About 1 month till Christmas? Where did the year go? This is our busy time of the year. Like other retail outlets, we rely on this season to continue in business. Unfortunately the "shopping season" is too short. Before I am lynched let me explain. I normally work on a four to six week lead time. This is because everything has to be planned, ordered, built, and finished and each takes a set amount of time. That would leave our cut-off date to be, uh, NOW!
Most people don't want to wait 'till after Christmas for their gift. So I usually give a little break and go a few days longer with the cut-off date. That dead line comes and someone else wants their furniture. Who am I to deny them their Christmas surprise? So I allow a few more orders in. Now we’re really stacked up. Luckily I planned a little ahead a built up stock in some of our popular beds, like the baseball bed. I got them to the point were they are ready for finish (this way the customer can chose the color).
To add the stack of orders. the Democrat/Gazette is doing an article on our Murphy bed. (see www.wwbeds.com/Murphy.htm) They chose us because we are the only one around that builds or carries the Murphy Bed. We also have one on display for them to shoot pictures. Or we "had" one. Just days after the interview, we sold our display to a displaced “Katrina Victim". I would have loved to keep that one, but they needed a bed and needed it quickly. That left me with two weeks to try to squeeze in a new one for display (only one week left now).
I decided to build two different versions of the Murphy bed. The first one will be very simple, no moulding. It will be the least expensive version I can offer. This one will be built from oak, not the cheapest wood, and stained a light oak finish. I should have this in a couple of days. See our current projects for pictures www.wwbeds.com/Current%20Projects.htm . The next one will be a little more elaborate with crown/base moulding, framed out front section, bookcases, lights, and finished in a flat black lacquer on oak. Many people would kill me for covering up the beauty of oak wood with a colored finish, but this will be awesome. The black will cover the wood, but not the grain. It will still have the texture of the grain showing thru - the grain is the best part on oak wood anyway. This one may take another week or so. I probably will not have it finished before the article is released, but at least I will have something for customers to look at.
Christmas is only four weeks away, but I am not worried. God always takes care of us. I have faith the same will happen this year. I pray that my job will not interfere with the true meaning of this season. That is, our Savior was born. Without Jesus being born, He couldn't have died and paid the debt for our sins. We would be eternally separated from God. He was born, He did die, and we are saved.
Tuesday, November 22, 2005
Thursday, November 03, 2005
Pick Two Any Two
I come across customers all the time who would like everything now. “Give me a quality piece of furniture at a very low price, and by the way I need that ASAP.” In almost all businesses that is impossible to do and stay in business. Most mission statements for companies usually states something about giving or providing their customers with a product or service with a certain level of expected quality, price, or promptness, but there is also their responsibility to the stakeholder of the business (i.e. the owners and employees) By providing all three of these features to a customer, the business would quickly fail.
Let’s look at the first one, quality. Webster defines quality as a “degree of excellence” or a grade. People normally use it to describe high quality furniture. But quality is more like a sliding scale. There are different degrees of quality. For example I could put a quality finish on furniture with just a few steps (stain/seal, sealer coat, top coat). If done correctly, that would be a very fine finish. I could add a few steps to that fine finish and get a very high quality finish.
Another factor to add to the mix would be the price of the piece. Most everyone wants a reasonable price, and most businesses would like to receive a fair price for their items. Price and quality, for the most part, have a direct correlation to each other. When quality goes up price usually does too. Quality can come from a couple a couple of sources. First, quality is gained thru experience. The more experience your employees gain the higher quality you’d expect, and the higher wages they’d expect.
Another would be the time spent on the project. That leads me to my last factor, time. The finish can gain higher quality by spending more time and adding more steps. The longer you spend on a project the more that project would cost in labor. Going the opposite direction, by allowing for more time, cost could go down. This way the project would not require overtime, during a busy time, or it could be scheduled in pockets of free time in your schedule.
As you can see all three affect each other, which means you can’t have your custom product quickly and keep the price and quality down. One must be eliminated, low price, high quality, or speedy delivery. You must pick two and only two.
This usually applies to custom build products only. Production items are sometimes excluded. One example is our baseball bed. It is priced low, high quality, and can be shipped fairly quickly. This is because we already took care of the time factor. We did this by scheduling it ahead of time. We built them in pockets of free or slow time and build a large number together to cut down on the average time.
I can give you that high quality furniture quickly but expect to pay for it. By waiting, it could save you some money. I don’t mind adjusting the time and price factor. I like to leave the quality alone. If the quality move, I like it to move up.
Remember pick two: Price, Quality, Fast.
Let’s look at the first one, quality. Webster defines quality as a “degree of excellence” or a grade. People normally use it to describe high quality furniture. But quality is more like a sliding scale. There are different degrees of quality. For example I could put a quality finish on furniture with just a few steps (stain/seal, sealer coat, top coat). If done correctly, that would be a very fine finish. I could add a few steps to that fine finish and get a very high quality finish.
Another factor to add to the mix would be the price of the piece. Most everyone wants a reasonable price, and most businesses would like to receive a fair price for their items. Price and quality, for the most part, have a direct correlation to each other. When quality goes up price usually does too. Quality can come from a couple a couple of sources. First, quality is gained thru experience. The more experience your employees gain the higher quality you’d expect, and the higher wages they’d expect.
Another would be the time spent on the project. That leads me to my last factor, time. The finish can gain higher quality by spending more time and adding more steps. The longer you spend on a project the more that project would cost in labor. Going the opposite direction, by allowing for more time, cost could go down. This way the project would not require overtime, during a busy time, or it could be scheduled in pockets of free time in your schedule.
As you can see all three affect each other, which means you can’t have your custom product quickly and keep the price and quality down. One must be eliminated, low price, high quality, or speedy delivery. You must pick two and only two.
This usually applies to custom build products only. Production items are sometimes excluded. One example is our baseball bed. It is priced low, high quality, and can be shipped fairly quickly. This is because we already took care of the time factor. We did this by scheduling it ahead of time. We built them in pockets of free or slow time and build a large number together to cut down on the average time.
I can give you that high quality furniture quickly but expect to pay for it. By waiting, it could save you some money. I don’t mind adjusting the time and price factor. I like to leave the quality alone. If the quality move, I like it to move up.
Remember pick two: Price, Quality, Fast.
Saturday, October 08, 2005
Auto Repair vs. Woodworking
Repairing my table saw and having an auto repair shop loosen a bolt got me to thinking. Why are we willing to pay $50/hour to have our car repaired, but feel guilty charging someone $35-$45/hour for woodworking. I understand that auto shops have large overhead. So do woodworkers. Yea you can buy a router, circular saw, and a hammer for a few hundred bucks, but you have your shade tree mechanics that can do the same with a set of wrenches. Your more organized woodworking shops will have a higher overhead. It's not uncommon for a shop to have a $10,000 wide belt sander and other expensive tool that a "shade tree" woodworker could do without.
There is also tools that are specialized to make the job faster. You have your pocket hold machine, Plat joiner, 6" joiner, routers set up for specific jobs, or a dust collection system. There is a trade off for time and machinery. The more you invest in your shop, the faster a job can get thru the system. You have a lower labor time, but your labor rate had to increase. Sometimes I look at that and think that it's just a wash, because a lot of the time the end price is the same. Even though that may be true, another factor that increase at the same time is QUALITY.
The quality of a product gets better the more efficient a shop becomes. This is, I believe, because of three reasons. One, the specialize machine elimiates steps and repeats the action the same way each time. By eliminating steps, you eliminate time and chances to mess up. The action that is repeated is always the same. You can rely on the outcome. The steps after that don't have to be measure or adjusted each time. The another reason is you don't feel as rushed during a job. The parts you are doing manually can be slowed down. It's more of a mental thing, when you feel you're ahead of schedule. The last reason quality improves is just a better way of doing things. Take for example my Pocket Hole Cutter. Before Pocket holes, items were glued and nailed. The only thing the nails are used for in woodworking is to hold the piece together while the glue dries. They have very little holding power by themselves. Now with pocket holes I can use a hidden screw in the place of those nails. The holding power has increase expandable. I read an article comparing the holding strengths of different joints in wood. They compared the pocket screw hold on a butt joint, dove tails, tongue and groove, and maybe some other fancy joints. Their scientific testing demonstrated that pocket hole held better the all the others, even the dove tail which surprised me.
How did I get off on the subject of joinery? Anyway back to my original problem. Both industries, woodworking and auto repair, have overhead expenses. With us we also have a showroom to maintain.
Another area is the learning curve. Someone once ask how long it take to build a certain piece of furniture. I told them 14 years. After the shock, I explained. It took 14 years of experience to get to where I am. It should take less than a week for the actually building. Woodworker and auto mechanics alike don't just wake up and say "I'm going to start in a new field of work today and be exactly where I need to be". Like most industries that is impossible. I would not necessarily take 14 years, but some hands-on experience is needed.
It is accepted to pay a fair rate for auto repair, and we should not be ashamed to ask for a fair rate for our services too. If we believe in our products, then there is no need to back off. The product should be worth it. One last note. I keep comparing the two different industries, but did you notice. I, the woodworker still needed the services of an auto mechanic to fix my table saw.
Thanks,
Chris
There is also tools that are specialized to make the job faster. You have your pocket hold machine, Plat joiner, 6" joiner, routers set up for specific jobs, or a dust collection system. There is a trade off for time and machinery. The more you invest in your shop, the faster a job can get thru the system. You have a lower labor time, but your labor rate had to increase. Sometimes I look at that and think that it's just a wash, because a lot of the time the end price is the same. Even though that may be true, another factor that increase at the same time is QUALITY.
The quality of a product gets better the more efficient a shop becomes. This is, I believe, because of three reasons. One, the specialize machine elimiates steps and repeats the action the same way each time. By eliminating steps, you eliminate time and chances to mess up. The action that is repeated is always the same. You can rely on the outcome. The steps after that don't have to be measure or adjusted each time. The another reason is you don't feel as rushed during a job. The parts you are doing manually can be slowed down. It's more of a mental thing, when you feel you're ahead of schedule. The last reason quality improves is just a better way of doing things. Take for example my Pocket Hole Cutter. Before Pocket holes, items were glued and nailed. The only thing the nails are used for in woodworking is to hold the piece together while the glue dries. They have very little holding power by themselves. Now with pocket holes I can use a hidden screw in the place of those nails. The holding power has increase expandable. I read an article comparing the holding strengths of different joints in wood. They compared the pocket screw hold on a butt joint, dove tails, tongue and groove, and maybe some other fancy joints. Their scientific testing demonstrated that pocket hole held better the all the others, even the dove tail which surprised me.
How did I get off on the subject of joinery? Anyway back to my original problem. Both industries, woodworking and auto repair, have overhead expenses. With us we also have a showroom to maintain.
Another area is the learning curve. Someone once ask how long it take to build a certain piece of furniture. I told them 14 years. After the shock, I explained. It took 14 years of experience to get to where I am. It should take less than a week for the actually building. Woodworker and auto mechanics alike don't just wake up and say "I'm going to start in a new field of work today and be exactly where I need to be". Like most industries that is impossible. I would not necessarily take 14 years, but some hands-on experience is needed.
It is accepted to pay a fair rate for auto repair, and we should not be ashamed to ask for a fair rate for our services too. If we believe in our products, then there is no need to back off. The product should be worth it. One last note. I keep comparing the two different industries, but did you notice. I, the woodworker still needed the services of an auto mechanic to fix my table saw.
Thanks,
Chris
Friday, October 07, 2005
Finished but not a lot done
Today is finally over. I start the day without a table saw. The barring locked up on it. I didn't realize how important this one tool can be in the shop. Yesterday I had a new barring shipped overnight. UPS arrived about eight this morning. Unfortunately I watch them drive off behind a locked front door. So I started my morning by disassembling the saw. Nothing else to do. I ran into problems there too. I tried for hours to break the bolt loose that holds the barring. I didn't actually try for hours, most of the time was spent finding tools, buying tools, and running around in circles. I finally got it off by taking half the saw apart and taking the hole thing to an auto shop.. They used an impact wrench. Helps to have the right tools. Anyway I did get some work done. I build a maple bookcase. Check it out on my web site www.wwbeds.com. Click on the current projects link
Start up
This is my first attempt to blog. What I plan to do is to keep readers informed on furniture building. The ups and downs and all arounds. If that doesn't work I will may venture off into some tips on furniture quality, furniture care, or buying furniture.
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