Production process
Carcass furniture
Kitchen furniture, office furniture and furniture for many other purposes are usually designed as carcass furniture. The basic material is coated chipboard. These are processed into predominantly rectangular furniture parts and assembled to form a furniture corpus. The doors, flaps and drawer lids - i.e. the furniture fronts - form the visible side of the finished furniture, the face, so to speak. They can be made of the same material as the carcasses, but there are also alternatives.
Carcase furniture is usually manufactured on production lines that are tailored to the furniture manufacturer's individual needs. Office furniture manufacturers usually have to master a large number of variants. Kitchen furniture often has similar geometries, but a large variety of fronts. However, the production process is usually similar: the input material, i.e. coated wood-based panels, is taken from the panel warehouse and first split to produce the individual components (top, bottom and side panels and, if necessary, fronts). The four narrow sides of the components are then coated with a decorative material. This coating process is usually referred to as "edge banding". After edge banding, holes are drilled in the components.
The processing of the components is carried out on stationary processing centres, which can be used very flexibly due to the free programming of the work steps, especially for individual furniture. For mass produced furniture, processing on throughfeed machines is more suitable, as these machines are less flexible, but require a much shorter processing time than machining centres.
The manufactured components are either packed together with the necessary assembly material (especially for take-away furniture) or provided with the necessary assembly material (connectors, fittings, handles, etc.) and assembled to the finished furniture, which is then packed for shipping.
Series production: Series production of carcase furniture is organized as a continuous process. This approach is suitable if you want to produce as much furniture as possible, all of which are the same or at least similar. Fields of application are, for example, the production of self-service furniture (take-away furniture) that the customer sets up himself. In the kitchen furniture industry, finished furniture is produced in series. The advantages of series production are maximum productivity at low unit costs; the disadvantage is low flexibility.
Flexible continuous production of furniture in batch size 1 is also possible. This is the most complex approach and requires the largest investment - but also the most efficient production, with which the most diverse furniture can be manufactured flexibly according to customer requirements at low manufacturing costs, in the shortest time and in perfect quality. The production of furniture in batch size 1 in a continuous flow is today "state of the art" in the production of office furniture.
Flexible production: A flexible manufacturing approach enables the individual production of single pieces, independent of standard dimensions and raw materials. This can be done either manually or industrially. Flexible manufacturing is a stationary manufacturing process in which the parts are clamped stationary during processing and are transported from one station to the next by hand or with conveyor systems.
Furniture fronts: Simple fronts for carcase furniture are manufactured in the same way as walls, floors and lids of the furniture carcase. Their production is fully integrated into the production process of the other parts. In order to enable a greater variety of furniture fronts in terms of design, quality and usage characteristics, alternative variants are often offered: Lacquered fronts are seamless all around and allow high-gloss surfaces and other effect lacquering. Foil fronts are an inexpensive way of creating three-dimensional reliefs, which are often required for kitchen furniture.
Source product
The starting product for the manufacture of furniture carcasses is usually double-sided coated chipboard. The rear walls and drawer bottoms are usually made of HDF boards coated on one side. Laminated boards (chipboard with a coating of decorative laminate), uncoated or one-sided coated MDF boards, chipboard with genuine wood veneer or even solid wood are also used for the production of furniture fronts.
Overview of the different manufacturing variants
Production
Variations
Production
Variations
Production
Variations
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Link list of all production steps
Necessary peripheral devices for Carcass furniture3
Briquetting presses
E.g. used in:Carcass furniture, Windows, Wooden stairs, Mass Timber
Extraction systems
E.g. used in:Carcass furniture, Windows, Flooring, Wooden stairs
Fire and spark extinguishing systems
E.g. used in:Carcass furniture, Windows, Flooring, Wooden stairs, Mass Timber, Wood-based Panels
