American Woodmark Corporation is a leading manufacturer and distributor of more than 600 cabinetry lines sold through major home improvement retailers like Home Depot and Lowes, as well as builders and independent dealers. Headquartered in Virginia, American Woodmark operates 9 manufacturing facilities across 8 states and employs about 5,000 people. The company closely monitors consumer and market trends to ensure it offers stylish, high-quality cabinets at affordable prices to drive customer satisfaction.

1. American Woodmark Corporation is a leading manufacturer and
distributor of more than 600 semi-custom and stock cabinetry lines
sold through independent dealers, new construction builders and
remodelers, Lowes and Home Depot. David Soyka reports on how
this Virginia-headquartered company with nine manufacturing
facilities builds its business.
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2. hirty-five years ago, Home Depot
first opened its doors and revo-lutionized
the home improvement
industry with large warehouse-type
retail operations that dwarfed the
size and selection of the average hardware
store. Also in 1978, American Woodmark
Corporation began manufacturing afford-able
yet still fully featured and stylish kitch-en
and bath cabinetry easily customized
to fit the needs of most any remodeling
project.
It was the start of a partnership that has
experienced various ups and downs in the
housing and remodeling markets, but one
that has remained constant and true to both
company’s founding principles of provid-ing
top quality with reasonable pricing to
achieve the highest customer satisfaction.
It’s a tradition American Woodmark has
extended to Lowes under its Shenandoah
Cabinetry® and Shenandoah Value Series™,
major homebuilders through a network of
builder service centers, dealer and distrib-utors
under the Timberlake® nameplate,
as well as the Waypoint™ Living Spaces
brand, sold exclusively through indepen-dent
kitchen and bath specialists. In total,
the company sells more than 613 cabinet
lines in a wide variety of material, finishes
and styles, primarily for kitchens and baths,
but also for specialty uses such as entertain-ment
centers and bookcases.
According to Rob Adams, vice president
of value stream operations, each brand is
for the most part a distinct and separate
line, though certain woods, styles, features
and functionalities may be shared. In total,
the company sells more than 613 cabinet
lines in a wide variety of material, finishes
and styles, primarily for kitchens and baths,
but also for specialty uses such as entertain-ment
centers and bookcases.
American Woodmark is the third larg-est
cabinet maker in the United States
and has been named in multiple years
to the Forbes’ 200 Best Companies List,
as well as a Business Week Hot Growth
Company. All of its products are certified
by the Kitchen Cabinet Manufacturers
Association (KCMA) Environmental
Stewardship Program as fully compliant
with a broad range of air quality, product
and process resource management, envi-ronmental
stewardship and community
standards. Primary raw materials include
hard maple, oak, cherry, soft maple, hicko-ry
lumber and plywood.
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American Woodmark cabinets are sold in Home
Depot, while its Shenandoah brand is sold through
Lowes, Timberlake to builders and Wayside to
kitchen and bath dealers.
T
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3. Headquartered in Winchester, Va.,
American Woodmark operates nine man-ufacturing
facilities located in Arizona,
Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland,
Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia,
as well as nine other builder service cen-ters
across the country. The company
has about 5,000 employees. During the
housing slump, American Woodmark
scaled back from as many as 15 plants in
operation, but with the recent recovery is
expanding again with a $30 investment to
add 100,000 square feet and 80 new jobs
to its South Branch facility in Moorefield,
W. Va.
Net sales for the company increased
by 19 percent in the first fiscal quarter
ending July 2014 compared to the prior
fiscal year. Remodeling comprised 56
percent of sales during fiscal 2014, and
the remaining 44 percent from the new
home market.
“We’re highly optimistic that the econ-omy
is improving and the overall picture
for the housing industry is more positive,”
Adams said. “For the past few years, the
remodeling sector, meaning primarily our
sales through Home Depot and Lowes,
has been flat. Nationwide, new construc-tion
seems to have stalled a bit after a
nice resurgence. Where we are seeing
growth is in our dealer networks where the
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AMERICAN DREAM BUILDERS
American Woodmark’s Shenadoah line of cabinetry, distributed exclusively through Lowes, is featured on the NBC
television series “American Dream Builders.” Each of the 10 episodes that appeared in 2014 featured a competition
between two contestants to design and renovate a variety of living spaces and home styles in a complete makeover
project. Shenandoah kitchen and bath cabinets were used by all 12 competing teams to accomplish their design
goals.
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4. consumer is a little different. They tend
to have higher income levels and more
discretionary spending habits, so they’re
usually a little ahead of the curve when
the economy starts to improve. We’ve
expecting other consumers to start gaining
the same confidence that it’s safe to start
spending again.”
Looking at Consumer Needs
Adams adds that the company is carefully
studying new consumer trends, partic-ularly
among the younger Millennials
generation. “We’re talking about 125
million potential customer with $30
billion of purchasing power,” he notes.
“We’re doing focus groups and looking at
research to fully understand and anticipate
what this segment of the market is look-ing
for in kitchen and bath cabinetry and
what opportunities we can address.”
He adds, “We’re also taking a close
look at cabinetry trends in Europe and
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Asia. Styles from overseas have always
eventually made their way here to the
States, but we’re finding its happening
faster than ever before. Whether it’s the
Internet or the fact that the marketplace
is more global-based than ever, we need
to know what’s going on throughout the
world because it’s going to be happening
here much sooner than later.”
American Woodmark implements lean
manufacturing and Six Sigma practices
to makes both in-stock and semi-custom
cabinets. “Our overriding goal is always
operational excellence,” Adams points
out.
However, even for its stock products, it
maintains zero inventory as a Just In Time
(JIT) manufacturer. Typical production
turnaround depends upon the sales chan-nel.
“Generally for Lowes and Home
Depot, it takes about 15 to 20 days to
make the finished product. For new con-struction
it runs about two weeks, though
how fast we make them isn’t as important
as delivering them when they want them;
the key there is that builders don’t want
the cabinets sitting around on site unless
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5. they’re about ready to install them. For
dealers, we quote 28 days. In this channel,
customers don’t seem to mind waiting
that long, but what we have found is that
if we say the cabinets will be delivered in
28 days, by the 28th day they had better
be there.”
Manufacturing is a combination of auto-mated
and manual processes. “The chal-lenge
for is that as improved technology
accelerates, we have to train our workforce
to keep up with. That’s why we’ve delivered
over 556,000 hours of training to our peo-ple.
We want them to have the necessary
skill sets modern manufacturing demands.
By creating value for our people, we create
value in our products that are valuable to
our customers.”
American Woodwork operates in a high-ly
fragmented industry composed of sev-eral
thousand national, regional and local
manufacturers. Says Adam, “Our compet-itive
edge is breadth and variety of prod-uct
offering, expanded service capabilities,
geographic reach and affordable quality.”
Case—or rather, cabinet—closed.
Headquartered in
Winchester, Va.,
American Woodmark
operates nine
manufacturing
facilities totaling in
Arizona, Georgia,
Indiana, Kentucky,
Maryland, Tennessee,
Virginia and West
Virginia, as well as nine
other builder service
centers across the
country.
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