Millwork outsourcing gives joinery manufacturer cost advantage, flexibility and access to high end skills

Challenges.

Primarily the joinery manufacturer faced technical and operational challenges related to:

• Fluctuating work volumes which made it difficult to plan/allocate resources;
• Skills gap and longer design cycles leading to missed deadlines;
• Huge product range called for diverse domain expertise which made in-house resource allocation difficult;
• The client was using AutoCAD 3D for approval and production drawings while the rest of the industry operates on AutoCAD 2D. Training in-house resources on specialized 3D software demanded time and effort.

Solution.

• A specialized and scalable team was assembled with individual members commanding different skillsets and specializations. This included expertise into specific CAD functionalities for furniture domain.
• Using AutoCAD, detailed 2D shop drawings with BoMs, part drawings and installation guides were generated within stipulated timelines owing to team expertise and structured workflow.

Approach.

• The project engineers began by studying the architectural drawings received from the client and prepared a detailed roadmap keeping in mind the drawing standards and milestones.
• Scope of work, workflow, and implementation methodology and review mechanism were defined, documented and communicated to client to minimize revisions.
• Preparing approval drawings:
  • Based on architectural floor plans, raised floor plans and wall partitions, overall dimensions, location in 3D space and other geometry of joinery to be developed were identified.
  • Initial drawings were prepared by working in close collaboration with the joinery manufacturer considering the floor thickness, wall finish etc. to eliminate disputes and within timelines.
  • Upon approval by the project architect at client’s end, engineers began to work on manufacturing drawings.
• Developing detailed shop drawings:
  • With advancements in drawing details, several RFIs were raised to get clarity on manufacturer’s skillsets, over dimensions, their manufacturing practices etc. to avoid ECOs from shop floor.
  • Plan, elevation and sectional drawings of joinery were developed from detailed architectural drawings.
  • Towards the end, to generate BoM along with the detailed shop drawings, a list of raw materials, exposed finished good, bought-out items etc. along with equipment reference number were documented.
• QC process:
  • Since every job work received from client was unique we had custom QC process for each of them.
  • Two levels of mark-ups and revisions were defined as thresholds.
  • The QC process involved validation against reference drawings to show deviations.
  • Revisions from project architects at client’s end were accommodated even in case of zero deviations from reference drawings.
• Templates and libraries could not be used on a large scale due to high degree of design customization, but wherever possible template driven workflow was adopted.
• Detailed drawing sets in AutoCAD 2D along with BoMs, specs for bought out items, laminate schedules and wooden item schedules were shared with the client as final deliverables.