Figure 1.
Workflow Planning
Kim Carleton Graves
Carleton Woodworking
The workshop is a tool - no less important than a table saw, jointer or drill press. It can work as well or as poorly as any other tool, and, like any good tool, it can be tuned. When I recently moved my shop into a larger space I had two goals:
Achieving these goals was surprisingly easy. It didn't take a lot of money or time, just some thinking about the workflow in the shop. The lessons I learned are the subject of this article.
- To be able to work on multiple projects simultaneously without different projects getting in the way of each other, and
- To increase the efficiency of the production process by:
- minimizing the distance between subsequent job steps; and
- keeping jobs separate and organized and yet easily available.
By workflow I mean the production sequence, from input of raw materials to output of finished product. Jim Toplin has a very good discussion about flowcharting the production sequence in his excellent book Working at Woodworking (Taunton 1997). By overlaying a Toplin-style flowchart (illustrated below) onto your shop space, you can make sure that the resources for each step in the production sequence are available where and when you need them.
I design and build custom furniture and cabinetry in my shop, restore and refinish existing work, and turn custom parts for other woodworkers: a little bit of everything. But the method I describe can be applied to all kinds of workshops. I've even used it to reorganize a friend’s sculpture studio.
My own workflow production process has five basic operations, which are shown in Figure 1.
My new shop is approximately 1100 square feet in the shape of an "L". The top of the "L" faces south and has windows and a loading dock door that opens onto the street. The bottom of the "L" has access to a second loading dock.
After overlaying my production sequence onto the space (Figure 2) I decided to do intake at the bottom of the shop, and send the completed projects out at the top. That way the finishing area was close to the windows and the best light, while materials were stored in the darkest part of the shop. I could take materials in at one end and output finished work at the other, and work would flow in only one direction.
Shops come in all shapes and sizes. In my shop the workflow can follow a “straight” path. Other workflow shapes are possible. For example, a long thin space with only one entrance might utilize a "U" shaped workflow. A large rectangular room lends itself to circular pattern. Small spaces are of course more difficult to map a work flow pattern on. One of the hardest issues is how to leave enough final construction space. You may need to merge one function space with another or even collapse all the functions into one space. What you want to avoid is placing the bandsaw on the opposite side of the room from the jointer/planer. These tools are used together and so should be grouped together. (More on this later.)
Many people argue that stationary power tools in a small shop should be placed on wheels in order to maximize options. I disagree with this advice. It is much easier to move wood than tools. Moving tools around takes lots of time because you have to disrupt the whole workstation. If you can place the tools where they are needed and leave enough space between them for the pieces you expect to work on, you are way ahead of the game. You can put power, dust collection, jigs, and maintenance tools where they are used and needed, so you don't have to take more than a couple of steps while using the tool.
In order to decide where to place my tools, I created a chart of tools versus workflow (see Figure 3).
For example, the first step in building a piece of furniture is to take raw lumber and "rough dimension" it. I cut it to rough length using the sliding compound miter saw (SCMS); then I joint and plane parts and rip and resaw to width. So in the rough dimension area I need access to the jointer, planer, SCMS, table saw and bandsaw. Next I take the roughly milled parts to the parts creation area. I need the SCMS, bandsaw, and table saw in that area too so that I can cut parts to final dimension and make joints. Thus, I need the jointer and planer in the rough dimension area but not in parts creation. The SCMS, bandsaw, table saw are needed in both and should be available from both areas. The lathe and router table are only used in the parts creation area and can live wholly in that area.
After deciding which tool belongs in each functional area, the next step is to group the tools efficiently. For this task, I borrowed the idea of "work triangles" from the field of kitchen design. In a kitchen, you remove food from the refrigerator, carry it to the stove and move pots back and forth to the sink. If the stove and the refrigerator are at opposite corners of a 20-by-20-foot room, you're in trouble. To work efficiently, you need the keep the refrigerator-stove-sink triangle small -- kitchen designers say the three legs of the triangle shouldn't add up to more than 25 feet.
In a woodshop, you also want to keep the important work triangles small. The task is more difficult than in the kitchen because the number of tools and work processes is greater. For example, there are five machines in rough-dimension and ten possible triangles. Some of these triangles will be heavily used, others hardly ever. The idea is to place the tools so that the most frequently-used triangle (in my shop, SCMS-jointer-bandsaw) is fairly small. Infrequently-used triangles (for example, tablesaw-bandsaw-planer) can be larger without sacrificing efficiency. (See Figure 5)
Remember that you are trying to maximize your efficiency, so don't make the triangles any larger than you need to provide clearance for your largest work piece. This may be larger than for kitchen work triangles, but it is not a lot larger.
Figure 6 shows the final map of the tool matrix shown in Figure 3 to the physical space.
One thing I've found working in a larger space is that I need a place to put workpieces as I go from workstation to workstation to move them quickly without carrying them. I've built four "part carts," 2' x 2' x 2' cabinets on casters. I put the workpieces on the carts and simply roll them around from station to station. The carts keep things organized: one project to a cart. I put the cut list, plans, hardware, and everything else a project needs on that project's cart so nothing gets lost.
Setting up the shop this way had several advantages. Multiple projects go on at the same time, at different stages. The "part carts" help organize the projects even when two projects both need the same tool at the same time. Since work flows in only one direction, I know I won't have to move large materials or finished products through the parts creation area. Tools in parts creation can therefore be closer together, utilizing the overall space to best advantage.
The best part of organizing the shop around workflow is that it provides you with a way to think about tuning the shop space. You tune the space the same way you would tune any tool. You look for bottlenecks - places where operations don't run smoothly - and then you fix them.
Here's a trivial example: let's say you find that you frequently need a screwdriver at the bandsaw. You shouldn't have to walk all the way across the shop to get it. I have four screwdrivers in my shop - next to the bandsaw, next to the lathe, with the hand tools and with the electric tools. This may seem like overkill, but by duplicating screwdrivers, I never have to look for one. The cost of the extra screwdrivers is small compared to the time saved. This is just as true for hobbyists as it is for professionals. For pros, time is money. But even hobbyists have limited time in the shop. Why spend time looking for a screwdriver when you can spend twenty bucks and solve the problem? Tune the shop instead.
Kim Carleton Graves
Carleton Woodworking