FDM - March 2009

Nickell Moulding Co. produces picture frame mouldings for a range of customers and applications.

kitchen and bath industry. It’s a stocking manufacturer for Merillat Cabinets and supplies components to office furniture manufacturers Hon and Sauder.

The other half is stock and custom picture frame manufacturing for three types of customers: large OEM companies that produce art or photo frames for the hospitality market, small OEM companies and picture frame dealers through a stocking program of 120 picture frame mouldings, and a distributor network to which it sells a higher-end line of picture frame mouldings.

Expanding the green

Nickell Moulding has continued to evolve as an environmentally responsible manufacturer. “Everything that comes through the plant is green,” Kent says. “It’s all manufactured basically the same way. It doesn’t matter if it’s a rail or a stile or a cabinet door or a picture frame, it basically goes through the same process.”

The company starts by buying sustainably grown and responsibly produced raw materials. Some of the mills belong to the Forestry Stewardship Council, the Sustainable Forestry Initiative, the National Hardwood Lumber Assn., the Indiana Hardwood Lumber Assn. and Appalachian Hardwood Manufacturers Inc. It also buys medium density fiberboard from suppliers that have already complied with the reduced-formal-dehyde requirements of the California Air Resources Board. “So the raw material coming in, both solid wood and MDF, is all government regulated and made responsibly,” Kent says.

He describes Nickell Moulding’s manufacturing process as “a closed system.” The material coming in is green, the manufacturing is green and the wood waste is captured by a large dust collection system, loaded into semis and hauled 20 miles to a company that converts it to wood-burning pellets. “So it’s green in, green out and whatever waste we make in the plant is turned into green energy,” Kent says.

Voluntary steps

Kent points out that the company has taken these steps voluntarily. “It’s something we’ve been doing since 1992,” he says. “As the industry gets more green, so do we, but this isn’t something we were forced to do.”