Working with some of the country’s top designers, Hewe Kitchens prides itself in creating award-winning kitchens & custom furniture throughout New Zealand.
Hewe Kitchens, located on Auckland’s North Shore, manufactures kitchens and house fit-outs for design and architectural clients. Its purchase of Microvellum Software last year was part of a move to streamline the company's production process and improve factory flow. Managing Director, Tony Hewetson, reveals that the time, cost and effort in integrating the new software has definitely been worth it.
The company, which employs 18 people, works with some of the country’s top designers to create award-winning kitchens throughout New Zealand. Until four years ago, they relied on their panel saw for production of parts, but realized the need to advance to CNC machinery.
“After the purchase of our Biesse CNC, we used the software that came with it for our cabinet parts,” said Tony. “But we soon realized that we needed a more comprehensive package to improve our efficiencies.” After trialing several software packages, Microvellum Software stood out as the best suited for their manufacturing requirements.
Collaboration with designers and architects is a big part of the process at Hewe Kitchens. The team works with some of the top in their field, using AutoCAD® as the primary design and communication tool. “Having an AutoCAD-based solution was key to improving our communications with our outside design teams,” said Tony, “Nearly 60 percent of all our kitchen designs come from architects or designers. We detail the drawings, verify with our teams and then prepare the project for production – right inside the Microvellum environment.”
“We are experiencing greater efficiencies than expected," he continued. “The path from design to production is much more direct and the flow of project information is seamless. We are seeing less errors and our flow throughout the factory is much quicker. We anticipate this trend of efficiency improvements to continue as we develop our product data further.”
The cabinet library, that comes standard with Microvellum Software, is setup to accomplish many different construction methods, but Hewe’s methods were a bit different. “We had some initial help from Microvellum’s service and support team, but we opted to learn the system and maintain our product library on our own.” commented Tony. “This has taken us a bit longer, but the learning process has made our team more self-sufficient.”
“We are experiencing greater efficiencies than expected because we are seeing less errors and our flow throughout the factory is much quicker.”
Microvellum’s support channels are available 24-hours a day. The online community and access to knowledgeable technicians are appreciated by the team at Hewe. “It’s a great service. Microvellum makes is simple to create support tickets or post questions to their online community. When I engage the online users, I usually have a solid answer within the next day.” said Hammond Bentley, a trained cabinet maker for the company.
“After we migrated Hammond from the shop floor to the office, we really started seeing results. As a dedicated Microvellum engineer on our team, we’re ready to start the next phase of streamlining the way we work… extending it into the design sphere of our business” commented Tony. “Like anything, your results are based on what you put into it. In our case, Microvellum has definitely been well worth our efforts.”
About Hewe Kitchens
Hewe Kitchens was founded in 2000, by Craig Hewetson. The manufacturer specialises in custom high-end residential projects ranging from kitchens, sculleries, laundries over bathrooms, wardrobes, walk in wardrobes to home offices, living room furniture, boat sheds, outdoor kitchens, feature walls, bunk beds and custom furniture.
Learn more about Hewe Kitchens.
