In just more than a year, Richelieu Hardware combined multiple Western Canada facilities into one much-larger, much more efficient structure in Calgary, Alberta, in the process speeding up customer order fulfillment through automated technology and sophisticated software, and adding a major product line to its already burgeoning product portfolio. 

And, it is not done yet.

The Canadian hardware company’s numbers are big, no matter how you look at it. Sales are $1.8 billion (CAD) in 2024. It serves more than 130,000 customers from 116 facilities throughout North America, and product SKUs top 145,000 items; throwing in special orders, that number can easily triple. 

And those numbers are constantly changing.

As those targets shift, so does the company as it works to offer improved efficiency and more capability and create a one-stop shopping experience for its diverse customer base.

In March 2025, John Statton, general manager for Western Canada, and the man who led a team that oversaw the construction of the massive facility in Calgary, sat down with FDMC magazine to discuss the operation. 

“The new 260,000 square foot facility integrated two other separate Calgary businesses that [previously] had spanned approximately 140,000 square feet between them and probably another 20,000 at another off-site location,” he said. “We obviously had some excess, and with that excess we put in additional product to support both our industrial business and to expand our retail programs. This warehouse is responsible for the Western retail sales to our retail stores, and we will become more and more of a strategic warehouse to [support] our Montreal operations.”

Currently, in the Calgary building, there are 23,000 SKUs, including laminated boards lumber, substrates, decorative hardware, wood coatings, closets and storage solutions, glazing and hardware for the glass, window, and door industries, and so much more. In addition, there is an 8,000-square-foot showroom, and myriad office space for educational seminars, technology open houses, industry meetings, tours and other events.  

Despite its size, the company’s mantra is that it should be a one-stop supplier for its customers.

“If somebody needs something that’s interior related and they’re in the woodworking industry, we can potentially be a one-stop shop to supply them,” said Walter Stockton, operations manager. “We can’t cover every little widget that’s out there, but for the most part, we want to be a place where they come here and they get their wood, followed by hardware, followed by paint followed by anything else that may be needed for the job and get it all in one P.O., one transaction, one shipment.” 

Entering the laminated board market
One of the facility’s newest additions is a 104-foot-long Evans Midwest brand laminating line from Choice Machinery Group. The company makes the laminated boards from substrates in its inventory, and laminates from most of the major laminate suppliers that it distributes.

Statton said there were several reasons to expand their presence in the laminated board industry. Previously, it had worked with PJ White Hardwoods Ltd., Vancouver, British Columbia, for 15-years before acquiring them in 2020. While P.J. White supplied boards for Richelieu to sell, its facility was limited in size, which hindered the number and types of products that could fit in the facility

“When we moved into the new facility,” Statton said, “laminated panels became a much bigger opportunity for us. We decided to get into the lay up business to assist the customers and give us legitimacy in the board business. Shops can now turn to us for that type of work. Any product that can be delivered to them without them having to do the work and allows them to focus on more value-added products and services to make them more profitable, is what we want to accomplish.”

The other thing about the press is it can do both large and short runs. 

“We will take thousand sheet orders, for sure, but we want to be able to do two and three sheet orders for our customers,” he said. “Imagine how loyal they will be at that point when relinquishing that work to us.”

Because of the success of the press, later this Summer of 2025, the company is scheduled to add a second laminating line in a facility in Surrey, British Columbia.

How it works
The Evans Machine laminating line produces one double-sided sheet in about a minute and 20 seconds. Richelieu loads the substrate onto the line and in that approximately 80 seconds a blow-off station cleans the board, a glue spreader coats both sides of the substrate with a high-solids adhesive, as well as the laminate, and a heat tunnel bonds the laminate to the core driving the moisture out of the glue into the board, and creating a bond that holds the laminate securely in place until the piece is fully cured.

The boards are stacked and ready for shipment. Boards receive a barcode that includes pertinent information such as date and shift of production, said Dan Sutherland, manager. 

“We keep files on that so if we ever have an issue down the line, we can go back to the log on that day and come up with details of the job.” he said. “And we know the core we used. This was the team that was doing it, and we can isolate any problem. But so far, we haven’t really had any problems.”

Quality checks occur all the way through the line starting with the particleboard delivery,” said Doug Taylor, project manager at Richelieu. “We check the moisture content (typically 6 to 9 percent). We’ve got a scanner that shows the moisture content of the board, so we’re not laying up laminate over wet board, which can cause warping.”

Managing its massive warehouse
To improve order fulfilment times, the company has made process improvements at many of its facilities. One of the most impressive sights at the Calgary facility is the inventory and its management. Richelieu has achieved faster order cycle times, with orders being picked, packed and ready for a customer in an estimated 10 to 12 minutes.

The Calgary warehouse features row after row of rack systems soaring multiple stories above the ground. On one side of the facility are the thousands upon thousands of hardware products for shelving units and the other side are items such as the lumber, engineered boards, laminated boards and more. 

While the products may differ from one side to the other, in some respects the products don’t make much difference. That is because the company uses order and warehouse management software to process customer orders and manage inventory and quality control of their products. 

The actual product doesn’t matter. What really matters is the bar scan code. 

Barcodes are found throughout the facility as part of the company’s unnamed Warehouse Management System (WMS). The WMS helps control day-to-day operations of the warehouse. 

“It helps with everything from receiving and storing inventory to optimizing picking and shipping orders, ultimately improving efficiency and cost-effectiveness,” said Taylor. 

“The worker would scan the pallet number so there is very little chance of getting stock mixed up because if he’s putting it in the wrong pallet, the scanner will alert them with a beep,” added Sutherland. 

Keep on growing
Just as the company plans to increase its ability to make more laminated board products with a second laminating line in Surrey, British Columbia, it also plans to improve even further its warehousing operations.

Part of the planning for the new facility was for the addition of a robotic technology called AutoStore.

With AutoStore, radio-controlled robots drive on tracks above the cube. The robots have been programmed to find an appropriate bin, grab it and deliver the bin to workstations for order fulfillment or replenishment. To get to a lower bin in the cube, the robot digs out the bin systematically. Every bin delivered to the workstations will be placed back on the top, so that slow-running products sink to the bottom of the stack, and high-runners stay on top.

“We have a harmonized showroom here and we can move the product from our warehouse to a customer’s  facility efficiently and quickly. As a one-stop shop, you can get your wood, your hardware, your paint, everything that is needed to begin building your cabinets right away,” said Statton.