Success Story

The Joinery

Industry

Wood Products

Location

Portland, Oregon

Date Founded

1982

Number of Employees

35

Background

Founded in Portland Oregon in 1982, the Joinery began as a one-man furniture repair and refurbishing company. Since then, the business has grown to over 30 employees building handcrafted furniture for residential and commercial clients throughout the US, using its own designs or those created in collaboration with customers.

The joinery’s mission is to manufacture high quality, semi custom household and commercial furniture while remaining environmentally friendly. From solar panels on the roof to the recycled sawdust biscuits they produce, the Joinery is a certified B-Corp with operations run on 100% renewable power. It has been named one of Oregon’s best green companies. Its products are built from locally sourced and sustainably-harvested wood species.

2 weeks to 3 days

Response Time Improvement
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The Situation

The Joinery ships products throughout the United States. Its business has been steadily expanding and as a result owner Jon Blumenauer was seeking assistance with planning next-level expansion. Overall production facilities were broken up due to room and building configurations without a visual management system causing complications and delays in production processes. Response time for custom furniture was over 2 weeks.

The Solution

OMEP conducted a detailed analysis of the material flow patterns of various types of furniture, and laid out the facilities in a CAD program for easy organization. After establishing a standard work piece for each process step, detailed assembly work units were created. In some cases, teams were formed to speed production throughput when faced with larger orders and tight delivery times.  In addition, a quick response team was created that was comprised of highly experienced and seasoned personnel to respond in an agile manner to custom furniture requests allowing faster response times.

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The Results

Work flow and material flow processes were optimized. The Joinery is now operating on a push/pull inventory system, and is better positioned to meet the rising needs of their customers in a timely manner.


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OMEP has been instrumental in helping us identify opportunities and implement solutions that have improved efficiency.

Jon Blumenauer

Owner