Planit helping Blank Joinery reach their goals
Blank Joinery is a young business with a committed owner with strong goals for the business to achieve. Owner, Michael Neville, opened the business with the aim of focussing on High Detailed Kitchen and Joinery work. Blank Joinery have set themselves a variety of goals, with one of the more significant ones based on steadily increasing the amount of work they can produce over the next 5 years. With this goal in mind, Michael began to research how he was going to be able to achieve it.
Michael has always been a tradesmen who loves working with his hands and being involved in the manufacturing side of the business. So when starting the business, he was uncertain about whether he really needed to invest in software or not. This was before Planit came onsite and explained the role software has in a business and how it will help reach the goals Blank Joinery had set. Through the discussions, Michael realised how software would help him improve his ability to design more efficiently, win more jobs and ensure information was correctly being sent to the factory.
Originally Michael was only using a panel saw for manufacturing. Planit’s Essential Tools of the Trade package was the perfect fit, as it would provide Michael the drawing functionality that he needed, with the additional benefit of being able to optimise their jobs and produce cutting patterns to use with his panel saw.
During the initial training, Michael spent time with a Planit integrator going through the process of drawing and getting these ready to present to clients. They were also able to set up his optimisation settings, including Michael’s desired trim & overcut values. Consistent use of the software and continually learning more began to pay dividends for Blank Joinery, with Michael becoming confident in the software and being able to reduce the amount of time he was spending preparing drawings for clients.
In early 2015, Michael took the step to invest in automating his manufacturing with a new CNC nesting machine. This was going to bring changes to the way the company would operate, however, this was something Michael knew was part of the next step towards reaching their goals. Michael was able to simply upgrade his software to connect to the CNC and provide greater functionality and flexibility in design and to ensure he was gaining access to the benefits the machine would bring.
When their new CNC was commissioned, Michael spent time both at the Planit Training Centre in Sydney and at their factory preparing their software. During this time, Planit was able to work through Michael’s system and ensure it was smoothly integrated so they could begin manufacturing jobs as soon as possible. Michael shares, “We’ve been able to achieve more than I thought we could. We’ve been able to increase production, yet keep the high quality that our customers expect”.
Part of this improvement is based around increasing efficiency in the factory, with Michael benefiting from having the ability to send his jobs straight to the machine. Michael shares, “We have really improved the amount of time it takes us to draw the job in the office. Plus with the fact we can send the jobs straight to the machine, we’ve really increased the amount of work we’ve been able to take on”.
With what Michael has already been able to achieve, he can see how much the business has progressed and is moving towards reaching their goals sooner than expected. “We’ve been able to continue moving forward and growing our business thanks to Planit. Their software has been pivotal in helping us reach where we are now. Looking at it now, we can’t operate without the software. Knowing how we used to manually do everything, I don’t understand how people survive without software”. Going forward, Michael plans to continue to push the capabilities of the software in order to continue to produce the high-detailed joinery Blank is becoming recognised for.
Michael understands the importance of keeping his staff engaged in the business, with Michael already working on a plan to have some of his workers begin to learn the software and integrate into the office. “As the guys move more into the office, I’ll be able to focus on going out and measuring, meeting with new builders and focus on getting new work”.