Wood Automation

Automation Overview

Automation is today available around the world: same machines, same facilities. Product differences spring from the workforce capabilities and local resources.
My opinion is make it where you sell it - otherwise you must trade, not sell, to avoid trade imbalances.
Modern automation can train a competent workforce, although that sounds strange. Certainly, today's generations' grandparents and great grandparents were pretty good woodworkers.
The immediate question, what do we do now, not in some fantasy future. You are either going to like manufacturing or you can stay on the custom side. I can't do that: My Manufacturing Villages project is about creating jobs with automation and I need to show what Wood Horizons can accomplish.
Maybe you have a younger generation poking around your business? Wood Horizons perhaps can test the younger minds while making useful products. Maybe now is a good time for the younger generations to learn and absorb the new technology.
By the way, I'm an engineer still pretty current on technology yet old enough to appreciate the tools you younger people think are just normal.
We will make profits with automation and great designs (history is full of great examples we can legally copy). The markets are there, although if you don't understand and can't implement technology you won't be part of the profit picture. Be sure and look at the Products page where markets are defined.

I'm looking for designs impossible for a single "street fair" woodworker. We don't make "cute" stuff. Think Japanese quality. Click here to see Japanese products.
Fewer nails, dowels, glue, etc. is part of the designed-in process. Think about Chinese 3D wood puzzles, or the 4/3 timber bridges of Asian towns, or the Japanese houses falling down after every earthquake and just rebuilt with the original materials. Since dovetails are easy with NC machinery, I like them for interlocking. Accuracy and repeatability are both good.
First designs need to be shipped flat and un-assembled to give us time for more complicated designs.
All products should allow for some decoration to be sold as an up-sell. We charge what is necessary to make a quality 3D routing of a box cover, for instance.

Wood is here to stay; Well, let's say it has been here for many years and will be for many more years, at least if we are not too stupid. People with money to spend on pleasant objects will find their way to wood. And, now, we can make extrodinary objects with the new tools, finishes, and fresh imaginations.
Manufactured products, it would seem, can now be made of wood at an affordable price to people with disposible incomes. Especially when they used to pay extremely high prices for wood products. Now even the wealthy don't have to pay more.

I will just assume you have the right computers using the right software and can communicate effectively.

Computer controlled shaping devices are a big step from WWII manufacturing. The concept of accuracy rather than tolerances makes all the difference in the world when things fit all the time and are endlessly repeatable.
Also, estimating production costs becomes accurate for both costing as well supply-channel control.
I intend to design many products utilizing a 5 axis router. On the other hand, products designed to be shipped flat may only need a 3 axis router
I'd be pretty sure you are making some very nice products for yourself so you will be familiar with the brands I will suggest in Products.

Finishing wood is both much easier while taking longer. I will assume you have the proper facility for finishing. What finish is up to you unless the finish is a design elelment. I cheat: Just stain and oil.
Sometimes no stain, like maple. I made a few frames ( I built a jig to get rid of absolutely straight sides) and put several layers of oil and it worked great. The frames are still at my brother's (he's the one with a small woodshop.) and the frames still have a richness after 10 years.
We have to be smart about what will sell when it comes to finishes. We don't need to follow anything in the past to satisfy the young consumer of the future. Nothing has to be "authentic": We make it up as we go along.
For special finishing, which we can offer, the price is cost plus.