Hampton Kitchens succeeds through its people, technology

The owners of Hampton Kitchens decided right from the start that they would use advanced automation to give them an edge and their success has proven them right.

“When we started the company in 2008, we decided technology and automation would be critical to our success,” says company Vice President Paul Stewart, who has more than 35 years experience in the woodworking industry.

“Of course you have to have sales and you have to have dedicated and committed people, but after that it comes down to running an efficient shop and we bet heavily on automation technology to make that happen.”

And that technology - and central to everything they do - is the Biesse Rover 5G.

Hampton Kitchens, which employs 21 people and operates from a 13,000 sq. ft. shop where it manufacturers between 10 and 15 kitchens per week, is not your average shop. In order to produce that kind of volume they had to be different, Stewart says.
“We do a lot of work from a fairly small shop and the only way we can do that is with automation.”

After the initial start-up period, Stewart says Hampton Kitchens invested in a Biesse Rover G5, a fully automated production cell complete with loading, processing, labeling and offloading. The company also relies on the innovative Biesse Roxyl 5.5 edgebander and there is a full UV line for their water-based finishes to complete the job.

“We decided on the fully-automated Rover G5 because of the incredible flexibility it offers,” Stewart says. “It’s a great machine and it has allowed us to go with just one machine rather than the traditional beam saw and pod and rail CNC.”

“Beam saws are great and you can do a lot of volume, but then what. With the G5 we have everything tied together and that is fantastic. This machine will go full out for us and everything comes off the machine labeled and identified and ready for the next step.”

Stewart says everything they do is custom and often very small batches; even batch size 1, and this machine lets them do that. With the Rover they can feed in orders from design and engineering at one end via the software and then have the machine do all the work with the speed and versatility that enables Hampton Kitchens to stand apart from the rest.
“Proper material handling and efficient processing allows us to be more efficient and work within a much smaller footprint than the average shop,” Stewart says.

Hampton Kitchens is located in Hamilton and has a showroom there and in Oakville, with three more planned in the near future. They are booked solid well into next year and to accommodate additional growth they are looking to expand the shop.
Right now their business is split about 60/40 between contractors/homebuilders and the general public, but Stewart said in the next few years he’ll work to reverse that split while continuing to grow the company.

Stewart says the company has succeeded beyond their expectations and he credits the perfect mix of dedicated employees and automation for making that strong growth possible.