Eastern Millwork Tour Showcases High-Tech in Tight Spaces
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Erik Delaney, product manager for Stiles Machinery, presents Andrew Campbell, owner of Eastern Millwork Inc., with a wall-mount cover of the February 2014 issue of Wood Products that featured EMI as the cover story.
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Andrew Campbell, owner of Eastern Millwork, Inc. discusses lean manufacturing on his plant's floor during the Cabinets & Closets Expo facility tour.
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The tour group files past a Homag edgebander. Machines are positioned close on the shop floor as part of the company'sthe lean manufacturing program at EMI.
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Andrew Campbell explains the EMI storage system for parts destined to be transported to the job site.
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A sold-out crowd of Cabinets & Closets Conference attendees participated in the after-hours tour of Eastern Millwork Inc.
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A Holzma panel saw works in tendem with a Bargstedt Intellistore panel storage and retrieval system at EMI.

JERSEY CITY, NJ – An after-hours tour of Eastern Millwork Inc.’s factory proved to be as popular with Cabinets & Closets Conference & Expo attendees as its “sold-out” status would indicate.

A bus-load of CCCE 2014 attendees got a personalized tour of one of the Northeast's most high-tech architectural woodworking operations. Many attendees were fortunate to have EMI Owner Andrew Campbell as their guide of the 40,000-square-foot-operation.

Campbell said he likes to run a tight ship. Woodworking equipment, including many machines purchased from Stiles Machinery, are compacted closely together to minimize material handling, he said.EMI focuses on lean manufacturing and batch one production. The company developed its own BIM software to be able to efficiently produce for large architectural woodwork projects like for the cavernous atrium at Rockefeller Center in Manhattan.

Campbell added that he hopes to build a new plant adjacent to his current location next year. He said it would not be much bigger, but it would be taller to better facilitate the company's investment in a Bargstedt Intellistore, an automated panel retrieval and storage system. Also on his new plant wish list is an automated flat-line finishing system.

Campbell's pronouncement that EMI would stay put in Jersey City, countered previous plans to build a new faclity in Bayonne, NJ.

Eastern Millwork's handiwork graces some of New York City's most prestigious buildings, including Rockefeller Center and the New York Times. EMI has also furniture many other Fortune 500 firms, area universities and hospitals. The company earned the cover story of the February 2014 issue of Wood Products.

The tour was co-sponsored by Stiles Machinery Inc., the Association of Closet and Storage Professionals (ACSP) and JB Cutting.

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