CLIENT PROFILE
Sauder Woodworking Co. Founded in 1953 America’s largest ready-to-assemble furniture manufacturer

CLIENT NEEDS
Reduce lamination rejects in ready-to-assemble furniture

BREAKTHROUGH RESULTS
Rejects reduced by 20% Annual savings of more than $1 million

Sauder Woodworking: Reducing Lamination Rejects by 20%

Background

Sauder Woodworking is one of the country’s top five residential furniture manufacturers and America’s number one manufacturer of ready-to-assemble furniture. At one time, the company experienced problems with excessive lamination defects and panel rejects. Customer demand was increasing, and the production of defective products robbed them of the capacity for increased sales. In an attempt to remedy the situation, the company turned to QualPro for help.

Approach

A team of Sauder employees, including representatives from sales, operations, quality, and engineering, came together with QualPro’s representatives to help formulate a solution. During several brainstorming sessions, the team identified over 160 potential improvement ideas. 19 of these ideas were categorized as practical, fast, and cost-free factors for testing.

Results

Changes to the ratio of adhesives and the line speed were proven to significantly reduce the reject rate. Implementation of these test results saved well over $1 million annually, most of which resulted from the 20% reduction in the reject rate. The company was subsequently able to increase both its overall output of virtually defect-free product and its market share.