A Few Minutes With...
A Few Minutes With… Jeff Meyer, President
Baillie Lumber Company, Hamburg, NY
Differentiation is the challenge.

Custom Shop
Interscapes, architectural woodworking manufacturers, Minneapolis, Minn., has doubled its sales in one year by converting to lean manufacturing along with nested-based manufacturing.

Finish Line
Finish quality must be the guiding concern throughout the entire process of making and shipping products. Finishing expert Bruce Jackson continues to outline the importance of communication in defining the level of finish quality one wants to achieve and what it will take to produce that finish quality at every step.

Hot Gear
Get descriptions and request information about products from our participating companies.

Drying and Roughmill
Some comments on hand-held moisture
meters in hardwood lumber drying. Dr. Fred Lamb examines the different types of moisture meters and their role in hardwood drying.

Material Issues
Southern pine continues to be a hit for flooring and interior walls and ceilings due to its durability, unique grain and warm, rich color.

Production Line
A new widebelt sander that offers heavy calibration and finish sanding in one step eliminates a persistent bottleneck for Porta Door in Seymour, Conn.

Process of the Month
For Ernst Cabinet Works in Hamburg, Pa., the implementation of an advanced software program has simplified the complicated designs associated with high-end custom kitchen cabinetry, along with streamlining its production process. Meanwhile, Top Drawer Component in Apache Junction, AZ, has improved its margins with new optimization software.

Proving Ground
Precision Balancing & Analyzing assists customers in meeting production goals through quality repairs and new spindles. When a Vermont company asked if PBA had a spindle that would reduce or eliminate motor coolant clogging problems and oil mist lubrication problems, PBA responded with the ASV Model HFC-100-2RB. This air-cooled grease-packed spindle delivers 5.5 hp at 18,000 rpm.

Sanding Sense
Bottom side sanders present major problems and challenges that will negate any perceived production advantages to employing them, says sanding expert Howard Grivna. Read why he believes you are better off turning parts over and always sanding on top machines.

Supply Side
Read these 10 tips for getting the most bang for your buck from your widebelt abrasives.

Think Lean
While waste on the shop floor may be more obvious, waste in office and administrative processes can be more costly. Lean manufacturing expert Ken Rolfes explains ways to improve your up-stream and down-stream transactional administrative activities in your quest to become a lean enterprise.

Trends
Post show coverage of the 2005 AWFS®Fair, including Student Design Winners and Sequoia Award recipients.

Trends Extra
WINStep’s Version 3.0 is a real world useable standardization to make sales, design and manufacturing software work together to simplify the manufacturing process from order to shipment to delivery. That’s what the members of WINStep want you to know about the not-for-profit organization’s efforts to develop and monitor a wood industry open data exchange format.

Words of Wisdom
It’s an all too common story in our industry when a cabinetmaker or furniture maker gets the entrepreneurial spirit and decides to go into business for himself only to have that business fail within a year or two. And the reason for that failure is almost always due to the fact that the “entrepreneur” didn’t know enough about “building a business.”