Ripped-to-Width Lumber Solves Business Problems

Transcription

1 Ripped-to-Width Lumber Solves Business Problems By Bob Uglow Baillie Lumber Co.

2 What s your problem? Pick up any industry report or article regarding the top issues for manufacturers today and you will almost always see labor management and raw material costs as two key challenges companies have to overcome. Manufacturers that use hardwood lumber in their products are no different. Cabinet builders, flooring manufactures, furniture makers and the like are constantly dealing with issues that surround the cost of supply and labor. From our experiences with customers we have found that many times organizations combat the issues of labor and supply by choosing to utilize ripped-to-width lumber in their manufacturing process. Ripped-to-width lumber is an excellent way to reduce costs and increase productivity for many manufacturers. Below we explore common problems our customers encountered and improved by utilizing ripped-to-width hardwood lumber. Too many sales. Cannot produce product fast enough. What a problem to have! This manufacturer successfully increased product sales for a six month period and was now encountering the issue of not being able to manufacturer fast enough to keep up with demand. The act of converting random hardwood lumber to useable parts was one of the bottlenecks in production. The solution was to buy in the exact width hardwood lumber part required for each product and by pass that step in the conversion process. This solution enabled the customer to increase their existing lumber throughput with prefabricated blanks identical to what they were producing and increase parts production by 30% in the process.

3 Too much unusable inventory. The shear nature that hardwood lumber is sold in random widths and lengths can run havoc on many plant managers. Inevitably, companies end up accumulating perfectly good hardwood lumber boards that are either to narrow or not quite right to be used in standard production. These boards are typically put aside in storage in the hopes that someday they will be able to be used and not just discarded as waste. This increases inventory costs, takes up valuable square footage and could even make it more challenging for employees to work effectively with a more crowded work environment. By ordering in exact ripped-to-width lumber in the exact sizes the customer utilized for their manufacturing process the customer virtually eliminated unusable inventory parts. This cabinet manufacturer reduced the amount of dollars locked up in unusable parts, improved employee productivity, and increased their lumber usage yield for their company. Help required to curtail rising production costs. Even though the economic conditions have improved of late, fierce competition in almost all sectors has resulted in the need for companies to continue to find ways to decrease product costs so they can stay competitive in the market. This company was trying to avoid putting on extra shifts to produce always a costly endeavor. This company we helped was able to decrease lumber costs and labor costs at the same time by utilizing ripped-to-width blanks instead of random

4 lumber. The hardwood rips enabled them to stop fighting their lumber throughout their plant and reduce and redeploy employees that used to pre handle and sort the lumber before the manufacturing process began. One person s waste is another person s treasure.. Not all product that are made from hardwoods require great wide, long, clear boards. Sometime a customer can be manufacturing novelty items, tool handles, or component parts from hardwood lumber. In the case of one of our recent customers that manufacturers small spindles they were seeking a way to reduce lumber costs by reducing the over purchasing they felt they were doing to produce their product. For some, one of the benefits of purchasing ripped-to-width lumber is the fact that manufacturers can actually share a board with others. When you look across the various segments of the industry you find customers who desire all different type of characteristics of a typical hardwood lumber board. While some need their lumber wide, long and clear others can produce what they need to width small, narrow boards with sound defects. The fact that we could utilize our ripping operation to give customers exactly what they need, and for some that means less expensive fiber from what is typically considered defect parts, was a tremendous benefit for this manufacturer. What s your manufacturing problem? Many times the ways we help customers improve performance or increase productivity is by stepping back and taking a broader look at the business issue. Perhaps we can do the same with you. What s your manufacturing problem? Let s talk about it. Perhaps we can help. Contact us today.

5 How to contact us Legion Drive Hamburg, New York Bob Uglow Baillie Ripping Division O: C: No part of this document, in whole or in part, may be reproduced or reused without the prior written permission of Baillie Lumber Co. The information in this document is provided for informational purposes only Baillie Lumber Co. Contact your Baillie representative for more information. whitepaper_ripping_by_the_numbers