WESTRIDGE CABINETS

As the regular weekly management meeting concluded on the morning of Monday, January 19, 2015,
Mayank Chadha, chief operating officer (COO) at Westridge Cabinets in Red Deer, Alberta, stayed behind
in the meeting room with Victor Maracle, vice president manufacturing, to review the issues that had been
raised in the discussion. Mayank commented to Victor about the challenges they faced:
Manufacturing lead times and capacity issues make it difficult to meet customer delivery dates
without expediting. Meanwhile, some customers are delaying orders at the last minute, squandering
production capacity and driving up inventory levels. We need to improve our on-time delivery
performance without increasing our manufacturing costs.
The budget for next fiscal year has to be finalized by the end of the month, which means I need to
get a handle on the improvements we can make in our manufacturing operations and the resulting
cost structure, including staffing levels in the plant. We should be realistic with our forecast, but at
the same time our plan needs to show significant improvement over this year’s results. Let’s meet
on Friday morning to review options. I will send you my analysis and notes before the meeting.
THE COMPANY
Established in 1983, Westridge Cabinets (Westridge) had grown to become Alberta’s largest fully integrated
cabinet manufacturer. With a broad product range and a reputation for delivering well-crafted, quality
products, Westridge served the new home construction and renovation markets. Most cabinets were for
kitchens and bathrooms.
The company’s head office and 150,000-square-foot manufacturing facility were located in Red Deer,
Alberta. Westridge distributed its products through authorized dealers in central and western Canada, as
well as the United States. In addition, Westridge had showrooms and localized design, service and
installation centres in Red Deer, Edmonton and Calgary, which were referred to as “branches.”
Every Westridge cabinet was a custom order, and almost every component — including doors, drawer faces,
drawer boxes and panel parts — was manufactured by Westridge. The company offered more than 50 styles,
which could be finished in 45 different stains, dozens of paints and thermofoils, and eight species of woods.
In March 2011, Westridge was acquired by Signal Hill Equity Partners (Signal Hill), a Toronto-based private
equity firm. Mayank Chadha, a graduate of the MBA program at the Ivey Business School, joined Signal
Hill in May 2013 as director of operations. In the fall of 2014, he was asked by the managing partner at
Signal Hill, to take on the role of COO at Westridge.
ORDER PROCESS
Westridge salespeople dealt with both homeowners and builders when quoting new work. The homeowners
would approve the style and finish of the products, and the builder would coordinate the delivery and
installation dates. In some situations, Westridge would negotiate contracts with builders to supply cabinets
for new single-dwelling homes for subdivisions or condominium developments.
Orders for most cabinets were placed at 8 to 14 weeks before the expected delivery, and the preliminary
design and delivery schedule were set. When construction at the customer site reached the point that drywall
had been completed, it was possible to accurately measure the dimensions of the area where the cabinets
would be placed. A Westridge field inspector would visit the site and make changes to the design as required.
Each house, even in subdivisions of similar homes, would have slightly different wall lengths and
dimensions, making it impossible to build cabinets solely based on the construction blueprints; thus, all
cabinets were required to be custom-made. The revised design would then be reviewed by the production
administrator (PA review), who would create a bill of material and forward it to the purchasing manager
who would determine the raw material availability.
Approximately 25 days (A “day” refers to a working day. The plant worked Monday to Friday, or five days
per week) before the scheduled delivery date, Jamie Johnson, the logistics manager, would call the builder
to set a confirmed ship date (CSD). The builder would then indicate that the construction was on schedule,
or a delay of as much of eight weeks could be required. Jamie would notify the appropriate branch of the
CSD so that it could arrange for a pre-production check (PPC) by the field inspector to confirm that the site
had been drywalled and was ready to accept the cabinets.
Approximately 17 days before the CSD, Jamie called the builder to re-confirm the ship date. If there were
no delays, he would set a date with the builder, which was referred to as a “locked CSD.” An order with a
locked CSD was automatically placed into the production schedule. At that point, one of Westridge’s three
installation coordinators (one was located at each branch) called the builder to schedule installation.
Three or four days prior to the delivery date, Jamie called the builder to confirm the delivery arrangements.
Approximately one-third of the deliveries would be “pushed out” to a later date, typically because of
problems at the construction site. Most of these delays were one week or less. Production delays (typically
of two to three days) or quality issues affected approximately 20 per cent of deliveries. Once the order was
ready, most deliveries were made within one day, and installation ranged from one to four days.
MANUFACTURING PROCESS
Westridge manufactured three families of cabinets, classified on the basis of the finish of the door: wood,
thermofoil and melamine. Wood doors were available in a spray stain or wipe stain finishes, and accounted
for 35 and 20 per cent of total volume, respectively. Approximately 10 per cent of wood doors added a glaze
finish. Melamine was an engineered-wood product consisting of decorative paper saturated with melamine
resins laminated to particleboard. Melamine boards were available in a variety of colours and textures, and
accounted for approximately 35 per cent of total volume. Thermofoil was a plastic material that was
thermoformed to an underlying core, such as medium-density fibreboard (MDF) or particleboard.
Thermofoil cabinet doors were offered in a variety of solid colours and imitation wood grains, and
represented the remaining 10 per cent of production volume. Wood door cabinets had historically
represented more than 90 per cent of total volume at Westridge. However, melamine and foil cabinets had
steadily increased in popularity during the past three years, due in part to their lower cost compared with
wood cabinets.
Exhibit 1 shows the process flow, and Exhibit 2 provides the cycle times for each operation, current staffing
levels and backlogs. Planning and scheduling at Westridge used a “box” as the common unit across all
departments. A box represented the front doors (wood, melamine or thermofoil) and box parts, which
consisted of the top, bottom, rear and sides of the cabinet. Box parts were manufactured from a water-
resistant material that was easy to maintain, such as MDF, particleboard or plywood with a veneer finish.
Customers installed a variety of finishes on cabinet countertops, such as granite or marble, which were
manufactured and installed separately from the cabinets. Most customer orders, such as kitchen cabinets,
consisted of several boxes. Exhibits 3 and 4 provide examples of products offered by Westridge.
Cycle times in each department were based on the average time needed to complete that segment of a box
(Exhibit 2). For example, wood preparation required 23 minutes to complete a box, and sanding took an
average of 32 minutes per box. Cabinet components (doors and box parts) came together in the staging area,
where the components were organized before being sent to assembly. The average time to assemble a box
was 36 minutes, regardless of product type.
PRODUCTION SCHEDULING
The plant ran two nine-hour shifts per day, five days per week, which included one hour for unpaid breaks
(a 30-minute unpaid lunch and two 15-minute breaks). As a result the plant operated eight hours on each
shift, and plant workers were paid an average of hourly rate of approximately $20. Overtime was used
sparingly. Jamie Johnson, who was responsible for scheduling the plant, described the process.
My biggest challenge is level-loading the plant since orders fluctuate significantly. Our policy is to
schedule 250 boxes per day in the plant, and orders with the shortest delivery lead times are given
the highest priority. I set the schedule 17 days in advance to provide enough lead time for
manufacturing. When the order book is strong I try to push delivery dates out when I call the builders
 to set the CSD. If the order book is weak, then I will try to move up the delivery dates when setting
the CSD. I end up tweaking the delivery schedule when I call to lock the CSD with the builder
because of requests to change delivery dates.
Each day’s order moves through the plant in unison, regardless of customer or product mix. The
lacquer process takes an entire day, including curing time, so that department sets the pace in which
each batch moves from department-to-department — one day at a time. For example, each batch of
wood doors spends its first day in panel pro south and moves to wood prep on the second day, then
to sanding the third day, and so on. In the case of thermofoil, the doors move to the foil shop three
days after entering panel pro south. Melamine doors take six days to go from panel pro south to
staging. As a result, the manufacturing lead time is eight to nine days, regardless of the product. In
reality, it can take longer to complete most orders because of unexpected quality or production
problems. Expediting happens frequently when customer orders are delayed in manufacturing or
when they call unexpectedly to move-up the delivery date.
OPTIONS
For his analysis, Mayank decided to use data from the period June to August 2014, which tended to be the
busiest period for the company. Exhibit 5 shows the orders received during that period, and Exhibit 6 shows
the number of boxes shipped. Mayank commented on the challenges he faced at Westridge:
The cabinet market is very competitive, so we need to keep our costs in line. At the same time,
ontime delivery is critical. Builders do not want to hold up construction projects because of delays
receiving cabinets. We have backlogs in several departments that are contributing to delivery
problems. Some of our big customers are getting frustrated with our poor on-time delivery
performance.
It is common for orders to get expedited because customers want to move up deliveries. We try to
push these orders through the factory relatively quickly. Meanwhile, other orders get ‘pushed-out’
by the customer, usually because of problems at the construction site. These orders take a lower
priority and can sit in inventory for several days before a new delivery date is set. We should carry
anywhere from 2,000 to 2,500 boxes in work-in-progress inventory to support our current
production level. Right now inventories are running closer to 3,500 boxes.
In addition, our product mix is evolving. When Signal Hill acquired Westridge we were
manufacturing wood door cabinets almost exclusively. Today, thermofoil and melamine cabinets
represent almost one-half of our volume, and the popularity of these products continues to increase.
The plant has been in operation for 30 years and we need to take a look at doing some things
differently. My immediate challenge is how to get product through the plant faster without
increasing our costs.
CUESTIONARIO
Con base en la información suministrada en el caso “Westridge Cabinets” desarrollar los siguientes
elementos:
1. Caracterizar el proceso elaborando: Lista de materiales, diagrama de precedencias, cursograma
analítico, diagramas de operaciones y de ensamble del producto.
2. Análisis de la estrategia productiva óptima considerando la línea de ajuste de la matriz producto-
proceso.
3. Análisis de la eficiencia global de la planta y equipos (OEE) por producto.
4. Balanceo de línea, análisis conjunto de takt time, lead times y tiempos de ciclo por cada producto.
5. Análisis de cuellos de botella y del número de operarios adecuado en cada etapa, considerando la
demanda actual.
6. Propuesta integral de reducción de los tiempos de procesamiento sin incrementar los costos.
EXHIBIT 3: EXPLODED DIAGRAM OF A WESTRIDGE CABINET BOX
EXHIBIT 4: WESTRIDGE CABINETS’ FINISHED KITCHEN CABINETS