Capturing knowledge
September 1st 2006

The effective capture and use of in-house knowledge is a key requirement for any company aiming to not only survive, but grow in today's competitive manufacturing marketplace. That has certainly proved to be the case for the Real Door Company of Hitchin, which has harnessed the capabilities of Alphacam's CAD/ CAM/ CIM software to support a doubling of its turnover during the past three years.

With a 16-strong workforce, The Real Door Company is a family run business specialising in the production of bespoke doors in a wide variety of tropical and temperate hardwoods. The company's products are normally designed to client or architect's specifications in either half-hour or onehour fire ratings and can be supplied as complete systems including linings, door frames, architraves, plinth blocks, dado rails, matching timbers and flooring, if required.

"Virtually all of our doors are designed and manufactured to specific requirements," says production director, Will Herrmann. "This involves the generation and management of significant amounts of information for each job; which is why we took the decision three years ago to streamline our operations by investing in advanced manufacturing technology."

The move towards greater automation was underlined in August 2003 with the purchase of the company's first Weeke BHC550 CNC router, equipped with an Alphacam programming system.

"During the machine selection process we identified some shortcomings in its onboard CAM system, which led us to evaluate a number of alternatives," says Mr Herrmann. "Through this exercise, we were quickly drawn to the capabilities of Alphacam's software and, with an existing post processor already available confirming the company's experience of the Weeke machine we felt confident that an Alphacam system would work 'straight out of the box'. What's more, we could see that the software was easy to use and underpinned by a good training and support package, which would enable us to get up and running quickly."

Mr Herrmann's assessment was borne out in practice. "The installation of our 3-licence, DNC linked Alphacam system was very straightforward and when the occasional teething problem did occur, Alphacam worked hard to quickly put matters right.

"We now do all our CAD design work on the Alphacam system and can go from approved drawings straight to fully specified machining programmes in a matter of moments," he explains. "The system's flexibility also scores on specials and curved panels. Likewise, Alphacam's ability to support company-specific tool lists and machining styles has produced major productivity improvements that have definitely helped to support our growth."

New Challenges Greater sales have also brought new challenges to the company. With increasing turnover, Mr Herrmann and his colleagues found it more and more difficult to control the business using existing manually-based systems.

"What we needed was a system with the potential to capture all the knowledge built up in the company, as well as to integrate commercial data like costs, quotes, order processing, labour rates, material usage and margins," continues Mr Herrmann.

"We had been impressed by the service and support received from Alphacam on our original installation, so were keen to see what the company could offer to meet our new requirements."

As expected, its proposed AlphaCIM solution offered simple interfacing to the Real Door Company's existing CAD/CAM implementation and, following a series of on-site demonstrations, a system specification was quickly confirmed.

Installed in early 2005, AlphaCIM supported by barcode shop floor data collection terminals today provides up-tothe- moment data on all on-site production activities.

"It gives us accurate information on every aspect of the business. For example, we can instantly determine the progress of each job, the material used, the status of quotes, analyse costs and get projections of our order coverage pipeline everything.

It gives us real control and, with around 2000 individual door components on the system and more than 1000 items in stock at any time, it is central to our business operations," notes Mr Herrmann.

With a doubling of turnover in the last three years, The Real Door Company continues to go from strength to strength.

Yet, rather than resting on its laurels, it is continuing to look to the future with additional investments in its management systems.

"We're now aiming to run our purchasing through AlphaCIM and, because of the inter-relationship between all of our operations, we want to achieve even closer integration between the manufacturing software and our CAD/CAM system," says Mr Herrmann.

"We have seen many benefits to date.

We have much greater control and knowledge of our true costs than we did two years ago. With Alphacam's help, we intend to build on this foundation for example, with additional reporting to give us visibility of bottlenecks and other areas for continuous improvement in order that we not only consolidate our current position, but continue to enhance our competitive edge in the future."