Gutchess Lumber Company (GLC), based in upstate New York, has been a client of The Support Group for almost a decade. They are a high-end hardwood lumber manufacturer with seven locations across the region - multiple sawmills and two kiln drying facilities. Primarily a business to business operation, they supply wood products to furniture, paneling and flooring materials companies around the world. GLC manages the whole supply chain - logging, milling, grading, and then drying the lumber - before selling it.
This last part, the kiln drying, is where The Support Group got involved. Incoming lumber, according to subject matter expert, Jeremy Jacquet, who oversees kiln operations at GLC, can be up to 105% moisture. It turns out that trees, just like human beings, are made up mostly of water. In order to produce a stable wood product - a piece of wood that won’t shrink or bend or warp or stain over time - Gutchess applies a secret sauce of heat and air in a controlled environment - what they call a kiln. This is a building the size of a barn where they can control the humidity, heat and air flow with extreme precision.
The problem? Their process was being documented on paper. All of the data about how long it took for the product to dry, including how much moisture it lost each day, how much heat and air were applied, was all meticulously recorded and tracked, but on paper. Which was fine, for its part, but it could be so much more. A key early pain point that was mentioned was the ability to cross-reference results. If they wanted to see how long a load of 4/4 red oak took to dry last year, or ten years ago, it meant doing a manual search of the paper records and then collating and comparing the results. Doable, but not very efficient.
Enter The Support Group and our own (not so secret) two-part formula for success: getting to know our customers' business inside and out, and FileMaker Pro. Our goals are simple: to make technology productive and to provide exceptional customer service every time. We are a customer service company who happens to be really good at FileMaker. We spent time onsite at Gutchess, learning the ins and outs of the kiln drying process. Following that, we took the time to build mockups and review the overall workflow - all before we touched a single FileMaker pro layout. As always, this was a deep collaboration with the on-site subject matter experts, and we also made sure to gather input from front-line operators.
The final FileMaker database we delivered improved the paper process in many ways. Kiln operators could now do their data entry on iPads in a variety of locations across their two plants. They would take a sample of wood, measure the weight of the sample, the moisture content, and the kiln conditions at the time the sample was taken, and then enter it digitally on an iPad. A whole host of calculations based on those measurements - which all used to be done by hand - were now calculated automatically, eliminating human error. They could take pictures of the sample and store it with the data they recorded, which provided multiple benefits: photo documentation of issues for either immediate action or later analysis, and the ability to provide customers with pictures of the process that their products went through. Running reports to find all of the 4/4 red oak kiln runs, something that took hours before, was now done with the touch of a button.
All of these improvements were evident within the first few months the solution was running almost ten years ago. We sat down with Jeremy last week to ask him about the Kiln solution today and what other benefits they’ve seen over the years. It turns out there were many we didn’t expect, including one that has a significant impact on their bottom line. GLC has been able to use the results of the system to reduce drying time. So in the past, a load that took 16 days to dry can now be moved out of the kiln after only 14 days. Saving days means producing more product more efficiently, and in the end, makes the company more profitable. It’s also improved inter-facility communication and knowledge sharing. Both drying facilities log in to the same FileMaker database, and can see each other's results - allowing for operators and managers to see and talk about how they do their work, and to share tips and insights. It’s allowed managers to have greater visibility into how things are running through the two facilities without having to leave their desks. Finally, it’s enhanced their customer service by giving them the ability to provide their customers with pictures of the stress test results.
GLC’s system has tracked over half a billion board feet of wood product that went in and out of kilns, and they’ve recently added a few more pre-dryers to the system. The FileMaker database currently stores over 35 gb worth of data without issue, although we are in conversations with them now about implementing some sort of archive feature. The vast majority of our time since we deployed the solution has been simply keeping their software stack (consisting of FileMaker Pro client and server) up to date per standard recommendations of Claris. “The Kiln system has been a huge success for us,” Jeremy said.
At the end of the day, the kiln system is a perfect example of what we aim to do at The Support Group — take something and make it better, smarter, and more efficient through thoughtful application of technology. Gutchess Lumber was already producing a top-tier product before we ever stepped through the door. What we did was help give them tools to make decisions faster, share knowledge more easily, and push their process even further. Ten years later, it’s still running strong. That’s the kind of solution we strive to deliver to all of our clients.