Case Study — Marquis
An agile and innovative business with a long history in the industry.
“Planit Australia do a great job integrating with the machines, making the software “talk” to the Woodtech hardware and getting everything working seamlessly.”
—
Kyle Martin
Marquis
In the age of Industry 4.0, manufacturing sectors such as ours are imagining and developing ever more creative and flexible solutions to seamlessly merge their physical operations and digital systems. A trend, which has accelerated rapidly in recent years, is the uptake of automated and robotic systems to address traditional workflow bottlenecks and intermittent supply chain congestion. Agile and innovative businesses are at the forefront of these improvements and, when they look to implement, turn to their partnerships with market-leading technology suppliers to ensure they are able to take the necessary steps forward to continue their long-term growth, with minimal interruption to their day-to-day lean manufacturing operations.
Next-generation solutions
In the 2000s, introducing a CNC machine to your business was considered a radical decision, which (looking back!) was often made without a full understanding of the possibilities and implications. Over the years since, CNC machines have saturated our industry, and are now considered to be a logical starting point for many new cabinetmaking and joinery businesses, with multiple CNCs having been a feature of medium- to large-scale enterprises for many years and several generations of machinery.
As a result, the competitive advantage that a CNC machine gave has diminished over time, prompting industry leaders to explore new avenues to stay ahead of the curve and maintain their market positions.
Nowhere has this dynamic been more apparent than in the uptake of materials handling systems and automated warehousing of stock materials.
Marquis is one such company that has embraced these principles from it’s inception in 1979, through to present day, under the second generation of management by the Gray family, priding themselves on combining design, quality and manufacturing technology.
At the helm of a regionally-based operation in beautiful Port Stephens, NSW, with a national-scale customer base, general managers and brothers, Allen and Phillip Gray, are “extremely focused on maintaining very rapid throughput of their products”. When it came to making their next technological leap forward, they knew they could rely on the expertise of their technology suppliers, Planit Australia and Woodtech.
Long-time customers of Planit Australia over the past two decades, through the CABINET VISION product range, Marquis joined forces with Woodtech in 2021. Fast forward three more years and the same teams swung into action again to deliver a new Barbaric mezzanine-based materials handling system integrated with Marquis’ CABINET VISION and enterprise management systems.
The innovators
Planit Australia’s senior product solutions expert, George Farrell, says that “working with Marquis in the leadup to commissioning, and then the time I’ve spent onsite here for delivery, we’ve been developing a solution that allows Marquis to send fully optimised programs directly from CABINET VISION’s xMachining S2M Centre to the Barbaric materials handling system, which then automatically delivers materials to the machines situated beneath for autolabelling and routing”. The connection between CABINET VISION and the Barbaric is bidirectional, creating a live connection between the factory operations and back-office stock control and ordering, helping the team at Marquis create and unlock ever greater efficiencies with their stock control and inventory.
George goes on: “commissioning a new machine in a manufacturing facility is a huge investment for a business, and one in which we take our part very seriously. One of Planit Australia’s core values is working hand-in-glove with both our customer and their machinery supplier to make sure the solution is delivered on time and as efficiently as possible”.
“At Planit Australia, we really pride ourselves on the fact that we have deep connections throughout the industry, with players in different sectors, who we work in partnership with, like we are today with Marquis and Woodtech, to help deliver these solutions, to help push businesses further forward,” says Jack. “Planit Australia’s motto is “a commitment to craft”, and we look to reflect that in the commitment we have to our customers as well, in the commitment we have to working and collaborating with our partners across the industry”.
The Planit approach
“We really had to work in very closely with both Woodtech and Marquis to ensure minimal disruption to the production schedule,” says Planit Australia’s Jack Davison. 2024 has seen the introduction of new CNC machinery, as well as the construction of a mezzanine, where the Barbaric is installed. Machinery has been located beneath the mezzanine, so the Barbaric system delivers sheet material directly to two autolabelling CNC machines. This system replaced traditional board and pallet racking, yielding close to a 100% improvement in floor utilisation in this section of the factory and allowing the addition of another 36x18 Anderson CNC machine.
“Despite the scale and scope of these changes, and how important they are to Marquis, Planit Australia keenly appreciates that such changes are only possible when we work in lockstep with our customers and their machinery suppliers,” Jack continues.
Operations manager Kyle Martin explains that “it is quite a large process, getting all these machines hooked up and getting CABINET VISION to talk to the machines. Planit Australia do a great job integrating with the machines, making the software “talk” to the Woodtech hardware and getting everything working seamlessly.”
A connected future
Planit Australia sees the future of our industry encapsulated by these types of cross-disciplinary collaborations, working closely with industry partners to discover and identify opportunities to leverage their technologies and developments to offer new and exciting ways to drive innovation and profit within our sectors.
This future will see traditional silos broken down even further, requiring ever-closer connections between technology suppliers, and Planit Australia is thrilled to be the leader pushing these boundaries further still, in their 40th year of business.
As Marquis continues to grow and expand its services, the partnership with Planit Australia remains a critical part of the business's success. With access to the latest technology and ongoing support from a trusted provider, Marquis is well-positioned to continue providing exceptional service to its customers for many years to come.