FDM magazine - AyA Kitchens and Baths

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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. 2
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. 3
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FDM magazine - AyA Kitchens and Baths

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