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Lean and clean: The 21st century world of cabinets Bob Camara, who owns Woodworking Specialties with his wife Alyssen, watches the process in the spray booth. The high-tech booth has its own fire-retardant system. The shop makes all of its own colors and stains for jobs, and can match samples from architects and other subcontractors. Camara started as a millman when he was 18, at Ace Cabinet in Fremont.
When you think a cabinet shop, do you see curls of shaved wood on the floor, racks of handtools on a pegboard, and sawdust packing every nook and cranny? Not anymore! At Woodworking Specialties, Inc. in Fresno, Bob and Alyssen Camara run a high-tech shop based on lean manufacturing principles. As the lean practice dictates, it’s a clean, extremely well-organized shop where each aspect of the project -and process- aims for reduced waste, reduced motion and repetition, and safety through promoting an awareness of what’s going on in the immediate environment. "'Lean' is an in-depth manufacturing principle. You’re always improving," explains co-owner Alyssen Camara. This also means each aspect of the work is quality controlled by the person who assembles each item.  Darren Scheidt, Local 1496, runs the massive CNC (computer, numerically controlled). He’s been running a CNC for 16 years. The massive machine takes the original material, then measures and cuts the pieces from specs that are put in via the computer. Woodworking Specialties has two CNCs; the newest one was made in Germany, assembled in the U.S. and cost $100,000. Mario Fagundes, Local 1618, moved to the valley from the Bay Area. Here he’s sanding Corian cabinet-tops for the restrooms in the San Jose airport. In one large, bright room after another, workers focus on the tasks for the many clients that Woodworking Specialties has on the board: the San Jose airport, the Fresno courthouse, a Bay Area children’s hospital, a South Bay country club, the Lighthouse Charter School, and so on. The Camaras are understandably proud of one recent $180,000 project- building all the shelving and paneling for Disney Studios in Novato. Bob designed the shelving, which curves through the studio, open to both sides, and is used for displaying models of characters in the Disney films. At one end of Woodworking Specialties, two CNCs (computers, numerically controlled) share space with an edge-bander, a long machine that glues on the edging, and refines and finishes the sides of each piece of a cabinet. In the back of the edge-bander, the curious (or the machine operator) can peek in through a clear cover to see nearly every phase of the process, which takes under a minute. It’s a far cry from the days of millmen’s yore, but there’s still plenty of call for artfully designed, well-made cabinetry and the highly skilled craftsmen who make and install it. And that’s good news for Mill-Cabinet members- and Woodworking Specialties, too. |
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