Producing high-end store fixtures and architectural woodwork with short lead times is a challenge that Fetzer Architectural Woodwork has learned to master
By James Buchanan
In the world of store fixtures and architectural woodwork, clients can be very discriminating and totally unforgiving of work that fails to be delivered on time or falls below the highest standards of quality.
“The discriminating buying public cares about the details,” says Wallace Fetzer, chairman and CEO of Fetzer Architectural Woodwork, “and they can be the most challenging to do work for, but these are the people you have to work well with, and we do.”
For Fetzer and his company, it’s all in the details. But with nearly 100 years in the business, Fetzer and his company have had plenty of time to develop processes to meet its most discerning customer’s needs and intentions.
Founded in 1909 by German immigrant Kasper Fetzer as a cabinet shop in Salt Lake City, Utah, the company quickly grew to take on some major installations, such as adding two wings on either side of the Tabernacle organ.
In the 1950s, Kasper’s two sons – John and Percy – took over the company. To this day, the company is run by third and forth generation members of the Fetzer family. In the 1990s, the company added a modern 10,000 sq ft finishing shop with four spray booths and a drying tunnel.
However, as the fourth generation began to integrate into the company, the decision was made in 2004 to build a new shop, which would double Fetzers’ production capacity. The company moved to its new workspace in 2005.
According to Wallace Fetzer, the term “Architectural Woodwork” in the company’s name could be a bit misleading, in that the company doesn’t work on the core of the buildings. Rather, the company concentrates on perimeter work, which consists of wall paneling, doors and door jams, standing and vertical trims, and wood veneers, he says.
The company also does some furniture work, such as custom library furniture, premium grade desks, executive desks, boardroom tables, and work stations.
“They are nicely styled, custom designed desks tied into the perimeter package so that all of the elements are matched,” Fetzer says, “which we call ‘sequence match paneling.’”
“A blueprint match,” he adds, “is the most fussy as it requires quite a bit more attention to more intricate details.”
Fetzer also says the company tends not to do “standard” paneling; it is more focused on wood veneers. “Buy the veneer, clip, stitch and press it,” he says.
On the store fixtures side, the company produces the racks, tables and other elements used to display and promote products sold in retail outlets. For example, the company has worked for high-end clothing retailer DKNY to produce fixtures and perimeters for its stores in white oak, acrylic and steel to very exacting quality standards with a high gloss polish.
The company also produced store perimeters and panels, cashwraps, casings and fixtures for Brooks Brothers flagship store in New York City.
While the company does provide products that include laminates, metals, glass, acrylics and so on, it also tends to subcontract most of that work out, as Fetzer is almost exclusively focused on wood in its own production.
“We hire special guys with an expertise when we subcontract out special jobs,” says Fetzer. “We check them out to make sure they have the capacity to meet our quality standards and handle the scope of the work.”
According to Fetzer, new vendors to the company are also prescreened, but the company relies on a number of vendors that have worked with the company for a number of years.
“We are familiar with their capabilities and the quality of the work they can produce,” he says. “Some of these people we have worked with for nearly 40 years. We’ve been around since 1909, so we know a lot of people.”
One example of the company’s longstanding relationships with some of its suppliers is Eggers Industries of Wisconsin. Eggers has been in business for more than 100 years, and is a manufacturer of flush doors, true stile and rail doors, and architectural plywood made from maple, cherry, anegre, mahogany and other species of wood.
Within the architectural woodworking sphere, the company also provides woodwork for a small number – four to five – high-end homes each year. This is not a focus of the company, but, says Fetzer, “we do our best to stay somewhat diversified in the work we can and will do, and that is on purpose. If any segment of our market stutters, we are able to adapt and refocus.”
Given that the company’s clients tend to be rather discriminating, it must continually focus on its customers’ needs.
“In most cases the primary factor a client is looking for is ’turn around time’,” says Fetzer. “They want to get their products to market in as timely a fashion and as close to schedule as they can. The second issue would be price and the third is quality, but on-time delivery is really the most important. People are just not that forgiving anymore if you can’t meet their timing needs.”
Fetzer notes, “You can get a cheap price in China, but if the product falls apart and doesn’t show up on time, that isn’t any good. They need quality products on time and if you can’t do that you are dead meat because they need to get their stores open on time. Otherwise they aren’t making any money.”
Being on time with delivery requires having as efficient a manufacturing process as is possible. Fetzer says the company is implementing lean manufacturing processes as much as it can, but for his company lean doesn’t always mesh well. For example, much of the work the company does is by hand by its many craftsmen.
“It’s hard to write down processes for a good dovetail when each one is a little different and made by hand,” Fetzer says.
“We are standardizing our processes where we can,” he says. “As an example, we are setting new metrics for the factory floor. In fact, there is a whole pile for the factory floor.”
Of these metrics there are four the company has placed a priority on.
The first is on-time delivery.
“We track the number of shipments or the dollar volume that the customer considers on time,” he says. “This kind of measurement varies in our industry because some companies set a different standard for what they consider to be on time for their products. We are more concerned that we meet the customer’s schedule as opposed to an internal schedule set by us.”
The second metric is revenues per employee per year, which is measured monthly. The company shoots for a minimum of $160,000 in revenue per employee per year.
The third is throughput duration; from the start of drawing the design to when the products are shipped.
“We shoot for the shortest time possible,” says Fetzer. “Some companies look at the time it takes to push a product through the factory floor, but the time spent up front on the design process with the customer is the longest stretch. We are working real hard to get our up front processes moving faster – estimating, drafting, all elements.”
“Last month,” Fetzer continues, “the total days was 25 days for the average work order, which means throughput production was really fast.”
The fourth metric is budget to actual performance.
“How many budgeted hours did we actually retire last week,” poses Fetzer. “Say we have 100 employees at 40 hours per week, so if the guys are not working efficiently then we are not retiring all of the hours you need to meet our capacity goals.
“The metric shows what volume you are capable of, which is a difficult thing to do. If you don’t have a really good IT guy, you can’t do this. We have a really good IT guy.”
Though the company has a good handle on its manufacturing processes, the real restraint to the company’s growth, says Fetzer, is “people, not machines.”
“This is problematic because we are the top dog and we can train a guy up and he can then be hired by a smaller company to run their shop and make more money,” he says. “We have a certain amount of attrition because of this, but they often will come back to us because we are a good company to work for.”
One thing the company is doing to speed its throughput is to segment the work into smaller batches.
“We are breaking our work down into smaller and smaller work batches, so the total number of hours per work orders is 100 hours,” he says. “If we get an order that requires 2,000 hours, we will break it up into 20 batches of 100 hours each. This means the design work has to be replicated 20 times, which adds to the work up front, but it makes a huge difference on the shop floor.”
Feeding the floor with the many different kinds of wood it uses is also a challenge for the company. To help organize its materials needs the company has deployed visual manufacturing software produced by Alpine Systems.
“It’s interesting, though, because generally speaking the architects kind of hit on jags where one type of wood is more popular than others, such as maple one year and cherry the next,” says Fetzer. “This means we go through phases where we primarily are dealing with the popular wood type, which leads to a certain amount of consistency to the need.”
Looking to growing the company, Fetzer sees more available capacity in its manufacturing facility.
“We think we have unused capacity of many millions for our factory,” he says. “The more Lean we get, the more efficient we will be.”
He cautions, though, that being busier does not necessarily bringing more profits.
“Some years we have worked harder and made less money,” he says, “so sometimes working harder isn’t the solution, but doing what you do better can work for you.”
Thus the Fetzer mission statement is: “To provide our customer with woodwork of exceptional quality and with reliable service while achieving profitable growth.”