One of our sales reps was in the other day & during our conversation, he made a comment that really stuck with me…. “This is a mistake making business.” That comment really made me take a step back & look at how many opportunities there are for mistakes in our line of work. We work on a lot of projects ranging from switching out some countertop or flooring to full remodels of kitchens & baths, as well as provide materials on new construction projects. Have you ever considered how many people are involved with your project that you never meet?

Based on my experience working at a cabinet factory, here is what I know about the cabinet industry: The order gets sent in (hopefully correctly by the dealership) and goes to the scheduling department. From there, it goes to order entry, where hopefully they interpret the order how the dealer intended. From there, the parts lists are cut & sent to the production floor. Parts for the cabinet boxes are cut in a completely separate area of the plant than the parts for the doors, drawer fronts & drawer boxes. The doors & drawer fronts don’t necessarily go through the finishing department the same time as the cabinet boxes. Then all of these pieces finally get put together in final assembly. Then it goes through a final inspection prior to being wrapped up for the shipment. After that, someone needs to direct the assembled wrapped cabinets to the correct trucking unit. Really, it’s a miracle anything makes it out of that place the way it was intended! By the time the cabinets are delivered to the dealership, there could be as many as 25-50 people from the cabinet factory that in some way touched your order & could have potentially made a mistake along the way.

We also need to consider we are contending with Mother Nature when dealing with natural products such as wood & stones. There is sap & knots in wood to work around; there are pits & voids & wide variance in color in stones to work around….

Then consider the job site- especially if it’s a remodel. It’s very unlikely to know what is exactly behind a wall until you start tearing into it. Sometimes things need to be moved around to make a design work- sometimes the design needs to be modified after tearing into the walls. Sometimes that means ordering more material or different material all together.
There is also miscommunication to contend with. This could be with the homeowner, the subcontractor, or with the vendor of the products. A simple typo of square footage in a purchase order can mean a setback in the project.

I think we as professionals maybe beat ourselves up too much about little flaws that can happen on a job. We would absolutely love for your project to go completely perfect, but considering how many humans are involved, encountering a little bump in the project should be expected! We would just hope that our homeowners can appreciate that, and when it’s all said & done, can look at their completed project and love how beautiful it turned out & maybe even forget about any frustrations that may have occurred along the way.

Written by Nichole Williams