News Articles

Striking A Balance

San Diego cabinet company blends efficient production with outsourcing to achieve beaded face frame perfection

Published in December issue of Modern Woodworking

When Kevin Bennett went to college to learn computer aided drafting, his ambition was to become an architect. After finishing school, however, Bennett took a job with a local kitchen cabinet company that hired him to teach them CAD design. His introduction to kitchen cabinetry led him to eventually purchase his own cabinet company, San Marcos Wood Products, in 2000.

With a focus on the high-end residential market in and around the Rancho Santa Fe area of San Diego, Bennett has grown the reputation of San Marcos Wood Products by concentrating on customer satisfaction. "I don't advertise anymore. I think a better focus of our money and effort is on making our customers happy and then having their friends call us," he says.

San Marcos Wood Products' reliance on word-of-mouth referrals and focus on customer satisfaction recently paid off again for the company when it was awarded a job for a $600,000 whole-house cabinetry project for a 20,000-sq.-ft. residence in Rancho Santa Fe.

"The homeowner hired an architect and an interior designer and was searching for a homebuilder," says Bennett. "On all three occasions in meetings when asked who they would go to for cabinetry, my name was recommended by all three of them." the project is currently in the design phase and Bennett estimates it will keep his company busy with nearly six months of work.

While $600,000 jobs are not the norm, San Marcos Wood Products' typical kitchen job is in the $35,000 range. Working in a high-end market has largely insulated the company from the residential downturn. "We are seeing more now where people are investing money into the house and staying put rather than moving, and we are doing a lot more renovation than new construction. Everybody in this area has great locations," says Bennett.

Creating separation

If San Marcos Wood Products had a slogan for its production philosophy, it might be, Do what we do best, let others do the rest. What it does best, says Bennett, is beaded inset face frames. "Nobody does it better than us, and we separate ourselves from our competition because of it. Anyone can do a Euro box, and we do build those as well, but our pride here is our beaded inset face frames."

San Marcos Wood Products invested time to set up production and money to acquire new machinery to offer quality beaded face frame construction. At AWFS 2007, it purchased a Hoffmann NXLEH beaded face frame notching machine. The addition of the machine to the company's production has netted a 50-percent savings in face frame production.

"Before we added the face frame notcher, we would make a face frame and then manually miter and apply the bead inside the frame," says Bennett. "Now we can simply notch the stiles on the side to accept the rails. I can be competitive now with others that are doing regular face frames, except I can product beaded face frames in the same amount of time."

Rather than produce beaded moldings in house, Bennett chooses to outsource and bring in pre-milled face frame parts in large-quantity orders. He supplies the molding shop with a set of knives specifically for his product.

"I am still a believer in outsourcing the right product," says Bennett. "We are a small shop, so we have to make use of outsourcing when it makes sense. We don't make our own doors or moldings. With the labor force I have, it would be too expensive to bring that type of production in-house."

San Marcos Wood Products' box construction begins with cut lists generated from Cabinet Vision software. Panels are cut to size on an Altendorf digital sliding table saw and machined on a Holz-Her Speedy point-to-point router. Euro box parts are banded on a Brandt KD 56 edgebander.

After face frame parts are cut to size from random-length stock, they are assembled using a Hoffmann PU2 dovetail joining system that allows assemblers to apply plastic dovetail keys into the routed parts for easy and perfectly aligned joints. "The dovetail joinery has been a phenomenal product for us because of the speed - there are no screws to handle," says Bennett.

Continuous improvement pays off

One of San Marcos Wood Products' main efforts in 2008 has been implementing some lean principles to eliminate waste, particularly in its assembly area. By investing the time to make a few simple changes, the company has realized real savings to the bottom line.

"Our focus has been about making sure things are readily at hand and limiting the operator's movement around the bench," says Bennett. "For example, instead of having one shared station for clamps, we purchased a second station so the assemblers aren't having to constantly walk away from the bench."

In addition, San Marcos Wood Products reorganized its job detail tracking and inventory management so it always know how much raw material is on hand and where the jobs are on the production floor. These simple changes have meant an average labor savings of 10 percent per job from start to finish. "That labor savings translates to a lot of money throughout the whole process," says Bennett. "If at the end of the job my numbers read 10-percent higher, I'm a happy camper."

Previous Story | Next Story