When Millwork Artisans decided to add a CNC router alongside their shapers to scale up their production volume, Drew Simmons, the President of Millwork Artisans, reached out to Rangate at the beginning of the process to be the lead vendor partner in planning and implementing the upgrade project.

Rangate had two key challenges to help Millwork Artisans solve:

• Integrating a new CNC with an existing shaper production process.

Rangate’s priority in any new project is to build a full understanding of the client’s entire wood shaping process, from the raw material to assembly. Taking the time in the early stages enables Rangate to create an optimized solution, with no missing or extraneous tools- just exactly what the client needs. At the beginning of any new equipment project, it’s important to have clear answers to these questions:

• What’s my desired daily output?
• How many people do I need operating machines to meet this goal?
• Does my existing team need additional training?
• Which processes can be run in parallel, and which must be done serially?

Once we had worked through these questions together and were clear on what Millwork Artisans needed to achieve with the project, we were ready to tackle the second challenge.