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Every customer is different, so our service is designed to meet individual fabricator customer needs, writes DoorCo MD Dan Sullivan as he explains how recent manufacturing changes have had an impact on this.

Positive customer experience is central to our operations. We try to ensure all our customers, whether they buy door blanks or fully prepped doors, are getting exactly what they need from us.

We still keep a foot in both camps of ‘distribution’ where we supply the components fabricators need or ‘manufacturing’ where we prep to order.

However, the traditional lines have become indistinct as many of our fabricator customers know they can rely on us to support their own manufacturing for special orders or additional capacity.

 

A little help from your friends

We need to offer fabricators the opportunity to own their share of the market, differentiate, add value and deliver high quality and aesthetically pleasing doors down the supply chain. This could be to retail installers and homeowners or the commercial new build and social housing sectors.

Sometimes, our fabricators need a little help and we can support them with additional services, such as painting, glazing or general prepping to any specification.

 

Customers’ customers’ customers

This flexibility is essential when you consider the complexities of the supply chain and the different requirements of our customers’ customers’ customers. The retail sector wants solutions, with lots of options for personalisation, whereas commercial customers are looking for volume orders of different permutations, delivered in line with their schedules.

 

Supporting growth

Over the years we have supported many customers in the transition to fabricating their own doors.  Glazerite is a great example. Ten years ago, it was one of DoorCo’s first prepped door customers and now it is a multi-site leader in the industry. I believe that the relationship we’ve cultivated over the years, is a real example of fabricator support. In fact Robert Brearley, Glazerite’s group managing director, tells us that our working partnership could not be better. He says that we are perfectly aligned in terms of our business values and drive to grow in our markets.

More recently, we supported Unique Windows in this transition too, purchasing slabs in bulk to satisfy their requirements.

 

Factory layout

Aaron Williamson, our head of manufacturing is at the forefront of a project to maximise our productivity. His experience and foresight will help to revolutionise our facility and grow capacity through strengthening the manufacturing team.

Aaron is starting us on the journey to lean world class manufacturing. We have already transformed the shopfloor into two separate cells, where we can manufacture standard and painted doors independently, with a glazing cell sitting in the middle to make it easily integrated into either process.

The result is a more efficient workflow, reduced bottlenecks and best practice through the adoption of lean principles. There has also been a big focus on reducing manufacturing waste. Doors now travel 80% less during production, which has huge repercussions on quality and efficiency. We have also enhanced technology for better communication around the business.

 

Picture: DoorCo has gone through a project to maximise productivity to enhance its service offering to each individual fabricator customer.

www.trade.door-co.com 

Article written by Dan Sullivan, MD DoorCo
24th October 2023

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