FROM THE INTERNET INTO THE LIVING ROOM


"meine möbelmanufaktur“ offers tailor-made cabinet furniture, sliding doors and worktables in carpenter quality at furniture shop prices. The customer configures its furniture online. After a short check, the production data is transferred to the factory. Furniture assembly and installation of the delivered furniture are carried out by the customer itself. The heart of the fully-automatic single-component production line is an IMA Schelling Novimat Concept R3 edgebander equipped with an automatic infeed and end stop system and an IMALUX laser unit and gluing unit. It is crucial for the high-quality look of the furniture.

“The biggest challenge for setting up our online furniture manufacture was the online store with the configurator that allows the customer to design and order its own tailor-made, individualized cabinet without making major mistakes in this process,” says Sebastian Schips who, together with his wife Birgit, founded the company eight years ago and who developed the configurator on his own. And Birgit Schips adds: “Our typical customer is sitting in front of his or her tablet or PC on a Sunday evening, thinking about a new cabinet and having fun configuring the desired furniture.”  Since there was no online furniture configurator on the market that came up to expectations, the graduate engineer in wood technology just developed it alone.  The basis of the configuration software was a grid set up for the smallest size possible, i.e. 1 mm, and a range of products that can be manufactured 100 percent automatically. 

STEP BY STEP TO THE PERSONALIZED FURNITURE


The configurator on the website of “meine möbelmanufaktur” guides the user step by step through the configuration process – from the first input to the final design. In this process, various predefined furniture categories facilitate personalized configuring. The individual dimensions can be entered with great precision, and it is possible to select the number and dimensions of possible drawers, shelves and (sliding) doors in the cabinets or to indicate if roof slopes need to be considered. Then materials and colours need to be entered. Individual requirements such as special decorative surfaces, back panel cut-aways, cable penetrations, locks for file cabinets, and many more, can be enquired using the purchase order comments or by phone. During each step, true 3D views give the user a picture of what the furniture looks like. Furthermore, he or she will get material samples on request. The delivery time from the day the order was sent to the day the (disassembled) tailor-made furniture is delivered is usually three to five weeks.

FROM THE CONFIGURATOR INTO THE FACTORY


As soon as “meine möbelmanufaktur“ receives the order, the input data is first checked for plausibility and feasibility, then possible individual requirements can be integrated. If everything is fine, the information is transferred from the configurator to the factory, i.e. to the single-component production line. This has been operating since 2018. Before that time, the company had single machines instead of the production line and a large portion of manual working steps. 

THROUGHFEED EDGE BANDING WITH LASER AND GLUE


For the conception of the new line, Sebastian Schips could rely on his long year experience from the joinery of his parents.  The heart of the production is a Novimat Concept R3 edgebander with an automatic infeed and end stop system and a 12-reel tape magazine. For throughfeed four-side edge banding of the cut pieces, the machine is equipped both with an IMALUX laser unit and a PU gluing unit.

“I got to know the Novimat with IMALUX at the Ligna 2017. The edge banding quality is incomparable, and the machine availability on the market is unique,” says Schips who also points out the good price-performance ratio of the IMALUX laser unit, and he adds: “The edge banding in particular of the fronts and tabletops must be top quality. They have to be properly rounded and contour-trimmed, otherwise this will immediately give a negative impression. The laser is used specifically for all matt varnish and high gloss cabinet fronts in order to put the noble design even more in the spotlight.”

It has been Schips’ vision for new digital manufacturing technology which has led him to create not only the cabinet configurator. He also developed the line supervisory system. “We combine technologies of different manufacturers in our production line. Hence, the easiest way to control all workcell elements is to integrate them in a control system solution tailored exactly to our needs.” 
The solution is flexible and offers the possibility to integrate further units and machine into the concept.  This is important because the changeover to an entirely automated fabrication process has not yet been finalized at “meine möbelmanufaktur“. 
 

THE COMPANY HAS WON SEVERAL BUSINESS AWARDS


The founders Birgit and Sebastian Schips quickly got started with their new business model and were awarded with two prizes in 2012: the "Wirtschaftswoche“ journal awarded the furniture startup company with the "German Start-up Prize", and the “Internet-Handel” online magazine chose the company as the “Internet Startup of the Year”. In 2018, the young company – which today can rely on a large circle of satisfied customers – was awarded as the best online dealer of tailor-made furniture.

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