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Problem: your furniture company is outgrowing its 70,000 square foot manufacturing facility and there’s no where to expand.

As you consider the costs of moving in terms of employee disruption, capital costs and lost production, it isn’t an attractive option.

So, how did the real life business managers at Bird-In-Hand Woodworks in Lancaster solve this problem?

By turning to green technology that allowed them to dramatically reduce the square footage used for coating and drying their products, cut air emissions and increase worker safety.

Bird-In-Hand makes high-quality wood furniture products for the pre-school and K through Third Grade market under the Childcraft brand and for other customers as a subsidiary of School Specialty, Inc.. The company was started in 1972 as an Amish-owned business and grew steadily until now they have 120 employees.

The company uses over 3 million square feet of Russian birch plywood and more than 225,000 board feet of maple from Pennsylvania forests every year to make its products.

“We had a huge amount of space—30,000 square feet of the 70,000 —devoted to coating and drying our furniture products,” said David Hommel, Vice-President of Manufacturing. “We knew this took up too much space, so we looked for alternatives.”

Talking to their electric supplier PPL, they found help at the Electrotechnology Applications Center at Northampton Community College.

“We tried water-based coatings and finishes because of their environmental benefits, but the more we increased volume, the more space and time it took” said Hommel. “The (Electrotechnology Applications) Center suggested using a coating process using ultraviolent curable finishes that made a dramatic difference.”

“We now use less than half the space we did before, while tripling the volume of work we do,” Hommel explained. “We also went from emitting 67 tons of air emissions a year to just one and a quarter tons, even with the increased volume of work.”

Hommel said the key to the project was getting employee buy-in.

“The difference between making the project succeed or fail was convincing people this was a good thing,” said Hommel. “We loaded our people into vans and took them to the Center so they could see the technology first-hand and get training on how to handle the equipment.”

The company invested about $3 million in changing to the new coating technology, of which $1.2 million was to buy new equipment to handle the increased throughput volume the new system could handle.

“It took a week to make the change over in 2000, and on the seventh day we turned the switch and haven’t looked back since,” said Hommel. “The new system paid for itself in nine months.”

The business case for the project was strong, but the environmental benefits of the project also had value to the company in terms of reduced paperwork and in making the company a leader in their market.

“We are no longer a major Title V source (of air emissions), but a minor source,” said Hommel. “That means less paperwork and a single permit for the facility. And the conditions for the workers became safer because they didn’t have to wear respirators anymore”

“We’re in the education marketplace with children as our end users,” said Hommel. “We want to be able to look them in the eye and say we’re doing the very best we can for the environment.”

“We have regular meetings of our (corporate) “green team” to share what’s going on with our projects and what we want to do next in the company,” said Hommel.

Cutting air emissions isn’t the only environmental project Bird-In-Hand has implemented.

“We recycle almost everything,” said Hommel. “Wood dust, wood shavings are recycled into animal bedding and garden mulch.”

The company separates its metal, wood and other scraps it can’t recycle on site for recycling by others. Acetone, used to clean the coating equipment, is picked up and reprocessed.

“This year we have a goal to include a minimum of 10 percent post consumer waste recycled paper in our catalogs and want to increase it as quality and cost allow. We have at least 30 percent is post-consumer waste in our office paper now and the corrugated cardboard we use is also 100 percent recycled,” noted Hommel.

Bird-In-Hand won a Governor’s Award for Environmental Excellence in 2003 for their efforts to reduce air emissions and is a member of the Businesses for the Bay Program.

“As a company becomes more visible to the public, (environmental initiatives) become more important, especially for people working in the public sector,” said Hommel. “If you are at all interested in maintaining your place in the market, you have to be sensitive to environmental issues.”

“The major thing I learned from this experience was how to sell a project like this,” said Hommel. “It has to make economic sense first, and then you can point out the benefits to the environment and the community. It’s a win – win – win for everyone.”

The company has an open door policy and likes to show off the changes it has made to other companies. Several companies have, in fact, copied the process Bird-In-Hand uses, and that’s OK with Hommel.

“Maybe it’s our Amish roots and our rural heritage,” said Hommel. “My grandfather taught me to have respect for the land and I like to fish. This is part of our culture and something we’ve been doing for years.”

>>Review this online fact sheet on the Bird-in-Hand Project

>>Contact David Hommel, Vice-President for Manufacturing for Bird-In-Hand Woodworks at 717-397-5686 or by email to: DHommel@childcrafteducation.com .

>>Electrotechnology Applications Center at Northampton Community College can be reached at 610-861-5596 or by email to Dr. Mike Vasilik at vaslik@etctr.com.

>>Additional resources are available through the Professional Services Directory.

4/15/2005