Improving Manufacturing Processes While Respecting the Past: A Conversation With Zach Baird
Note: this is a transcript from our recent AHA interview. If you would like to watch the full video, check out our content studio page. This interview is also available as a podcast episode – find it here.
Steve Stack:
Brought to you direct from Studio 3B at Baird Brothers Fine Hardwoods, American Hardwood Advisor is your source for trends, tips, and insights into how the building industry has evolved.
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Dive into topics like architecture, industry trends, project plans, historical tools, tricks of the trade, and life lessons from more than six decades of experience in the hardwood lumber business.
Returning Home With Process Improvement Ideas
Steve Stack:
Hello everybody. I’m Steve Stack from Baird Brothers Fine Hardwoods in Canfield, Ohio coming to you today from Studio 3B. I have the privilege of introducing another member of the third-generation Baird family to you today. Welcome, Zach.
Zach Baird:
Thanks for having me, Steve.
Steve Stack:
Zach is in the third generation and the son of Matt Baird. You’re joined here at the facility with your sister Sarah and brother Benny. We’re glad to have you back home.
Zach Baird:
I appreciate it, Steve. It’s been good to be back.
Steve Stack:
Yeah. You followed a similar path as your sister and brother. You went off, got your education, had some apprenticeships and landed yourself a gig with a major tire company. You spent a couple of years there then came back to Canfield and joined back up with the family business. Take us through that little journey.
Zach Baird:
Yes, sir. I went to Youngstown State University and majored in mechanical engineering. Through school, I worked here at the sawmill doing a little bit of CNC work from time to time to help out. My brother, Matt, has a successful residential tree service so in between classes I’d do estimates for him. It’s been amazing to see his business grow over the years.
As I got further into my college career, I did a couple of internships, one with Kohler Coating and then finally with Goodyear. I ended up doing a design engineering internship with them. That ultimately led me to a full-time position with Goodyear. I spent about a year in Akron learning the ropes from some of the more senior engineers. After that, they sent me to Kansas to work in the OTR tire plant to do some development work and try to improve some production processes out there.
Steve Stack:
I’m guessing you learned some stuff along the way.
Zach Baird:
Oh, there’s no doubt about that. I wouldn’t trade those experiences for anything. When you go to engineering school, you learn a lot of things; some you’ll use after school, some you won’t and some you wish you would forget. But at the core, you really learn how to problem-solve. You may not have the answer when the issues first come up but you’ll find a way to get it done.
Steve Stack:
I know you’re an avid outdoorsman. I was concerned for a little while thinking we weren’t going to get you back because you spent a lot of time in the woods out in Kansas, didn’t you?
Zach Baird:
Yeah. I mean, growing up, we always hunted the farm ground and private property around here. I never really had the experience of going out and hunting something that I hadn’t seen before. While I was out there, I took full advantage of a number of public hunting opportunities in Kansas around Topeka and Lawrence. I got to experience that a little bit and had a little bit of success. We ended up getting an archery buck, so that was a lot of fun.
Steve Stack:
Nice! You’re there, might as well take advantage of it.
Zach Baird:
Yeah through that and the COVID shutdown, it was an opportunity to spend some time in the woods.
Continuous Improvement and Reducing Breakdowns
Steve Stack:
Thankfully, you’re back in Canfield. I’ve already witnessed it; your experiences with Goodyear have helped you implement different processes and methodologies back here at Baird Brothers. Talk about that.
Zach Baird:
Yeah. At the core, it all starts with what’s already in place. We’ve been here since 1960 and we do a lot of things really well. With that, we have a few areas we can improve on.
It all starts with the guys on the factory floor that actually work in the process day in and day out. You go down and work with those guys. You work with the craftsmen that know the process the best. You spend a little bit of time on the shop floor with them to identify the areas to clean up communication, improve workflow, and change different processes. At the end of the day, the goal is to get a better result for the customer. We need to deliver the same level of product quality that we pride ourselves on while keeping things running on time.
Steve Stack:
You nailed it. It’s about maintaining the same quality that this place was founded on by your grandfather and great uncles. The company’s growth was through quality. It has a lot to do with customer satisfaction.
You’re taking it a couple of steps further. As a company, as a group, and as a team, we want to try and make that customer experience as easy and comfortable as it can be. We want the experience from ordering to getting the product as easy as it can be without any snags. I know you are working on some project management with our computer systems.
Zach Baird:
Yep.
Steve Stack:
A new website. You’re integrating it all, from order entry to dispersing orders, getting them to the right departments, the right hands, through the manufacturing floor, and over to shipping, pickup, or delivery. The goal is so that our manufacturing productivity flows smoothly and transitions between departments without any bumps, right?
Zach Baird:
Yeah, absolutely. That’s where it all has to come back to; you start with the customer. We deal with a lot of different types of customers, some are contractors and others are people doing DIY projects. They all have different levels of experience and understanding of the product.
The sales team helps educate customers and makes sure that the order entry process on the front end is as smooth as possible, even if it’s through our online eCommerce system. Our eCommerce system, by the way, is one of the most thought-out in the manufacturing industry. You don’t see the same level of options and customizations on our competitor’s websites. It’s important to tie in that experience with our back-end systems to make sure that communication is flawless. We want the product to be finished on time with the same level of quality.
Steve Stack:
Yeah. Whether you’re placing an order online or need assistance, call the toll-free number, speak to one of our phone reps or email a question to info@BairdBrothers.com. That will be sorted out to a salesperson who is well-versed in that question. We have the communication side and then when an order is placed and generated, that’s when a lot of the stuff that you are in the process of implementing kicks in, right?
Zach Baird:
Yes, sir. We have our standard practices that have been developed through the years to make sure that we effectively communicate between manufacturing operations, purchasing and fulfillment. We’re not trying to reinvent the wheel, but at the same time, we take what we do really well and build on that.
When you look at the whole picture, it can be a little overwhelming. We try to remind ourselves to just get 1% better every day, whether it’s in manufacturing, purchasing or fulfillment. When you look back a couple of years down the road, we’re a lot farther ahead than we were. We’re constantly striving towards process improvements.
Steve Stack:
Exactly. At the end of the day, we want it to be a good experience. We want to supply quality hardwood products to our customers’ doorsteps flawlessly. People need to know how hard every team member works, from the guys at the front counter and the guys upstairs to the family and the guys in the back rip shed.
Our goal at the end of the day is to produce a quality product. That’s the way it’s always been and how it’s going to continue to be under the watchful eyes of the second and third generations, yourself included. We want to supply a quality product to our customers and end-users, whether they’re contractors, DIYers or makers. We’re proud of that. Again, the things that you’re implementing make us a better manufacturing company.
Zach Baird:
No doubt about that. It all comes back to having the right technology in place to enable the processes on the back end. Without the people and processes coming together with that technology, it’s just a piece of hardware sitting there. We’re just making sure our people understand the process. We’re building off what they’ve done all these years. We’re not changing anything drastically, just enhancing the process from what it is right now.
Steve Stack:
Your grandfather was great at this. He had the mindset that (and everybody in the shop knew it) if you needed a piece of equipment to make the job easier, faster or produce a higher quality product, it showed up. You’re taking the technological side of that. You know the equipment we have in the different buildings from our rip barn, the blue donut (the wood MRI) and the optimizing cutoff saws and how they communicate up to the shop, our CNC or grinding room. We’ve seen a lot of changes.
One of the neat things that we do right now that some of our customers may not know about is that we have stock moulding profiles numbered in the hundreds. We have physical samples available of those products. We’re challenged with the 3000 or so SPLs (special profiles). Also, we’ve recently added another piece of equipment up in our IT office — the 3D printer. What do we do with that?
Custom Designs for Customer Satisfaction
Zach Baird:
Depending on what you’re looking for, we have a catalog of thousands of existing SPL mouldings that customers have ordered in the past but we don’t currently stock. So, if you’re browsing online or looking through those profiles and see something that catches your eye but want to see a physical sample, just shoot us an email. We’ll get that product 3D printed and mailed out to you.
On the other hand, if you have something you’re trying to design or have a unique use and want a new moulding, we’ll work with our engineering team. We’ll get a drawing produced for you, generate that 3D printed model, get it in your house, take a look at it and make sure it’s what you’re looking for. Once that process is complete and you want to proceed with ordering it, our CNC is here to cut the custom knives and run it for you.
Steve Stack:
And that’s huge. If you’re an interior designer, architect, contractor, or specializing in restoration and you need that custom moulding, go to BairdBrothers.com and visit our custom millwork library. To your point, it’s the same for mouldings as it is for our interior doors. If you sketch it on a napkin, send it over to us. It lands at our engineering department and the process starts.
Zach Baird:
Yeah. And with that, if you are doing a restoration project, we have an existing profile in hand. You cut us a sliver of that, send it in, and we’ll get it scanned and reproduce the engineering drawing. We can manufacture that, too.
Steve Stack:
Yeah. I come from the day when we sketched it, put dimension to it, and it went to the grinding room. Now, you sketch it, put dimensions to it, run it through engineering, and get a precise drawing. The customer says, “Okay, I like the look, but am I going to like the look in real life?” We’ll produce a 3D sample, send it to the homeowner, architect, engineer, designer, or builder, and now they have that physical piece of moulding. Then they can say, “Yes. That’s what I wanted.” Then we start the manufacturing process.
Zach Baird:
Yes, sir.
Family as Team Members
Steve Stack:
You were away for a few years before you came back home to Canfield, Ohio. Now, you have a challenge every day. You work with your father (Matt), your aunt (Lori), your sister (Sarah), and your brother (Benny).
Zach Baird:
Yep.
Steve Stack:
Family’s a great thing, but it can get a little bit old.
Zach Baird:
Yeah. We certainly butt heads at times, but we always find a way through it. There’s no doubt about that.
Steve Stack:
Right. We also have both Hatch’s and Howdy’s kids and the younger third generation. It’s a very unique situation. We still have old school Hatch at the helm and then each member of the second generation bringing their own specialty and niche. Now you “kids” are coming into it with fire in your bellies. You’re bringing in new ideas and implementing them with the common goal of keeping the business strong and viable while producing a very high-grade, quality hardwood product. It can be challenging.
Zach Baird:
Yeah, but I think that’s one of the coolest things about my experience since coming back. Like you said, in the third generation, we have all these ideas bouncing around in our head. You want to implement them. The second generation gives us a very high level of autonomy to pursue these ideas and flush them out to see how they’ll work in the real world. Some of our ideas get used, but some won’t.
That’s where we have to come to those of you who have been here quite a while. If my brother and I are talking about an idea, it could be something that you guys already did. You know there’s something that would cause an issue with that idea. So, you give us the autonomy to pursue these things while at the same time provide guidance to make sure we don’t run off the tracks too far.
Steve Stack:
That’s something special we have here. It’s been like this forever. There isn’t a closed door in our office complex. Whether it’s an employee or a customer, if someone wants to talk to me, you, Scotty, your father (Matt), Tim, Terry, whoever, their name’s on the door; and they want to talk to you, too. To your point, if you go down to your dad’s, Scotty’s, or Terry’s office and want to bounce an idea off of them, they’ll listen to you. And they’ll tell you, “Well, let’s shelf that for a while,” or “Yeah, dig into that a little deeper.” That dynamic makes this place special, it really does.
At one time our process extended from standing timber to finished product. Then at some point we pulled back the woods crew, as we referred to them. We shut down the logging operation and subsequently, the sawmill operation. Today, we buy our different grade lumber to fulfill our needs.
But, your two other brothers, Nate and Matt Junior, both have their own businesses. You’re with Nate out in the woods to help him skid logs. You helped Matt Jr. with his residential tree service. You still have that appreciation from standing timber to finished product.
Zach Baird:
Yeah. It’s been really cool seeing Nate take us back to that a little bit. I mean, he lives, eats, and breathes it every day. He loves it. When he was 18 years old, he drove a pickup truck to Mississippi to look at his first skidder. Ever since then, he knew that’s what he wanted to do. He loves it there.
Benny and I try to get out there on a weekend every once in a while to skid some logs with him and get an appreciation for what he does out there. It’s cool to see it come full circle back to how Baird Brothers was originally started.
Steve Stack:
Right. That’s how your grandfather and your great uncles started. They started in the woods with a little handset sawmill down the road behind your great grandparents’ farmhouse. You’re right; Nate’s going right back to the roots.
Zach Baird:
Yes, sir.
Steve Stack:
That’s cool because a lot of us experienced that and you’re experiencing that again. It’s the completed circle of, “Okay, this is where it comes from. This is how we take care of it when we receive it. This is how we pass it on to our appreciated customers.”
Zach Baird:
Yep.
Growing Up on the Shop Floor
Steve Stack:
You grew up here, at this facility, whether you wanted to or not. Looking back, what are some of the changes you’ve witnessed that keep coming back in your head?
Zach Baird:
As far as manufacturing efficiency goes, I’d say one of the most streamline processes we have is our rough mill in the back. When they’re running one and two common poplars for finger joint, full go, it’s really running at quite an alarming pace. You have the full strip of clear material going down to the end of the line being pulled out and separated by width. Then 15 kickers are knocking all the miscellaneous widths of finger jointed product into bins. So it’s pretty incredible. That was all done around 2009. They overhauled the rip line if I’m not mistaken.
Steve Stack:
And it’s getting ready to go through another renovation.
Zach Baird:
Yep. We’re in the process of hopefully getting some new machinery in and getting it back up-to-date. We’re certainly looking forward to that over the next year.
Steve Stack:
That relates to the optimizing line. We’re trying to optimize the yield of lumber and that goes back to sustainability. We take ownership of that lumber and prioritize sustainability. The off rips, cross-cut drops, etc. go onto a conveyor, through a grinding process and into our sawdust silo. We use that sawdust as a fuel source here at the shop or we sell it off to be used for animal bedding.
Zach Baird:
Yeah. One of the coolest things about the sawmill here is our sustainability by utilizing the material we’re getting in. We virtually have about a hundred percent utilization. I don’t know any piece of that lumber product coming in that hasn’t been used.
Steve Stack:
Yeah. Maybe if it’s a windy day and some sawdust blows off the property; that’s about the only way it’s leaving here without being utilized.
We’re moving ahead again through technology and more advancement. However, even with some of the new equipment we have showing up, whether it’s the CNC or Terry’s rip barn, we pride ourselves in our workforce. They are the hands and eyes that handle this lumber, whether it’s moulding coming off the back of a molder, a couple guys putting style rail doors together, or the guys in packaging getting ready to ship it out, it’s still the human eyes and hands that say, “Wait, this isn’t right.” Or, “Okay, this is the way it’s supposed to be.” They’re our best quality control.
Zach Baird:
Yeah. It starts every day with the 130 men and women we have working here. As the lumber comes in, it goes through the stacker, the drying process, through the rough mill, and eventually into the finish shop to be made into various products. The craftsmen at every one of those steps ensures that we are putting out the level of quality product that lives up to our expectations, as well as our customers’.
Steve Stack:
I’ve taken hundreds, if not thousands, of people through our facility over the years. At the end of our little tour, they all say the same thing, “You can see that these guys are happy in their job and they like the way they’re being treated.” That’s reflected in the products that they crank out every day.
Zach Baird:
Yeah. That’s one of my favorite parts, too. We try to stay in our lane and make sure we’re building our standard product, because that’s what keeps the doors open. But when we get the occasional extremely custom door or super custom butcher block, you can see the excitement on the guys’ face as we work our way through the engineering process and determine how to manufacture it. They see it come to fruition and its execution.
It’s fun to challenge yourself like that. You see it every time we have one of those kinds of projects. The craftsmen take full advantage of the opportunity to make that product the best it can be. The stuff they pull off is unbelievable.
Steve Stack:
We’re talking about how automation, paperwork, and technology affect manufacturing flow and the ability to track a project in real-time, but we’re still old school.
Zach Baird:
Yep.
Steve Stack:
It just happened to me three weeks ago. We have a new adventure that we’ll announce shortly, but we needed some custom tops. It would take too long if it went through the typical process. We still have the ability to walk down, talk to a department head and say, “Okay, how can we make this happen?” I did that at 9:30 in the morning. I had tops glued up that afternoon, worked up the next day, and two days later it was on a truck headed out to a project.
Zach Baird:
Yep. Something just like that.
Steve Stack:
That goes back to our roots. What do we have to do to make it happen?
Zach Baird:
Exactly.
Steve Stack:
We can never lose sight of that.
Zach Baird:
No, and there’s always a unique case. We try to streamline the process as much as possible, but our customers are going to have different circumstances that may require us to modify for a given project and do something outside of our normal process. At the end of the day, that’s what we need to do. We need to be flexible and get it done.
Steve Stack:
Right. Be regimented, have procedures in place, but still be flexible enough to adapt to a situation.
Zach Baird:
Exactly.
Steve Stack:
That’s cool. So, we make a lot of sawdust around here in a day’s time; we make a lot of different products.
I have two questions. What is the product line that intrigues you or that you appreciate the most? And what wood species do you like the most?
Zach Baird:
I guess I have two fascinations there. The product line is definitely our interior hardwood doors. I’ve certainly taken a liking to that process and the flexibility we have to really build anything the customer wants while trying to find a way to increase process efficiency and make sure our lead times stay solid and below the industry average.
You hear some of the other interior door manufacturers have lead times of ten to 15 weeks. For us, we’re trying to keep those lead times down. For something standard like red oak or poplar, we can reduce lead times to three or four weeks, depending on what they’re getting. If you’re getting something really custom, we try to keep that under six weeks to make sure we’re delivering products in a reasonable amount of time.
As far as species go, white oak is my favorite. Certainly, the live sawn cut has grabbed my attention. Hopefully in the near future, we will have the full line up of three, four, five, six, and seven-inch live sawn white oak flooring listed online. I’m excited to see how that new product rollout goes. It’s really quite a beautiful product.
Steve Stack:
We’re going to put together some samples and photography of this new live sawn white oak product line. We want to get them loaded up onto the website and start letting people know about it. It’s mother nature at her finest.
Zach Baird:
Oh yeah. You get the perfect amount of character combining quarter sawn, rift grain, and a little bit of plain sawn in there. It gives you a lot of variety within one floor, without being quite as busy as the traditional character hickory floor. It kind of tames it down a little bit, but you still have that rustic look that a lot of people are going after today.
Steve Stack:
Yeah. The background color is more uniform than the hickory that goes from the whites into the dark browns, even some of the black.
Zach Baird:
Yeah. Hickory can get a little busy depending on what you have.
Steve Stack:
Yeah, definitely. Well, it’s a good choice. It’s warm, like a lot of our hardwood products are. It’s an almost calming natural product.
Eliminating Inefficiencies
Steve Stack:
So how long have you been back in town?
Zach Baird:
A little bit over a year.
Steve Stack:
This isn’t an easy question; it’s almost unfair. Thinking about the business of 62 years, what are you most proud of about Baird Brothers Fine Hardwoods?
Zach Baird:
It’s remarkable when you take a step back and look at the big picture of how the founders (Hatch, my grandpa Dick, and Howard) set the business up and how the second generation brought it along through the years. I’m proud of how we utilize the resources at our disposal. I love the outdoors and being out on the farms hunting, but alongside that farm are the natural gas wells that pump back to us so we can produce all our own power.
The sustainability aspect of us being off the grid comes full circle when you sit back and look at how they set up the facility. It’s amazing to me when you think of the vision they had starting out and how they grew out of necessity through the years to get it to where it is today.
Steve Stack:
You nailed it. It’s incredible to think of the vision and forethought that those three guys had and how it has evolved over time. Change is difficult sometimes, but they executed what they had in their heads and here we are today in 2022, 62 years later. You don’t have to look very hard to see the things that they implemented and we still follow today.
So, now we have six members of the second generation and six of the third. When it’s the third generation’s turn, where do you see his company going?
Zach Baird:
Well, we don’t want to lose sight of where we came from. We want to make sure we’re keeping the values of our founders instilled in the daily practices and the people we bring on to our staff. Everyone has to understand what we’re about and how we operate. We’re looking for opportunities to build off of what they’ve set for us. That means implementing some new technology to improve the customer’s experience and make it seamless from order placement through delivery with no bottlenecks.
In the event that we do fall short in those areas, we need to learn from that and improve. I think we do a very nice job of that. When we do fall short, we do whatever we can to make it right with the customer. The bottom line is that the customer will measure you based on that, not just the slight mistakes you make every now and then.
Steve Stack:
I’ve had the fortune of traveling with your brother, Ben, quite a bit to woodworking shows and Home & Garden Shows. A few years ago, a gentleman approached our booth and was asking about the background of the family. Your brother was attending the booth with me so I said, “As a matter of fact, I have a third-generation Baird here with me this weekend.” I introduced Benny to the gentleman. He pointed at your brother and said, “Son, you’ve come into a great thing. Don’t mess it up.”
Zach Baird:
Exactly. That’s why you have to look back and see what they did well and how we got here. Make sure you don’t lose sight of those values as you go forward.
Steve Stack:
Right. Well, Zach, thanks for joining me today.
Zach Baird:
Yes, sir.
Steve Stack:
The people got to know you a little more. You’re going to be a fixture around here and we love your involvement. We love the fact that you’re back home.
Zach Baird:
Thank you.
Steve Stack:
We’re going to have a few more sessions back here with Zach. Stay tuned.
For all you folks listening, thanks for talking shop with Baird Brothers Fine Hardwoods. If you’ve enjoyed this episode and wanted to stay up-to-date with the American Hardwood Advisor podcast series, give us a like and subscribe. For more tips, DIY projects, and inspiration, check us out on Facebook, Instagram, read our tweets, or visit bairdbrothers.com. Until next time.
