Teknion Launches New Product Line in Record Time with 2020 Insight

Teknion was one of the first companies to introduce a warmer, more residential aesthetic to the office space. These designs radically changed how office spaces looked. The District product line, manufactured at their Tekwood division, introduced new casegoods formats and refined architectural features that led a design evolution in the office furniture industry. “You didn’t see a lot of residential look-and-feel in the traditional cubicle environment at the time,” said Richard Wolfe, VP and General Manager at Teknion. District offered a flood of new options. “District was very unique at the time,” he said. “It was exciting.”

Putting together award-winning designs was one thing; manufacturing it was another. Operations was under tremendous pressure to execute on these designs, so they started looking for a new system. The team decided on 2020 Insight, a complete furniture manufacturing solution designed for quickly producing customized office furniture. Teknion office dealers were already using 2020 Cap or 2020 Giza office space planning software, so the selection of 2020 Insight allowed for product data to be imported electronically all the way from order right through to the shop floor, for faster, more responsive, and more accurate production.

The result was a quick and successful manufacturing software implementation at Tekwood. The launch time required for a new product was reduced by 50%. “One of 2020 Insight’s great strengths is being able to generate CNC code from a configurable engineering model very efficiently,” Richard said. “We put that capability in place in three months and we were completely implemented at all our plants in less than a year. 2020 Insight made this new product launch possible,” he said. “There is simply no way we could have done it in such a limited time without it.”

2020 Insight also reduced production time for custom and semi-custom orders by 50% and data keying errors were reduced and materials planning and product scheduling were improved using 2020 Insight robust shop floor tracking.

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To read the recent article in Woodworking Network click here.