WoodDigest.com |

Throughout the wood manufacturing industry, business owners are facing extreme challenges to achieve bottom-line profitability. Most industry experts believe this bleak outlook will not improve significantly for the next 12 to 18 months.

To survive the current downturn, managers and business owners are looking at every aspect of their business to identify ways to cut operational costs. Companies of all sizes have been successfully automating and streamlining their processes on the wood side of the business.

However, many companies have overlooked their finishing departments for ways to reduce costs. Recently, business owners have started to evaluate their true finishing costs. These internal reviews reveal a high level of dissatisfaction with employee productivity and overall finishing costs. Per finishing employee, the industry average for reworks remains high, while the daily average for square foot of product finished remains relatively low. The good news is that there are many options to increase worker productivity and reduce overall finishing costs.

Let’s take a look at the top 10 steps we recommend for reducing finishing costs.

STEP ONE: Provide adequate lighting

The No. 1 problem in finishing facilities is insufficient or incorrect lighting. Ninety percent of the shops we perform evaluations for have substandard lighting. This sub-standard lighting results in finishers being unable to see problems or defects that can cause a high rate of internal reworks and can slow down the finishing process.

All lighting should be color corrected to a color rendition index (CRI) of 85 or higher. Make sure that the lighting is color corrected to this same level throughout the finishing department.

For general-purpose lighting, the brightness or intensity should average no less than 80 foot-candles at 3 ft. off the floor. In spray booth areas, the level of lighting should range between 100 to 125 foot-candles at 3 ft. off the floor. For inspection areas, 90-watt halogen lighting illuminating parallel to the work surface is adequate to detect defects in the product.

When the finishing facility is illuminated to these standards, worker productivity will normally increase by up to 20 percent and reworks will often be reduced by up to 80 percent.

STEP TWO: Increase application transfer efficiency

Raw material costs for finishing materials are increasing exponentially. As a result, all finishing material prices are increasing every month. Now may be the right time to look at your coating application equipment.

We recommend that you research all of the new low velocity HVLP and air-assist technology that is currently available on the market. Switching from older air spray and HVLP equipment to new higher transfer efficient technology can save material consumption by up to 60 percent; however, make sure you test the equipment thoroughly before purchasing new technology. Some equipment will perform better than others for your specific process and the coating you use.

STEP THREE: Use higher solids coatings

Don’t buy cheap coatings that are formulated with low-volume solids. This is a common mistake. Manufacturers using inexpensive coatings are most likely buying a low solids coating. However, these coatings will result in additional steps required to achieve the dry film build necessary finish a quality product. The labor savings when using a high solids coating will always offset the higher cost of these coatings. Reduced labor costs can add 10 to 20 percent to your bottom-line profits.