BPI supplies top-quality millwork products, ensuring millwork efficiency with interior and exterior doors, fascia, base trim, crown moulding, and hand railings. By enhancing millwork efficiency with CNC technology and team training, we provide lumberyards with American-made products—timber that is cultivated, produced, machined, painted, or stained and assembled here.
One of BPI’s top priorities has been to enhance millwork efficiency with advanced CNC technology and comprehensive team training to meet increasing customer demand and supply superior job-ready products. Layne Brandt, the millwork manager of the Sioux Falls location, has been steering these efforts. Instigating these changes has required a three-pronged approach: investing in new CNC technology, reorganizing facility processes to increase efficiency, plus team training and collaboration.
A year ago, the Sioux Falls location aimed to produce 125 doors per day. With new CNC technology and optimized processes, their capacity has nearly doubled. They now achieve an output of at least 225 doors per eight-hour day. By shifting culture and process, their ability to meet customer demand has dramatically improved.
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And that’s only the start of what they achieved. With innovative technology freeing up time for other endeavors, BPI began to focus on continuous improvement and improving processes, workflow, and building a collaborative team.
Here’s how BPI’s commitment to millwork efficiency through modern technology and team building benefits lumberyards
Meeting Increased Demand
Firstly, BPI uses a new CNC machine to quickly meet the lumberyard’s increased demand for top-quality millwork supplies. This is especially critical when customer demand spikes and millwork products are needed quickly.
Enhanced Product Packaging
BPI’s enhanced packaging, with thicker cardboard and custom-made pallets, better ensures your product arrives undamaged. Our improved process of packaging shipments of multiple doors going to the same place also makes the receiving process more efficient for your staff. Instead of receiving them on multiple racks, BPI loads them on custom-designed pallets and shrink-wraps them together to reduce damage.
Enhanced Delivery Options
BPI simplifies shipping by sending related items as ‘Job Packs.’ This method replaces sending items in pieces and parts. Plus, we deliver to the job site.
- Job Packs – If a lumberyard needs 30 doors and any related millwork items for a customer order, the products are tagged, bundled, and packaged together to arrive at the same time. BPI combines shipments into one tag with customer and project information. This approach improves efficiency, visibility, and traceability.
- Jobsite Delivery – BPI can deliver directly to the job site for the lumberyard’s contractors. The contractor’s Job Packs are tagged, bundled, and delivered to the job site. Any other millwork related to the job, such as stair parts, hand railings, and posts, is also bundled into the Job Pack.
How an Innovative CNC Machine Improved Efficiency
Previously, we cut all interior and exterior doors by hand. However, with BPI’s expert millworkers and the new CNC machine, production is now much more efficient and less labor-intensive for our staff.
The CNC machine cuts handle holes and prepares doors for locks, deadbolts, and glass sidelights. It’s faster and more precise than jigs, routers, and jigsaws. With this technology, BPI’s exterior door production capability has grown from 35 a day to over 100 per day, and they haven’t reached the full capability yet.
And while production improved, the ergonomic benefits to the staff improved as well. Potential muscle strains and injuries from doing the work by hand were greatly reduced.
BPI Team Training and Collaboration Boosted Production
Brandt instituted bi-monthly “lunch and learn” team meetings. These sessions concentrated on several goals: reorganization by improving processes and workflow patterns, training on products, and team building and collaboration.
Implementing Lean processes to maximize efficiency
Lean processes start by identifying the customer’s needs. Next, focus on solving these problems efficiently. Once you’ve clarified the purpose, concentrate on the processes used to achieve that value and address those problems. BPI used their “lunch and learn” sessions to discuss how workflow patterns could be improved throughout the facility, how inventory could be more effectively stored and picked, and how to streamline effort and maximize quality and output.
As Brandt said, “Take input from your employees to address snags in the process and workflow patterns. When you have a new concept, take it to your people. Production wants to do it the easiest way because it’s the most repeatable, efficient way. The guy sitting in the office can have the idea, but the people on the floor are the ones that put it into perspective.”
>> How BPI Implemented Continuous Improvement Initiatives
Product training for continuous improvement
Product vendors and suppliers train BPI’s employees on new products and quality methods. BPI partners with Sherwin Williams, the world’s leading paint supplier. Their experts regularly train BPI’s staff on material use and application. This partnership helps us achieve the best outcomes. We will also invite a door vendor to teach the differences between poplar and oak and why to choose one over the other for a customer’s application.
Team building and collaboration
Mental health professionals have helped us understand the dignity of work and improve teamwork. This investment has greatly benefited us, states Brandt.
It’s a team effort to take unfinished materials and components and turn them into the high-quality custom-designed piece the customer wants. Because we have multiple departments doing similar work, our “lunch and learn” meetings foster a better teamwork environment. For example, these sessions allowed our paint department to work closer with the door department because one flows into the other. Improved communication helps staff understand how each job affects the next. This awareness boosts product quality and adds value for our customers. Knowing how each person plays an integral part of the whole gives our staff a sense of purpose and pride in a job well done.
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Investing in CNC technology and team training has greatly enhanced BPI’s millwork efficiency. This investment benefits both the company and its customers. Valuing their input and investing in mental health, collaboration, and training have paid off in many ways for both BPI and its customers. If you’re looking to build your own team and use their input to change processes, check out our Talent Services Program and contact us for more information.
