Kitchen Contours
Keeping competitive by improving efficiency
Computerised board cutting
In any given month the Kitchen Contours may have around 100 designs in progress. To create their kitchens, each year the company uses around 50,000 sheets of medium density fibreboard (MDF). With volumes like these, efficiency counts for a lot. The company is constantly looking to make incremental gains, cutting processing time and waste to the bare minimum.
"Once we're processing a job, we're looking at shaving seconds, not hours, off the time it takes. If you're doing a regular job like drilling a single hole and you can do that two seconds faster, then you are going to save a lot of time because we drill millions of holes a year."
Many of the efficiencies – reduction of waste, increased processing speed and improved inventory control – have been driven by the application of computers.
"By using the design software to tell us the most efficient ways of cutting sheets, we've reduced our waste by probably a half and are cutting 50% faster than we did in the past."
Taking a delivery of boards
Even something as simple as the automatic generation of labels is a time-saver, David says. "The mere fact that we're putting a sticker on every part with all the information on it, probably saves us an hour per job – because we used to have to hand write all of this on a bit of masking tape and stick that on to do the job."
The need to increase speed and efficiency has seen the machines become larger and more complicated. Computers have had a big impact. One of the advantages of computer-driven machinery, David says, is the ease with which they can be turned to new tasks.
"The operators don't have to get in behind and alter things as they used to. Now you just press a button and all the settings are changed; that takes away a lot of the possibilities for error."
But the downside of the new technology is its complexity.
"If machines break down we're in trouble big time, because we rely so much on them. In the past, if a saw broke-down you could change the blade or get an electrician in to fix it, they were relatively easy to maintain. Now with these new computer-controlled machines, if something goes wrong you have to ring a technician in Auckland. If he can't work it out with you over the phone he has to fly down and that is always expensive and could mean a two or three day delay. That sort of downtime costs big dollars. Added to that we don't have much lead time built into our jobs any more. We might be cutting a kitchen that's due to be installed three days down the track, so if you have a machine out of action for three days, you're well behind and you have to deal with angry customers.
"You can't plan for breakdowns. So for most of my machines I try to have one person on that machine, and I'm very conscious of guys being careful with them. You can't muck about with them."
