Entering new territory

As appeared in Modern Woodworking in February 2008
By Jeff Crissey

Growing West Coast cabinet company relies on strategic mix of machinery to improve flexibility and enter new markets

2008 will undoubtedly be a milestone for Lanz Cabinets. In January, the 52-year-old cabinet company, based in Eugene, Ore., completed its move into a brand new production facility (increasing the company's total production space to 125,000 sq. ft.), and it is near completion on a new frameless production line that will allow it to finally tap into a market that it has eyed for several years.

“Our current production has been set up for face frame construction,” says Brent Lanz, president. “Our goal with the new frameless department is to service more of the urban housing projects that skew toward a younger, more contemporary look. Seattle, Portland and San Francisco will be the three major markets for that product line. We foresee our frameless line eventually growing to about 25 percent of our sales, but our main concentration will still be face frame cabinetry.”

Moving production from its existing 40,000-sq.-ft. facility into the new space was a three-phase process that took six months to complete and required careful planning and implementation to minimize disruptions to the company’s production schedule.

“In order to keep the existing plant up and running while bringing the new facility online, we had to accelerate our purchasing on some of the new equipment that we would have normally held off on for a little while,” says Lanz. “We couldn’t afford to shut machines down and take the chance that we would encounter a problem trying to move it quickly and get it up and running in the new plant. Another big factor during the installations in the new facility was the coordination of different trades such as dust collection and electrical. It just takes time to get it done right.”

Since Lanz assumed the reins of the family business in 1982, he has grown it from 10 employees to more than 350 today. Lanz Cabinets’ two-fold market strategy over the years has been a strong presence in multi-family housing– including apartments, condominiums, military housing, retirement communities and assisted living centers – that makes up roughly 85 percent of its business, followed by a high-end custom kitchen cabinet business that makes up the remaining 15 percent of sales volume. The company operates mainly in the western U.S., including California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Nevada, and its military housing orders have created business as far away as Guam, Japan and Hawaii.

Flexible production

Lanz Cabinets’ production strategy has always been to invest in as much automation as possible to reduce production costs and increase accuracy and product quality. The move into its new state-of-the-art facility has allowed the company to incorporate more lean manufacturing principles and improve on its production methods.

“We strive to be as lean as we can, starting with our drafting department where we use Cabinet Vision to optimize in the front office and send the cut lists directly to the saws and machining centers on the production floor,” says Lanz.

Rather than partnering with one or two vendors for all its machinery needs, Lanz Cabinets invests the time to seek the technology that best suits its needs. As a result, the company’s production line is a mix of machinery including a Selco and two Holzma panel saws, three Weeke CNC machining centers and a Biesse Skipper, two Kentwood moulders, ripping and cross-cutting machinery from Weinig, three Cefla finish lines and an array of edgebanders.

“We select machinery based on technology first and foremost, and from there we want to be sure we have a vendor that will take care of us with service and available spare parts,” says Lanz.

Seeking out and investing in the latest technology also allows Lanz Cabinets to maintain a highly flexible production line and adapt to changing market conditions.

“Whether we are doing a package of cabinets for a military job or we are doing a high-end custom kitchen, our production line is flexible enough to handle both,” says Lanz. “One of the keys to our success in the fluctuating markets we serve is the ability to change our products slightly to fit as customers’ needs change. Now we are seeing more of a rental demand in our multi-family market and we’re able to make our cabinets more economical by switching to melamine doors, more of stock-type cabinets to make it more competitive for those customers. During times where the single-family and condominium markets are strong, we’re able to embellish our products, offering better doors and drawer guides and other add-ons such as pull-out shelving, appliance storage, wine racks and bread boards.”

An eye for optimization

Looking for ways to drive down costs in its milling department, Lanz Cabinets first invested in a Raimann MODEL HERE rip saw to replace its manual gang rip saw in order to improve yield.

“We used to set our saw blades at fixed widths and then run a piece of lumber, then re-run the scrap and get whatever we could out of the boards,” says Lanz. “If a board didn’t pass the grade on the standard blade setup, we’d re-rip it into scribe moldings or smaller dimension moldings. With our new system, we place the board on the infeed table, and the computer scans the width of the board and selects the best solution to rip that board based on the cut lists provided from Cabinet Vision. From there, the blades automatically adjust into position and the board is processed.”

One of Lanz Cabinets’ first additions to the new facility was a Dimter OptiCut S 90 crosscut saw – purchased at last year’s AWFS show – that is dedicated to optimizing and cutting defects for face frames and door stiles and rails for the company’s multi-family product line. The new saw replaces an existing OptiCut 104, which the company plans to reallocate to the custom cabinet division where employees are currently cutting out defects on manual chop saws.

“We bought the S 90 for its higher speeds to increase production capacity, and we are confident the 104 will be ample for the custom department,” says Lanz. “After revamping our milling department, we immediately saw better yields on ripping and cross-cutting. In both cases, the Raimann and the S 90 actually paid for themselves in one year based on the volume of lumber we put through.”

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