By Karl D. Forth, Editor-in-Chief, kforth@wattnet.net
Project management is a key for Herrick & White, along with high-quality people who love the woodworking business and strive for perfection.
“Sometimes you can’t be competitive in commercial markets when you’re pushing such quality in residential markets,” says Ken Bertram, H&W president. “Our people have to be trained about the projects and budgets we’re working with,” he says. “We’ve tried to satisfy our customers.
The Cumberland, R.I., company has 100 employees, including 50 in the shop, and makes high-end residential and commercial architectural millwork, mouldings, cabinets, doors and wood store fixtures. H&W has shifted from retail to primarily high-end residential, a market that is upscale enough to escape the effects of the current recession — so far.
“We are busy right now which is an accomplishment in this economy,” Bertram says.
Today, probably 10 percent of business is retail, 20 percent is commercial and 70 percent is residential. A typical residential job may be about $300,000, but the company has handled jobs as large as a $3 million commercial project last year.
Ken Bertram is president and handles project management and Henry Gauthier supervises production. Steve Brannigan is the controller, and Gary Rousseau handles sales and estimating.
H&W uses Microsoft Project as a scheduling tool with an Access-based database developed in-house. That data comes
initially from estimating done in an Excel spreadsheet and then exported into Project and into Access. Everything is defined in the Access program, including parts to be ordered and time to be spent on each job.
“The project manager lays out his schedule in Project,” Bertram says. “Once he does that, he exports that information from Project into Access. That helps create the shop orders, and sets the schedule.
“I can look at the future workloads, look at what the CNC machine or fabrication will be doing. It takes the number of people we have multiplied by the number of hours per week, determines our total capacity and compares it to hours we’re projecting, coming from MS Project.”
In addition to AutoCAD, H&W also uses ProEngineer software to provide three-dimensional views. ProEngi-
Products: High-end residential and commercial mouldings, cabinets, doors and wood store fixtures.
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