In the past, doors were manufactured and machined at the factory then sent to the distributor, who then sold and installed them at the customer site. There was a slowing of building during the pandemic, and now on the backside of the pandemic, there’s been an opening of the floodgates in both commercial and residential building. With the increases in production and demand, door manufacturers can no longer machine all the doors they produce and have pushed the responsibility for door machining downstream to the distributor.
Distributors are not without their own challenges, including but not limited to labor shortages, stagnant productivity, safety, and zoning changes, slow technology adoption, and most importantly, not being able to protect intellectual property (IP) such as proprietary processes. IP can be stated as what you do that is unique and how you do it. By CNC machining doors, distributors can close the time gap from receiving non-machined doors to getting a Certificate of Occupancy and producing revenue. A CNC machine is an investment; however, the ROI is nearly immediate.
All available research points to sizable and ongoing growth in the overall construction industry. With manufacturing running at or near capacity and revenue and profits strengthening, distributors should not expect manufacturers to be quick to move door machining back into factories. So, for manufacturers, internally sourced door machining doesn’t disappear; it moves to externally sourced machining – Think of outsourcing.
Discerning distributors should examine the ROI of manual machining of doors versus CNC machining of doors. Today’s CNC machines can do everything previously done by hand, and with easy apple-like user interfaces, programming your CNC machine no longer requires a programmer with specialized expertise. With pictures, pull-down menus, and error checking capabilities, we can compress the machine time, eliminate the mistakes, eliminate waste, and most importantly, protect your IP so that it no longer walks out the door with a change of personnel but remains in-house under lock, key, and password.
Distributors can greatly reduce their time to value – from receipt of milled doors to cash collections while reducing payroll costs and/or re-purpose excess staff to other important operational tasks.
Just 3 minutes of CNC time is equivalent to 25 minutes of FTE time that’s an 8-to-1 advantage. Utilizing a CNC machine eliminates waste, reduces warranty issues, and minimizes human errors. Run your CNC machine only one shift or let the machine run 24/7 – whatever your production needs warrant, a CNC machining center can meet your unique needs. We can walk you through this business case if you want to discuss it further. Contact us at: info@multiaxamerica.com.
For Architectural Doors, we recommend you the following Multiax CNC Machining Centers: C, D, N, and NE-Series.