Complaint Review: Kraftmaid

I used to work for Kraftmaid last year.

I worked one of the 15 lines, that they had at the time 2-16, that built the cabinets right before they were loaded onto the trucks to be shipped.

Here's how it they have it set up. One 50' of rollers mounted to the floor. along the way the cabinets are built peice by peice moving down the line on on flat plastic sheets approx 4' x 6'.

First is the stager they gets the parts in carts and put them on one of the plastic sheets. Then it goes to the two builders and they glue and nailgun the sides, top, bottom and the front frame are assembled here(Quick FYI everything other then the frame, drawers, and doors is cheap particle board prone to damage easily) then the cabinet goes to tracking.

where they insert the the tracks for drawers and put in the little plastic nubs so for false drawers fronts can be attached later. meanwhile off to the side after tracking is hinging. Where the attach the hinges with a press or screw them on if its unusal like an EZR door.

Then it goes to the door hanger who has to attach the doors the frame using templates to attempt tp set the doors in the general position they need to be in then they screw them on using four screws typically. After all thats done the door hanger if he/she has time will put drawers in if needed. Then the cabinet is inspected for damage(Almost always something went wrong on the way down the line).

After the Inspector is done it goes to the first boxer. that person will get the correct box and place in on the cabinet along with styrafoam or cardboard corner cones along with plastic corner inserts for toekicks.

After that the second boxer takes over and uses a small break in the line with a small ramp on the far side so the cabinets can be flipped over right side up(they start out upside down) and the coning is repeated then the cabinet is sent the the tape machine and rolled down to the loaders who load them on the truck.

Now that you have an idea of how it works now i can point out alot of the problems.

They really don't care about the cabinets typically the line will build 500-550 at night and 450-500 during the day. So very little time can be spent with each cabinet there is no time to be constantly fixing cabinets. The emphasis is on quantity not quality no matter what they claim.

Several times I was told to take cabinets that were total wrecks and get them into the truck ASAP! so the perodic audits(walks around and will at sometime during the shift will open and totally go over approx 10 cabinets) wouldn't have a chance to reinspect the cabinets.

Since that would look bad on the line if a ton of broken cabinets were taken off the line (also people get canned for damaging cabinets often). as is the line wasn't bad enough for the cabinets (and trust me its bad!

Blowouts from nailguns, wrong hinges that had to be pryed out and replaced leaving holes exposed, the door hinges where they were screwed in the frame cracking the frame(which should have caused the frame to be replaced if they couldnt hide it with wood putty), drill marks from the air drills they use jumping out of the screw and gouging the wood, falling off the line (happens because the builders are in a hurry and push cabinets down the line even though the whole system is suposed to be pull only), etc.

the loaders have the job of cramming the computed amount of cabinets into the truck(almost always makes for fun there because the computer assumes that everything is exact which often isnt the case) forcing them to shove, push, throw, slam, etc to get them loaded.

I am sorry to hear about your bad experience this time around with Kraftmaid. Just maybe the different hinges were a mistake on the designers part. Scratches and gouges could not have come from the shipper could they?
Don't give up faith in a quality manufacture because your dealer / representative
did not do their job. Next time go to an independent Kraftmaid dealer you will get
the service you deserve. Unlike being just a number at the home centers.