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SHAPING
THE WAY
FOR FUTURE
GROWTH
DECORE-ATIVE SPECIALTIES’ USE OF
A CUSTOM CNC SHAPER SANDER
HAS SIGNIFICANTLY INCREASED
CAPACITY AND IMPROVED
PRODUCTION IN ITS CABINET DOOR
MAKING PROCESS.
An innovative manufacturer, Decore- ative Specialties continuously looks for ways to improve the production of its custom wood and laminate
cabinet components. Founded in 1965 by Jack
Lansford Sr. and headquartered in Monrovia, California, the company has four production facilities
totaling almost 500,000-square-feet of manufacturing space: two in Irwindale, California, another
in Elk Grove, California, and one in Monroe, North
Carolina.
At 200,000-square-feet, the Monroe facility is
the largest of the company’s production plants,
manufacturing solid and recessed butt joint and
miter wood doors, RTF doors, Streamline® RTA
cabinetry, solid dovetail and dowel drawer boxes
and Deco-Form® refacing components, including cut-to-size plywood and laminate, and profile
wrapped mouldings. On average, the Monroe
plant manufactures approximately 6,000 doors
and 700 drawer boxes per day, said Todd Shapiro, vice president. Decore as a whole produces
approximately 16,000 doors and 1,400 drawer
boxes daily.
It was a desire to increase the capacity of its
solid wood butt joint doors that led the company
on its latest technology search. The result of its efforts has not only increased the capacity and improved the consistency of products for the company, but also earned Decore the 2016 Wooden
Globe Award for Innovator of the Year from the
Woodworking Machinery Industry Association.
One step sizing, shaping & sanding
Already equipped with a CNC single-end tenoner
(SET), shape and sand machines and automatic
shapers at the Monroe facility, Decore knew it
needed something different, Shapiro said. That
led the company to begin a yearlong process with
Bacci America to develop a custom CNC machine
for the door making application.
The Bacci CNC sander shaper is a fully automatic machine, complete with an all-new user
interface screen and controls. The operator scans
a bar code on the door, which then triggers the
pods to automatically position; the pod positions
are also visible in the UI screen. The door is then
loaded onto the vacuum cup tables and automatically positioned under the shaping head where it’s
profiled. “Utilizing the CNC technology, the doors
are perfectly square and sized,” Shapiro said.
The table then comes forward and a second
head profile sands the edge using an Arminius
sanding head. “The door is only handled one time
versus four times on a single-end tenoner,” Shapiro said. “The entire shaping operation is completed with one diamond tool and one sanding
tool, versus two diamond tools and three sander
tools on a typical single-end machine.“
The new Bacci CNC has replaced manual and
semi-automatic shaping and sanding machines on
the solid wood door line, Shapiro said. Already, the
company is seeing a positive return on its investment, though not what you would normally expect.
“Production rates are actually 25 to 30 percent
slower than with a CNC single end without a sizing fence, but we sacrificed production rates to
achieve a perfectly sized and square part for our
customers,” Shapiro said. “Sizing and squaring on
a SET without a sizing fence is impossible, but
when you use a sizing fence on a SET, production
rates dramatically drop by at least 50 percent.”
Along with its other production benefits, “The
Bacci is very easy and safe to operate as there
are no moving chains or pinch points compared to
SETs or DETs,” Shapiro added.
“The Bacci project embodies our commitment
to being accurate, complete, and fast, said Joel
Boyles, vice president of sales, marketing and
Using one diamond tool and one sanding tool, the Bacci CNC automatically sizes, shapes
and sands the cabinet doors. The machine has replaced many manual or semi-automatic
www.FDMCdigital.com | July 2016 |
