Hello guys and gals,
I did a brief search and looked through but didn't find exactly what my question is. We have 7
people. two and a half up front, the other half of that person's work divided in the shop and installs. 3 shop production, and one finish person. Wanting to put better definitions around job descriptions to tighten up the responsibilities. Would anyone be willing to share how they break up the work? I think we have too many people doing cross trained things currently, and should separate the work out a bit. Also the owners wife handles all the accounting.

I realize this could be a valuable thing you might not want to share but let me know. Happy New Year!

Nick

Finishing is usually a bottleneck in any shop. That person could probably use some help, especially with the scuff sanding.

Not trying to knock your question but it's meaningless without more information. Do you outsource doors? Outsource anything else? How much revenue for your seven man shop? What machinery do you have? These and many more questions are going to impact what your asking dramatically.

Being only a few hours from you I've looked over your website before. Seven is the sweet spot for misery in most cases. Enough man power you think you'd be putting out a ton of work, but not enough management to communicate and sell effectively. That's usually the seven person problem- your stuck in the middle between small- who is nimble and efficient and large with the mid management and technology to get the job done.

In my opinion you look very heavy in the office and short in the finish room- but it's total guess work without more information.

That seven person size can be a problem. As a shop foreman, I found ten worked better. It allowed for a part time book keeper, a clean up and errand guy, a finisher, and a variety of skill levels among the rest. I designed and drew plans, purchased, maintained equipment, and ran the shop. The owner sold stuff. He had a sail boat, and wore boat shoes to work.

The mix of skill levels and division of labor made things work better. When we had six people, and all were equal, lots of stuff never got done. Some were more equal than others.

Hi FM,
Very true, we have a CNC, actually 8 people because the owner's wife handles bookkeeping and payroll. We do Face Frame and Framesless construction. Edge bander of course. We outsource doors and drawers, we install our own jobs, not outsource that.

Nick, still meaningless info without metrics to qualify. You agree a drunk bum could probably be in the black in your market over the last few years? If you aren’t doing a minimum of 300k in sales per employee and making a absolute bare minimum 20% profit- you have big issues. That’s what I’d consider barely satisfactory in that market. Until you quantify what you’re doing there is no way to measure it or help you improve on it. I’ve looked at your work- if you have CNC & outsource doors & drawers a 3/1 ratio wood shop to finish room is way high on the wood side unless they are also your material handlers and warehouse guys doing the manual logistics for finish. Even then the ratio is off.