Today, I was called by a general manager for a chain of steakhouses here in Chicago. I’ve worked for them in the past, bars, wine racks, etc. They are building a new restaurant and their designer came up with plans for chairs and tables that aren’t commercialy available. I tried to talk him into scrapping those designs and find something they can purchase, but the partners love them and want them built.
400 bent-lamination chairs and 100 drop leaf tables. The design will be emailed to me on Monday.
They asked if I could build them by August 20! They could accept 300 chairs and 80 tables by then and the rest by the end of September. NO WAY I CAN DO THIS!
My suggestion…build them a prototype with a set of detailed plans for the chairs and tables and try to farm it out to a local factory. Now I need YOUR help, please! Anyone here from the midwest that can handle this? If not, any leads to manufacturers around here? I’ll call Woodworks in WI. tomorrow morning. That’s the only one I know of. After the prototype and blueprints, I’m out of the picture. Thanks!
Replies
Here's an idea, farm one chair out to each WW on this site (parallel processing) ;-)
Just Kidding. Sorry I can't help but I couldn't resist.
M.
Measure it with a micrometer, mark it with chalk, cut it with an ax.
Sounds like an opportunity has come your way. Thank God for it, gear up, and get the work done.
Steve,
I recognize the opportunity but I'm a one man shop! And a realist! I could make the tables (just the tops) but not that many chairs.
Hey Benchdog, I think I smell money here,,,,,,,,,,,, maybe,,,,,,,,,,,,maybe not.
If you could find someone to manufactor the parts, could you assemble that many chairs and finish them in that much time? I could not.
I would post your request for help at woodweb. There are more comercial shop over there.
http://www.woodweb.com/cgi-bin/forums/furniture.pl
Good luck, Keith
Thanks Keith, I appreciate your effort. You're right, the money would be fantastic, average chair goes for $250. I can't do it though. I made commitments for a kitchen in April and one in May, good repeat customers that I can't abandone. I know an order like this can elevate my business into a production shop but I decided long ago not to go that route.
Thanks, George.
benchdog ,
I think you just answered your own question . I believe that when ever you do something differently (business wise) than normally it usually costs you something . And by gearing up for large production jobs most likely your overhead will increase , thus perhaps forcing you to continue to do more of the mass production jobs . You said you as I, don't really want to go in that direction , so stay with the individual end user jobs and continue to excel in your market . I also like the idea of doing the proto types and perhaps acting as broker or designer middleman and sub the actual production out , without raising your expenses only your income , yeah !
good luck whatever you decide dusty
$250 per chair is too low for me.
Not only could you make a lot on this project, but you could lose a lot also.
George, I said the average price is $250. I can't price the chairs until I see the design on Monday. No idea yet on wood or finish. The prices will be negotiated between the manufacturer and the customer, I didn't even give him a ballpark figure, just told him they would be expensive. These people tend to spend millions on each restaurant.
Benchdog,
Pretty easy to do, on the face of it. I used to run a shop that did restaurant interiors for several restaurant chains, and we did about two complete restaurants per week.
What one would have to do is to do the tooling - fixtures and jigs - then rent some space short term, hire and train some help, and git 'er done. Five months should be way more than plenty of time. You'll find that you can make furniture on a production basis in about 1 1/10th the time that custom furniture takes. and the quantities you have are enough to benefit from economies of scale.
I live in Kansas City and ran furniture factories for over 20 years. If you want to Email me with some of the details, maybe I could help, or even set up and make them for you. I have all the basic equipment in storage, and can run CNC equipment, etc. I also have a very good friend who owns a very large custom furniture facility here in town, for whom the job would be no problem at all.
Michael R
Edit: The more I think about this, the easier it sounds. I'm still on good terms with the owners of the company that does restaurant interiors, and I have some other friends that also do this kind of work. One way or another the job can get done wtih no sweat if the money is right, and it shouldn't keep you from your other commitments. You're only looking at something on the order of 1000 to 1500 man-hours of labor, and most of that can be done by semi-skilled people, properly trained and supervised.
Edited 3/11/2005 11:09 am ET by Woodwiz
Thank you Michael, you are offering exactly what I'm looking for! I'll email any details I receive on Monday to you.
George
To everyone: Please note, I don't intend to turn this into a bidding frenzy. I would appreciate any help or suggestions even if some kind souls have already expressed an interest. Also, once everything is set up, I will be stepping out of the picture, not interested in a commission, any takers would be making their own contract with the restaurant partners.
Edited 3/11/2005 2:12 pm ET by benchdog
This is an enviable position to be in for sure!!!!! I am into chairs and tables myself but man this would be a big job. Maybe you could break the job into 3 sections, ie. a quarter or a third by the August deadline, then another quarter or third by a set date, and the last third or so by a later date, say before Thanksgiving. hope everything goes well for you and good luck!
It's out of my hands now, I hope it turns out well. Thanks everyone for your help.
Not sure how this turned out but I doubt that anybody with enough capacity to handle this order would need a prototype built for them especially since there is apparently already a design on paper. They would want to build their own trial run of chairs to get the production down. They can look at it on paper and understand what the 3-D product should look like.
The prototype was my idea. It was a way to generate a little extra income for me. It turned out they didn't need one after all : (
George
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