A custom cabinet manufacturer located in central Minnesota, Crystal Cabinet Works is known for its beautiful, resilient finish and solid construction of every cabinet.  According to Jeremy Gilman, director of Manufacturing, Crystal Cabinet is continually working to improve its quality and efficiency while safeguarding the ergonomics for its employees.

Recently, Crystal Cabinet added an additional automated workstation that has given it a lot of flexibility. “We bought a six-head machine so that we could not only leverage it for seal sanding, but [also] for primer sanding. Oftentimes, if we're lopsided with the workload, we can use this new machine to do all our different products…the pigmented finish and the clear finishes,” Gilman said.

“For many, many years, everybody told us that automated sanding and sealer was not going to work. Not too many people did it. We tested to see how much hand standing we could eliminate. From that, we successfully reduced about 50 percent of our hand sanding.”

Crystal Cabinet sands flat panels, finish frames, and five-piece doors. Although some door styles such as applied mouldings are limited from an automation standpoint, the company said 80 percent of its production now goes through the Weber automated sanding process. “Not only that, but we're doing it 50 percent faster than before. In addition, we're able to reduce a lot of defects. There's not a lot of repeatability when it comes to people hand sanding. So, when you are using the [automated sander], you can set up several different programs so that every piece that I ran through there that it had a like sand.”

Gilman added, “[We] were able to figure out how to seal sand on the Weber solution, which, in addition, reduced 50 percent of our throughput time. So, in the past, I had at least ten hand sanders. Now, I have a couple of hand sanders prepping on [the line], before it goes back into the seal line.”

This automation solution also helped Crystal Cabinet eliminate an older sander used prior to painting and enabled the company to reallocate two operators to help elsewhere in the facility.

“Our latest machine has six heads, and four are planetary heads. So, that's going to get down into the panels and on your five-piece doors, going to get down into your face frame areas. Some of them are used for sealer. Some are used for primer when we switch to the primer application. It is one of our bigger sanders today, and we wanted it that way for the versatility,“ Gilman said.

The new automated sanding line has been a big win for the company, both for the increased productivity and improved ergonomics.  “Hand standing is a challenging job ergonomically. So, anywhere that you can get some relief for your employees, where they're not hand sanding thousands of pieces a day…it's benefited their well-being as well,” he added. “My finishing department employs 150 people, so there's always an opportunity when I can eliminate ergonomically challenging jobs, and they can grow into better [positions].”

Bottom line, according to Gilman, “This sander has been a big asset, increased productivity, reduced overtime and fatigue, plus improved quality.”

Source: For information on Hans Weber Corp.'s sanders, call 913-254-1611 or visit WeberAmerica.com.