Stoneywell Kitchens, a kitchen retailer based in Staffordshire, was the first company in the UK to invest in Blum’s Minipress top. With over 20 years of trading, Paul Durrant runs Stoneywell kitchens, but he also benefits from the help of his daughter, Hollie, and family dog, Benson.
In recent years, Stoneywell has made the change to start manufacturing parts of the furniture itself. The company began with the recent acquisitions of an edgebander and a vertical power saw, however there was still one element required to have the level of control it wanted for Stoneywell Kitchens – the horizontal and vertical drilling points for fittings. Blum’s Minipress top fit the bill.
The third generation of the Minipress series of machines, Minipress top provides its user with a solution for drilling and insertion requirements. Coupled with Easystick, the machine will dramatically increase the rate at which the board for a cabinet can be prepared or have Blum components installed. Furthermore, it is all contained in one machine, useful if space is a premium. Minipress top completed the trio of machines that Stoneywell Kitchens needed for its next step as a business.
However, buying a Minipress top isn’t as simple as a Universal drilling template or an Ecodrill – it is a complicated machine. Paul’s journey started with a complimentary tour around the Blum Experience Centre with his daughter so that they could understand the Blum ethos, which Paul felt matched with the approach he wanted for Stoneywell.
The tour culminated with a demonstration of a Minipress top. To be able to take customers into his showroom and demonstrate to them the manufacturing process was the level of quality he wanted for his customers. The lifetime guarantee Q card from Blum means Stoneywell’s customers can have full confidence in their new kitchen.
“I just want to give clients a really good product in every respect, from the edgebanding to the fittings, and the technical support I get from Blum is second to none,” says Paul.
The Blum technical team swung into action to support Stoneywell Kitchens through the next steps. They helped Paul through the requirements with the machine, ensuring he had all the accessories necessary for his purposes, including the extended five-metre ruler and range of drilling heads.
Once the machine was delivered, the last piece of the puzzle was for the Blum Technical Team to complete the machine commissioning service for Stoneywell. As the latest technical service from Blum, the purpose is to ensure that all new owners of a Blum machine have all the training they need to be able to confidently use their machine from day one.
Blum machine specialists, Andy and Nathan, paid Paul a visit. As a tailored service, no two commissionings are the same, but the Blum experts were able to complete the installation, identify where Stoneywell needed help with the machine, and make any adjustments they felt would benefit the user. Finally, they needed to ensure all the software for both the Minipress top and Easystick was up to date. After a few test runs with members of the team, Blum’s experts confirmed that the Minipress top was ready to go, down to knowing the boss depth of 13mm was set and that the horizontal drilling height was in the middle at 9mm.
Hollie has worked with Blum’s Cabinet Configurator, so the team are confident they can build up their range of templates on Blum’s supporting software to help simplify their manufacturing capabilities down the road. The ease of transferring designs from Cabinet Configurator to creating them with the machine was a big draw for the family.
After running through any last questions Paul and the team had about the machine, they were ready to begin the real learning with hands-on experience, safe in the knowledge that Andy and Nathan are only a call away if needed.
There is a standard follow up service in a year, to see how Paul and the machine are getting on with one another, meaning Stoneywell Kitchens is confident that this is a long-term relationship, and its new manufacturing capability will remain on track.
For more information on what the Minipress top can do for your business, or if you already own one and would like the support of the Blum Technical team, call 0800 230 0898 8am to 8pm Monday to Friday, and 8am to 12pm Saturday.
01908 285700
