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Frameless boxes per day

9/24/20       
Quicktrim

I'm ramping up production this week and most of my systems are working well, helper is in sync.

So I'm curious as to how many frameless boxes are other two man shops out there getting out per day. I'm looking for average number of average boxes. Cut, banded , hardwared, assembled and in the delivery truck . No finishing , but putting on fronts and doors , drawers etc..

By average I mean some uppers some bases some drawer stacks and a few talls.

One main guy and a helper.

9/24/20       #2: Frameless boxes per day ...
C

2 man shop equals 10 man days (10 hours a day for me, 8 for helper) or 90 hours in a week. If doors and parts are in unfinished but drawerboxes are made in house:

2 man days in drawers (this is a variable, maybe you orders these)
1 man day to cut boxes
1 man day to band boxes & finish banding (this is a variable)
4 man days to put together 35-40 boxes
2 man days to hang, wrap and load into trailer

10 man days=1 week=35-40 boxes depending on type of boxes or 7-8 cabinets a day with drawers. add 15% (not 20%, you still have to unload, unwrap, dispose of pallet(s), sort and insert outsourced drawers consuming 5%).

9/24/20       #3: Frameless boxes per day ...
Oggie Member

I still don't have enough data for my new setup, but with my old one, while building 3/4" frameless melamine cabinets with slab melamine doors:

Step 1: braking down 4'x8' sheets on cheap vertical panel saw

Step 2: cutting cabinet parts on regular table saw

Step 3: dadoing deck, left and right sides for cabinet back, which is 1/8" hardboard,
also on the table saw

Step 4: edgebanding with hot air gun and manually trimming

Step 6: assembling cases with screws on non visible sides and pocket holes on visible ones

Step 7: building drawer boxes from 1/2" prefinished plywood, edgebandind on top edges

Step 8: Installation of drawer hardware, cabinet doors and drawer faces.

Assuming that all the material is already in the shop in the morning when I start I alone could make about 8 cabinets per day, usually 1 sink cabinet, 2 base cabinets (with 1 or 2 drawers on top and doors beneath), and 5 wall cabinets of various sizes.
When I was behind schedule I would make around 10, but would get really exhausted by the end of the day, so the next day I would be half as productive.

It wasn't always like that. When I first started it would take me several days to make 8-10 cabinets, but with the time I made a number of jigs and "inventions" that made my life easier and acquired more skill and become faster.

Also, my previous shop was not big enough for all that and some (actually a lot!, by industry standards) time was wasted for constantly shuffling things around to make space for the next operation, or to make space for newly cut parts and so on.

Just a week ago I've moved to a little bigger space to accommodate some new equipment. I'll be cutting parts on the slider saw, edgeband on entry level edgebanding machine and assemble cases with dowels using construction boring machine and caseclamp.
I think I'll be able to make few cabinets more, but what I'm really looking forward is not the number of cabinets, but less strain on my body and ability to employ some non-skilled help for everything after the sliding table.

9/25/20       #4: Frameless boxes per day ...
D Brown

What I figured out was an average dollar volume per day, some jobs are more involved. So a 10k job may take 12 man days regardless of how many boxes are built. Imo you may be better off concerning yourself with profit not volume.

9/25/20       #5: Frameless boxes per day ...
Quicktrim

Good points for sure.
And granted it doesn’t really matter how many boxes are made as it’s a very variable number depending on what type of box you are building.

I am going to focus on only watching budgets regardless of how many boxes we can achieve each day.

9/26/20       #6: Frameless boxes per day ...
Adam

The problem is too variable to compare shops. 1st guy has a cnc, slider, good bander, and dowel machine. You’ve got a cabinet saw and a track saw. The helper is using an iron and utility knife on the edge banging. We’ve got a hinge insertion machine you are drilling on a drill press and manually screwing then into the doors.

Forklift vs your guy lifting sheets.

You can see where this is all going.
Very hard to compare. I’m just using this as an example. We are more like latter except we are a higher end face frame shop. Quality vs quantity.

You need to watch your own numbers. If you stop increasing your output something is going wrong. It takes time and hard work to truly optimise.

9/26/20       #7: Frameless boxes per day ...
Quicktrim

Very true.
I should have prefaced by saying that my goal is to be the most efficient one man shop with helper out there.

I am set up as follows :
5 x 10 Anderson Stratos CNC
Dekker 25 hp liquid ring pump with
10 hp becker dry vane as backup / additional vacuum.
Holzher triathalon 420 w/ corner rounding
Maggi Line bore for edge boring
Gannomat glue and dowel handheld
Uhling case clamp
Sac planer - large
36" double head wide belt
Large sliding table shaper with two power feeders on it
Jlt drawer clamp
Ritter tub drill
Kreg tub drill
5 k forklift

So I guess my real question is how much production dollars are similar set up shops able to achieve with a similar set up.

Mainly focusing on commercial millwork.

1900 sq feet

I want to be the best in my space .

Thanks all.

9/26/20       #8: Frameless boxes per day ...
Oggie Member

Having a somewhat larger space for that amount of machinery would probably help you much more in reaching that goal than anything else.

I know that from personal experience.

9/27/20       #9: Frameless boxes per day ...
cabinetmaker

From cutting in the morning, about 20-30 depending on the complexity of the job

We have about the same equipment with the exception of an offloading conveyor

Our assembly happens right off the bander

9/28/20       #10: Frameless boxes per day ...
Scott Markwood

I know this isn't a direct answer to your question, but I toured the Nobilia cabinet factory in Germany last year and in 2018 they produced 727,000 frameless KITCHENS out of only two factories. They not only produce the cabinets but also make coutertops and ship the finished kitchens with appliances. They made 33,300 boxes and 7680 countertops per day! As you might imagine, it was mind blowing.


View higher quality, full size image (2576 X 1932)

9/28/20       #11: Frameless boxes per day ...
Derrek

I would look at revenue per employee per hour,day, week year.
Our installers goal is $600 per man per hour on the job. We look for total production including shop and install to be $150 per man hour on average.
We track and share these numbers with the whole team including designers so that they know if they are selling jobs that are priced right. Additionally we track certain tasks by how long it should take to complete. 1 guy assembling a Murphy bed panel should target at 1 hour, 2 guys at 30 minutes. I built on this morning with a new guy and it took us 38 minutes.
Last year our Annual revenue was $270k per production employee.

9/28/20       #12: Frameless boxes per day ...
Quicktrim

Thanks all,

I think you are right on Oggie, I do need more space . Revenue per man hour is a great metric to track . I’m going to go with that.

And thanks for the actual numbers as I want to shoot for real goals.

By your numbers, Derrick, do you mean to imply that an 8 hour kitchen install for one installer would net 4800.00 ? If that is the case you have the most profitable installers that I have ever heard of. I would be thrilled to install for 24,000.00 per week, hell I may quit making cabinets and just install for you.

9/29/20       #13: Frameless boxes per day ...
JM

Correct me if I am wrong, but Derrek is talking revenue per man hour. So if all your revenue comes from installing, then yes, that would be it. I believe his revenue comes from both the sales of product and the installation of such.

We manufacture cabinets and install them. Last year, we were over $350k per production employee. There are 3 of us here, 1 admin, and 2 production/install.

Numbers like this are useful for calculating what you need to do in sales per employee to break even and be profitable.

Boxes per day doesn't tell you very much and can be a little dangerous, especially if you are losing money on each box.

We calculate just about everything based on revenue. For example, our crew can typically install about $14k of revenue per day. This is helpful for estimating install time.....a $60k job should take 4 days.

9/29/20       #14: Frameless boxes per day ...
Derrek

Our install per hour is calculated by time on the job. It’s not perfect and can vary by product and material choices, but it’s an easy to track score and works well across the board. Last week we had an average for all jobs of $538 per hour.
My $270k per employee was for production people involved in manufacturing and installation and didn’t include sales and designers.
Most places don’t share any kind of numbers with there people, what it means to be productive or profitable. I don’t share my tax returns and P&L with them, but they know what we need to do to keep the doors open.
When you know how long it takes you to build a box, drawer or Murphy bed panel, you can also set expectations on what needs to happen in a day and how long it should take to do that. When you know that a good assembler can build drawer boxes in 3.5 minutes and a guy is standing at the drawer station for 3 hours to build 10 drawers you have an issue.
Find the metrics for you that are easy to track and share regularly with your people.

Good luck


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