinetry, then I told him about a shop ( another local cabinet shop) that likes to make cab parts for cabinetmakers, now he drives 10 miles to get his parts vrs ordering from Cab Parts 3 states away.

Here's a point that was brought up on another forum. If you can offer a turn key cabinet part system. A Customer ( Cabinet maker or retailer) could open a showroom, sell ,design, and install cabinets and not have a cabinet shop, they would need a small shop with hand tools, maybe a door hinge machine, for assemble only. There shop would be small saving space for a large showroom. He could outsourse all of his finishing and or order his doors and drawer fronts pre-finished and not deal with any finishing. Theres a Cabinetmaker in New Jersey doing this right now, buying cab parts from his former employer, assembling them and then installng them,his focus is selling and installing and not owning alot of exspesive machinery and having too many employees. This is for framless mid to high end cabinetry.

There's a market for this, your market will determine what you can do.

My 2 cents

[jhicks]

Hey Dick, I understand and agree with your "disagreement above" You sustinctly point out several added value operations not pointed out in Dons original post. So to clarify from my perspective and experience, we reside here in a custom cabinet makers shop occupying some space. Its a great relationship and we share tools, capacity, and work together where it fits. Along the way we ran some tests on our PRT to compare cabinet parts on the bot vs conventional methods. here is what we found.
1) The conventional method starts with a set of dwgs and maybe a cut list. From it a trained cutter can run sheets across a table saw in an average of 15 minutes per sheet for sides, backs strechers, etc.
The bot can run in an average of 7 plus clean up dust and continue to feed and replace pretty much equal or slightly quicker over an entire set of sheets on the table saw.
2) After cutting is time to move over to the line borer and drill. Line borer is technically faster but material movement adds time so even with one at a time bit change & drilling, bot is probably better with bit changes to do all at once. But its close.
3) Dados and rabets same as drilling. Run with same bit as cut outs and overall each component including bit changes, bed clearing and sheet replacement took an average of 15 minutes depending on hole volumes and qty of dado's/rabets.
Conventional methods took almost double BUT mostly due to handling between operations.
The issue here was, not the time to fabricate but time to import cad dwgs, optimize sheets for best yield, then maintain order and identifiers on many sheets which were effectively redesigned to maximize yield to generate cut files.
SO>>>>>> design xfer,cut file, and cut only is no faster than table saw. In fact its slower than a cut list and trained operator on the table saw. But's its the design conversion, not fabrication that adds the time.
Add drill, dado's and any curved corners or angles. Bot wins.
Now unless it's there when they need it, its not efficient to have folks wait for parts they could be cutting and building with so advance schedules are critical.
If someone can work through the outsourcing, design conversion to maximize and create cut files, run and get delivered and make money, I"M a huge fan. We just can't seem to see how and we're rignt in the same building and running our orders so not waiting around to run something they decide to cut today.
Guess thats why folks like cabinet vision sell the "design to machine" interface with on board optimization, labeling etc. But thats a pricy set up.

I would love to hear someone elses results who is successful outsourcing this type of work but so far we havent unlocked the code to do so unless its on curved or detail components.
Best of luck to all and let me know the secret when you find it.

[andre]

Jerry it sounds like you are still attactched to the table saw method. You have a cnc, why the back and forth. Hands down the cnc wins over table saw methods and multi line borer. The biggest plus of cnc is not handling sheet goods more than once and the consistant results. there is no way a person or two can do the work of a cnc with out wearing out real fast. My whole approach is changing now with the cnc. I am cutting every single piece of the box on it and my back and my attidude is loving it.
As far as everything else with design and software, thats a whole different skill set to learn and develop. so far I am doing well. I could not justify the 8-$10000 for cabinet software. are they kidding? plus the upgrades and maintenance. A box is the easiest thing to draw and cut and nest, plus I know exactly what I am getting in the end.
Any ways just my 2 cents

[dray]

How much are you paying an experienced guy to run the saw?

How much does a new alpha cost?

In 3 months I have cut my costs by cutting dead weight that alone paid for my machine.

My cabinetry start to finish will only see the table saw if the cnc is running and my help is caught up to me. Even then its only maybe 5% anymore.

[jhicks]

I guess I must have missed something but will take another look. All I can say is downloading dwg files and nesting up to 30 sheets of material in best order and drilling one hole at a time so far hasn't been as efficient as a table saw and line borer.
Always more to do and I'm glad it works for others so its something I need to take a closer look at.
Thanks

[andre]

Your front time is on the computer this is where you need to become proficient. After that you handle the sheet once. I am a pretty strong guy and before my cnc, I would sling sheets for 3 or four hours and my back would kill me. ( thank god I married a Chiropractor
) Not to mention the inevitable mistakes that would send me cussing. Your material waste will decrease significantly when using your cnc. saving you money. The time savings is huge not to mention the consistancy and accuracy. I'm not sure what you are downloading. It is very easy to design and toolpath basic cabinet parts in part wizard, block copy and fit on a sheet. And I agree cabinet software is rediculously expensive and not worth it for most cabinet shops. I spent 20 minutes today drawing out drawer parts for 10 drawers and 20 minutes cutting. I was able to use evry inch of the sheet and my parts came out perfect. That would have takin me about 2 hours to complete with all the set ups and math and I would have needed a break