Service as & when required

The owners of Kitchen Draw in Inglewood, Taranaki, Jody and Wayne Hall have been designing, manufacturing and installing kitchens for more than 20 years. Two years ago they purchased Cabinet Vision software, from NZ re-seller Joinery IT, to give them screen to machine control of the design and production flow of each kitchen through their factory. We spoke to Wayne Hall about the software and the support from Joinery IT.

The selection of Cabinet Vision was pretty much a foregone conclusion for us, says Wayne. I had used it previously, it is pretty complex but very good once you know how to use it. There are other choices out there but I don’t think they are as rounded or complete as Cabinet Vision and I had no desire to learn another software.

We use it from design through to production and it covers most of the things we want and need to do, and also links easily with our Proform CNC machine. Some areas are more tricky than others such as curves and angles but we are usually able to work our way around most things and help is available if and when we need it.

Joinery IT have a good service and support system set up that works well for us. By e-mail they will come back within a day or two and for anything more urgent we can ring them up for a quicker response.

They have five staff available and I have talked to most of them over the last two years, although I normally deal with Jason or Darryn who I have had one on one training sessions with and both are generally easily accessible.

We usually only need to contact them when we require more technical, behind the scenes stuff such as setting up for different hardware or if current hardware needs to be changed or modified.

For instance we have a range of smart cabinets in our library which they helped set up which allow for parametric change when altering dimensions. Very useful for the likes of range-hood cabinets or installing wall ovens where the smart cabinet recognises what you need and allows for ducting space or power point positioning, automatically modifying the cabinet to accommodate that space.

Another valuable feature of the package is its widespread use through out the industry. Many of our suppliers either use Cabinet Vision themselves or are compatible with its use. We are able to export files directly from Cabinet Vision to suppliers such as Sage Doors or Dezignatek, avoiding any need for multiple files or conversion errors. Cabinet Vision are also very quick to upload new designs or products from hardware and other suppliers which can be easily added to our library and fitted into our designs

It is not the cheapest system on the market but it is very good software, well worth the initial cost. With Joinery IT’s help we have set it up specifically for our own design and manufacturing needs, and its benefits in quality and speed through design and production has made it a very economic purchase, of benefit to both us and our customers.

The Homag 1130AT comes standard with pre-milling, corner rounding, interchangeable radius scrapers, glue-pots, and airTec