FDM magazine - AyA Kitchens and Baths

10 steps to lean manufacturing, p. 58
a chartwell publication
®
For Builders of . Cabinets . Fixtures . Furniture . Millwork
september 2003
Cabinet
producer off to
fast start, p. 34
Nesting — the
inside story, p. 46
15 wood waste
ideas, p. 62
Anatomy of
a startup, p. 70
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cabinets
Charleston Glazed Mushroom is one of
the styles AyA is offering. Company is
producing mid- to upper-end cabinets.
Cabinet
producer
off to fast start
Toronto cabinet
company uses
advanced
manufacturing
methods to take
advantage of a
booming market.
by Karl D. Forth
kforth@chartcomm.com
AyA Kitchens and Baths Ltd. identified
a need in the market and set
about filling that need. The company
found an empty building, and assembled
a state-of-the-art cabinet plant in
Mississauga, Ont., with the current capacity
to manufacture 70 kitchens per shift.
Although the company is new (the plant
went into operation in July 2001), the primary
executives have plenty of experience.
CEO Dave Martin worked for Canac
Kitchens from 1986 to early 2000. Martin
hired Peter Lorke to build the new plant.
Lorke’s experience was in manufacturing
office furniture, not kitchen cabinets, at
Knoll.
“What we applied from office furniture
is mostly quality related: procedures, quality
checks, documentation, working with
numbers, colors and pictures to make it
easy to train people,” Lorke says.
Manufacturing methods used in the office
furniture industry are typically more
advanced and more flexible than in the
kitchen cabinet industry. AyA documentation
and manufacturing standards are similar
to those used by ISO-certified
manufacturers.
AyA makes kitchen and bath cabinets,
but also does some entertainment centers,
closets, desks and bedroom furniture. Cabinet
companies are doing more of these latter
categories.
Martin says AyA is producing mid- to
upper-end cabinets. “We don’t go after a
lot of the lower-end apartment work,” he
says. “We’re in business to sell direct to
builders and retail.”
AyA got a big boost from the hot housing
market in its hometown.
p l a n t f a c t s
AyA Kitchens and Baths
Mississauga, Ontario
☛ Product: Kitchen and bath
cabinets
☛ Emplyees: 165 employees,
106 in production
☛ Plant size: 180,000 square feet;
100,000 production
☛ Annual sales: $18 million (U.S.) in
2003
www.AyAkitchens.com
In the tenoning/edgebanding line pieces move from double-end tenoner at
top, to one of two single-sided edgebanders in foreground. Boards are
flipped 180 degrees and go through a second edgebander.
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AyA was able
to find an
ideal location
for its cabinet
plant just
outside
Toronto,
along with a
bonus — an
18-story
tower.
Sawing at AyA starts at lower left,
with edgebanding and drilling
beyond. The door department is to
the right of the aisle.
“The market here in Toronto is very
strong, approaching 50,000 housing starts
a year,” Martin says. “We realized that
most of the other manufacturers were
reaching their capacity levels, and most of
them were landlocked and didn’t have the
ability to expand. The capacities were
below what the demand was.”
There’s a showroom on site, and AyA
sells in Toronto through company-owned
locations, and in several locations in the
United States, including Chicago, Charlotte,
Atlanta, Florida, New York and Virginia,
where Martin spent eight years
developing markets. He is expecting sales
for 2003 to be $18 million (U.S.), which
he expects to double next year.
About 70 percent of AyA’s business is
in Ontario, and 30 percent in the U.S. “By
this time next year it will be the opposite,”
Martin says.
To take advantage of the hot local market,
the Mississauga building, just a few
blocks west of Toronto, proved to be almost
ideal. The building was large enough
to handle the production AyA planned,
with additional space for expansion. As a
bonus, the building has an 18-story tower
previously used to test elevators.
“It’s the greatest signpost around,” Martin
says. “Our challenge now is to get people
to associate the tower with our
business.”
AyA was also fortunate to find good employees
seeking greater opportunity and a
shorter commute. The company employs
165, with 106 in manufacturing.
“We benefited from the fact that the
office furniture industry slowed down the
past two years, and we offered an excellent
opportunity to people who had reduced
hours and didn’t see any advancement in
their own companies,” Martin says.
Production planning
The manufacturing process begins each
Wednesday, when raw materials are purchased
and production planned for the following
week. Similar kitchens are grouped
together and that batch is given a color, one
of nine that is constantly rotated. Sheets of
paper with that color are taped to each machine
working on that job. Starting dates of
different functions in the plant are staggered
depending on shipment date.
Lorke organized the 100,000-squarefoot
manufacturing floor into cells: cutting,
edgebanding, drilling, custom work,
door department, finishing, assembly and
shipping. There is a manager for each five
In AyA’s drilling section a Weeke Optimat BP 145 machining center is used
along with a smaller Optimat and a Weeke BET 500, which does a large share
of the drilling. Gluing and dowel insertion are handled by two Koch machines.
AyA combined manufacturing talents
and office furniture background of
Peter Lorke, left, and kitchen cabinet
experience of Dave Martin, right.
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cabinet
producer
to 30 employees.
The plant can produce 70 kitchens a
shift at full capacity, but it is now producing
an average of 30 kitchens a day.
Lorke, a native of Germany, is a big proponent
of Homag equipment. In the cutting
cell are three Holzma saws, two HPL
33 models and one HPL 11, and two Altendorf
F45 sliding table saws.
Most edgebanding is done on a single
line with several machines. Two Homag
Door department assembles doors
from purchased components and
pieces cut here. A door is sanded
on a Viet widebelt sander before
going to the finishing department.
double-end tenoners are used to produce
the final edge cut (one machine does two
sides, the board is flipped 180 degrees and
the second does the other two sides). Next
are two single-sided Homag Profimat
edgebanders in a row, and then another
double-end tenoner, a Homag Profi-Line,
that removes 2-1/2 mm from each edge,
and cuts a groove in the back, if needed.
Every part of the carcase can be done on
this line. Employees on opposite ends of
the line communicate with headsets. A
separate edgebander, that is longer and
has a 24-edgeband magazine, is used for
shelves and rails.
In AyA’s drilling section a Weeke BET
500 is seen by Lorke as being the workhorse.
It does a large share of the drilling,
working with a Weeke BST 500 dowel inserter.
Drilling is also done by a
Weeke Optimat BP 145 machining
center, and a smaller Optimat. Gluing
and dowel insertion is also handled
by a Koch 310, and a new larger
Koch BDB feedthrough machine.
A small custom department uses
a Weeke Optimat BP 85 for smaller
volume, special work.
Doors and finishing
The door department is separated from
the other functions by an aisle that runs
the length of the plant. Outside suppliers
deliver most of the door stiles, rails and
raised veneer center panels. AyA keeps an
inventory of random-length solid wood
panels for the other 20 percent of doors,
which are cut there. The door department
has a Voorwood A112
shaper/sander, Friulmac double-end
tenoner, Hoffmann double-miter
saw, and two clamp carriers. Two
Homag double-end tenoners determine
that the door is square. Three
Viet widebelt sanders complete the
door department.
There is a staging area for finishing,
the next cell. Two finishing lines are
in operation, with a third on order,
Lorke says. The staining line starts
with a Heesemann KSM2 sander.
Stain is applied by a Cattanair Rotoclean
rotary spray booth, a process that Lorke
says works especially well for raised panel
doors. Both front and back are stained. A
second finishing line applies sealer and
topcoat with a Cattinair EP2M UV curing
unit.
Pieces are fed into four assembly lines
(two are currently used), each with a Ligmatech
case clamp. Custom units come into assembly
separately. Blum hardware and
insertion machines are used.
Will the cabinet market continue to
grow? “I believe it will,” Martin says. “One
of the things we know in North America is
that during this economic downswing,
housing has stayed extremely strong.
“AyA has a lot of capacity, and we’re diversifying
our markets as quickly as possible.
We are such a small player in those
markets that our ability to gain market
share is huge. In the next six months we
expect to at least double production. I
don’t see that as a challenge.” ▲
Action in the finishing department.
Doors are hand sanded between a
stain spray line in background,
and a UV cure line.
Custom software
provides flexibility
AyA’s Brad Budge, director of engineering
and information technology,
developed a completely custom software
package called Manufacturing Manager
that is primarily based on SQL technology,
with more flexibility and the ability to
track rework.
“We created a well thought-out database
design and built our business rules
around it,” Budge says. “It gave us reliability
on information and unprecedented
speed. We went from a whole week to
compile and print manufacturing information
to only three hours.”
The only major project was the order
entry system, and creating simple GUI
applications for different departments to
access the data. Budge says there was
very little application development.
“I would only consider purchasing
software if it is highly specialized,”
Budge says. “You cannot beat the overall
advantages creating it in house. The
programming tools and database functionality
today make things so easy.”
Reprinted from FDM magazine,
September, 2003 issue.
©2003 Watt Publishing, Co.
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