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The thing that sets us apart is that
we give you the ability to work outside the box, by
which I mean the cabinet box.”
Taylor Grimes is vice president of
Microvellum, creators of multifaceted design and
production management software for the secondary wood
processing industry. Microvellum started out as an
engineering and shop drawing service provider in the
early ’90s, utilizing LISP Routines in AutoCAD.
Applications were developed to create 2-D shop drawings,
then expanded to create cut lists and bills of
materials. The applications were never sold on the
market; they were used to generate information for a
manufacturing plant in San Diego owned by David Peel,
now president of Microvellum.
Peel decided to shut down shop in San
Diego and move to southern Oregon, taking a position in
a local millwork company where he continued to work on
engineering routines that enabled him to achieve very
fast drawing times as well as generating G-code directly
to the companies CNC equipment. Grimes and Peel worked
together, with Peel leaving the company and Grimes
following a year later, they joined forces. Microvellum
was launched as a corporation in mid 1999.
“Manufacturers in our industry found
themselves juggling several different software systems,
importing and exporting information in order to achieve
a somewhat streamlined approach to producing
manufacturing information,” Grimes explains. “Utilizing
AutoCAD as the design foundation, Microvellum has
enabled companies to use just one software application
for all their manufacturing information needs. Our
flagship product Microvellum Toolbox is truly the only
manufacturing software application our customers will
have to purchase and use.
“We save them from having to juggle
multiple lines of communication, multiple systems, and
that’s a huge advantage. I’ve seen their frustration as
they export and import info, re-export and re-import it
only to find that they’ve lost some of their data along
the way. And when these problems arise they can’t figure
out where things went wrong because the software and
machinery vendors all point fingers and blame each
other. At that point, the manufacturer is stuck. That’s
the kind of situation we set out to change And I believe
we have. Our customers have one line of communication,
direct to us. I feel this benefits the customer as well
as the machinery vendor.
The flexibility of products
Microvellum can handle is also an advantage to
manufacturers, says Grimes.
“Microvellum ships with a standard
casework and fixture component library that is
configurable to a manufacturer’s construction method.
But what if you don’t build cabinets? A company that
makes custom windows and window frames can take the
software and create their own product library,
compatible with all the dynamic user interaction and
variables that they want to have, and utilize the
software in the same way a cabinet shop would.
“We’ve tried to create very user
friendly UI’s, or user interfaces. They allow
manufacturers to utilize our application within the
AutoCAD environment so they don’t necessarily have to
use AutoCAD if they didn’t know or use it previously.
Everything has been engineered within the AutoCAD design
environment to tame it down technically, in that we give
them only the tools they need to do their job. But it
still has the total power of AutoCAD if they want to use
more of it.”
All of the number crunching is done
by Excel Control, which Grimes says eases the creation
of product libraries. “Being a worldwide standard for
number crunching and formula generation, it’s allowed us
to create very flexible libraries for our customers that
are easily changed or modified to meet their existing
needs.”
The learning curve for Microvellum is
“pretty standard,” says Grimes.
"Manufacturers familiar with AutoCAD
enjoy jumping into it because it behaves in many ways
like AutoCAD. Manufacturers who don’ have that
experience are pleasantly surprised because they can
attend a three-hour online course and then come to our
entry level training. They can be up and running fairly
quickly.”
OUTSIDE THE BOX
“One thing that really separates us
from our competition is that we allow people not just to
create cabinets, but to design, engineer and manufacture
things outside the box. Custom and standard libraryitems
run through the plant together. Historically that hasn’t
been the case. You had a custom department that needed
data one way, production another way. With Microvellum
the data comes out the same, the barcodes and part
labels are the same, and the shop always sees the same
information, so that in itself helps streamline
production of all kinds of pieces.
“Centerline nesting is something
Microvellum developed about three years ago. The
industry has now caught up with us. With centerline
nesting a tool doesn’t take the same path twice – any
common border between parts is only cut once. You’d be
surprised how much time that saves. We show
manufacturers how they can increase their router cycle
time by no less than 30 percent, often up to 50 percent.
We’re very proud of this innovation.
“Users may outgrow other design and
manufacturing packages. Most of our competitors are
limited by proprietary design engines and operating
environments, so the user is only going to be able to
achieve what the developer of that application has
allowed them to. Microvellum utilizes world-standard CAD
based applications that allow manufacturers to achieve
anything they want, and we can give them one to 10
different ways to achieve it.
“We’re the last engineering and
manufacturing software you’ll ever have to purchase, no
matter how big your company is, because we can grow with
you all the way up. There is no limit. The companies
that make the foundation Microvellum runs on spend
millions in R&D every year, and we get to take advantage
of those tools.”
Microvellum has also just released a
shop operations software package, called Micromanager.
Grimes says it offers complete contact and vendor
management, capacity planning, scheduling, inventory
control, production, engineering, and estimating, at a
much lower cost and ease-of-use than other applications
on the market.
EMPHASIS ON EDUCATION
“We’ve found that the biggest problem
facing this industry today is the same as it was 30
years ago – finding qualified people,” says Grimes.
“We’re completely conscious of the
fact that if we don’t educate the future employees of
the secondary wood industry, it’s in danger of
fizzling out. There are good, valuable jobs out there
but few people are trained to do them.
“We recognized a long time ago that
students were graduating with degrees in wood species
who all know how to use hand tools, who know how to make
a jewelry box or a coffee table, but we’re not making
those anymore in this country. Our industry is huge in
the U.S., and nobody’s graduating with any knowledge of
manufacturing, engineering, running jobs, managing
projects, automated processing, or shop management. This
has really spurred us on to begin working with people
supporting educators, at the elementary level, community
colleges and universities. We’re committed to donating
our software at no cost, to any educational facility
that wants it. And any services required of us will be
provided at half normal costs.
“We wholeheartedly support the
WoodLINKS program, which is educating schools on how to
enhance their programs, teaching teachers how to find
suppliers around their own areas who’ll donate
materials, hardware and machines. We’re starting an
initiative that will encourage manufacturers to donate
their used equipment to schools, instead of trying to
resell it. When you do this you’ll have people coming
out of high schools, junior colleges and universities
with knowledge that manufacturers need. There’s an
immediate value there.”
Grimes says Microvellum’s donations
for educational purposes totaled over half a million
dollars last year, and the company’s potential
commitment to WoodLINKS could be in excess of $7
million. |
