Crew of Two Flexes Nesting Muscle
Chris Harmon, owner the custom cabinet company, Azure Cabinets, is a proud member of the CMA. He joined the Cabinet Makers Association about 10 years ago. “I’m on the forums daily. The information I get from the CMA well covers the cost of being a member. The knowledge base is priceless.”
From Homebuilding to Cabinetmaking – Finding his Niche
A craftsman by trade and an entrepreneur by nature, Harmon was building homes in Nashville, TN, in the mid-1990s when he started a “sideline business” making conference tables for an interior designer. “She sold my conference tables all over the United States under the Azure name. But after 9/11, she [the designer] stopped traveling and that business stopped. I decided to transition from building houses and making conference tables to producing high-end, contemporary frameless cabinets. It’s pretty standard now, but back in 2001 I was one of the only companies here in Nashville to build strictly contemporary cabinets. Everybody thought I was going to starve to death, but I found my niche and did really well.”
Harmon made another important transition six years ago when he purchased a CNT Motion router and KCD Software package to nest cabinet parts. In the process, he sold off his line boring machine and other equipment he no longer needed.
Harmon bought the router, used, from Bob Buckley when Bob closed down True32 Custom Cabinetry of Lavergne, TN. Buckley was a founding member of the Cabinet Makers Association (CMA) and author of a book on using European manufacturing techniques to manufacture frameless cabinets. Harmon was already a practitioner of Buckley’s production philosophy and got to know him personally.
Buckley also sold Harmon on using KCD Software. “What’s great about KCD Software it that it’s fast, it’s accurate and it’s simple to learn,” Harmon says. “After sitting down with Bob for a one-hour tutorial, I was up and running.” Harmon subsequently improved his nesting acumen by watching KCD Software training videos.
The Many Benefits of Nesting
“There are many benefits gained by going to nested cabinet parts,” says Harmon. “The biggest is that the router takes several operations and puts them into one place and I don’t need a highly pre-trained employee to run the CNC router and edgeband parts. In comparison, when parts are cut on a panel saw, the person cutting has to have a knowledge of material utilization to eliminate material waste.”
Nested-based manufacturing driven by KCD Software enables Azure Cabinets to efficiently produce high-style contemporary kitchens with only two employees.
“Nested-based cutting of cabinet parts also eliminates multiple handling of parts,” Harmon continues. “After parts are cut on a saw, they are stacked and moved to a line boring machine, then restacked and moved to a saw to dado back panels. The CNC does all of those operations.”
The Azure Cabinets’ Process
Harmon says his typical projects are for “empty-nesters” who are down-sizing into a new home, usually in the $1 million range. “They don’t want the standard kitchen that the builder offers. So, they come to us to design their dream kitchen. They’ll often show me a picture of what they want in terms of color or grain pattern.”
“We do a lot of veneered grain matching where the grain is running horizontal,” Harmon says. “That’s one of our specialties.”
Harmon’s wife Sharon is the lead designer and point person with Azure Cabinets’ customers. After meeting with contractors and homeowners she creates the initial kitchen cabinet design using AutoCAD. After the customer signs off on the design, Harmon takes over.
“Once we get the deposit, we go back to the jobsite to double check all measurements. Then I begin to engineer the project,” Harmon says. “I’ll use KCD Software to redraw the kitchen pulling the cabinets I need from specific libraries. Then I’ll resize each cabinet and plop it into the kitchen layout. KCD Software does a great job of generating the DFX files that I download into CADCode to generate the G-code for the router to nest the parts.”
Harmon says he also uses the kitchen cabinets he designed to seamlessly order cabinet doors from Conestoga Wood Specialties. “I don’t have to send out a separate purchase order or type anything. It’s all automatic.”
The Bottom Line
Shifting to CNC nesting has helped Harmon become more efficient and profitable.
“I have a strong reputation of being one of the best cabinetmakers in my area,” Harmon says. “We make the cabinets from start to finish and I install them myself. I’m not just sitting in the office; I’m hands on. The combination of my cabinetmaking experience and automation allows me to keep my quality really high.”
For more information about Azure Cabinets, visit their website at www.azurecabinets.com or phone (615) 429-6592. For more information about how KCD Software can streamline your business, please give us a call at 508-760-1140.
