Island Cabinetry and Millwork (ICM) is a woodworking shop in Patchogue, New York, that produces custom cabinetry, arches and millwork for new and renovated homes.
Five years ago, the company substantially increased its productivity and accuracy by designing arches and other 2D products in ArtCAM Express and cutting them out on a CNC milling machine. ICM could design and build a door arch in three hours, compared to 16 hours that was required previously. It won many new customers through its ability to offer high-quality work at an affordable price.
More recently, the company has taken another major leap forward by upgrading to ArtCAM Pro to design and generate CNC programs to produce 3D millwork.
The purchase was prompted by a high-end design-and-build firm which asked ICM to bid on designing and building an unusual 3D ceiling design for a multimillion-dollar, custom-specification home.
The design consisted of an oval forming the centre of a grid, with both the oval and the grid consisting of arched crown mouldings. The customer had three designers on its staff but they were unable to produce the design internally.
“The builder had tried to get other cabinet shops to bid on the job but none of them could handle it,” said Robert Borgstede, president of ICM. “I called up my ArtCAM distributor and asked him if ArtCAM Pro would be able to facilitate the project. He showed me how it could be done very easily with ArtCAM Pro.”
“As soon as I got my hands on the new software I started to work on the project. We designed, built and assembled the ceiling in 14 days. We earned more than double the cost of the ArtCAM Pro upgrade on this one job.”
It took two days to design the ceiling, seven days to cut out the components on the CNC mill and five days for assembly.
“This project would have been impossible to do by hand and was also apparently beyond the capabilities of the software used by our competitors,” says Robert. “I called Delcam when I completed the project to tell them how happy I was with the software. The builder was also very happy. After the ceiling was completed, he raised the price of the house by a substantial amount.
“ArtCAM Pro has taken our company into a new league by making it possible to complete jobs that other cabinet shops are unable to do.”
