One afternoon last spring, the world of Roy Dittmann and his 80 employees at Three H Furniture Systems came crashing down.
A winter’s worth of snow caused a collapse of a section of roof at the 40,000-square-foot manufacturing plant in New Liskeard. Fortunately, no one was inside the plant that Saturday afternoon on March 29, 2014.
The main collapse occurred in the area of the production floor called the point-to-point, a cluster of three programmable CNC machines that perform the drilling and routing to make the various components for furniture assembly.
They were critical pieces of production, each machine costing more than $200,000.
“We can’t build anything without them,” said Dittman, company president.
Damage to the building and equipment was tabulated at $1.5 million.
The cave-in also severed the sprinkler system which flooded almost the entire building from front to back. Resilient employees waded into inches-deep cold water and contained it from spreading into the front offices.
About $600,000 worth of components were destroyed on the floor from water damage. Dittmann and his managers had a plan of action to deal with catastrophe.
“I remembered there was a machine show on in Toronto the following week and I got on the phone to our sales person and identified two pieces that I thought would fit.
“We placed it on a courtesy hold until we got down to the show to make a final decision. I was in Toronto on the Wednesday, we viewed the machines and purchased both.”
In all, they spent more than $700,000 on four new state-of-the-art CNC machines made by Biesse Italy, which sped up their plans to boost production capacity.
“That’s the good side of what happened,” said Dittmann.
What really amazed him was how the community rallied around the company.
Within hours, the municipal building inspector had expedited all the appropriate paperwork, and within a day, contractors from Rivard Brothers arrived to cordon off and close in the damaged area to begin hauling debris away to start the rebuild. Electrical contractor Tom Adshead was onsite the same day and was quickly able to restore power.
“They were excellent,” said Dittmann. “You run into all kinds of issues, but they just dealt with it. They were wonderful. Some people just showed up to help.”
Within three weeks, the first of the new machines were installed amid cramped and somewhat chaotic quarters, and employees were back to work. By the second week of July, the contractor handed the rest of the building back to them.
Dittmann said customers were equally phenomenal, with one Winnipeg client offering to send workers to help.
“Most were very understanding because it shot out our lead time immediately. It took us into October to get back under control again.”
Dittmann is the son of Heinz Dittmann, one of three co-founders who established the company in 1973 along with Helmut Pedersen and Helmut Moeltner.
They began by manufacturing middle to high-end European-style residential furniture until shifting into office furniture when the recession hit in the late 1980s.
Three H has made its mark across North America in the commercial and institutional market with its extensive catalogue of executive office furniture, work stations, conference tables, file cabinets and other office accessories, much of it customized to fill a customer’s space needs.
“We knew in order to grow we couldn’t just make private offices. You can only do so much,” said Dittmann. “It’s the open office with 100 to 200 work stations that we’ve designed product to fill that niche.
“And also when you’re making 100 of something it’s more profitable than one at a time.
They work through a North American network of sales rep organizations and maintain showrooms in Chicago and Toronto’s Liberty Village.
Their custom-sized specialty items have found their way into the boardrooms and workspaces of Winthrop Hospital on Long Island, New York; Collins Barrow, BDO Dunwoody; Pepperidge Farms; Wolseley Canada; Zenith Optimedia in Chicago; the Pallazo Hotel in Las Vegas; McMaster University; the University of Alberta; and the Department of Foreign Affairs for consulates around the world.
Closer to home, Three H product is in the North Bay Regional Health Centre, Canadore College’s ICAMP innovation centre, Atlas Copco in North Bay, Vale Copper and Toromont Cat.
In competing against offshore producers, Dittmann said quality and customer service is what sets them apart.
“I’m working on a project with a dealer who’s been buying offshore and has gotten fed up with the replacement parts. They build 25 extra because they know they have stuff that’s going to fail. People are starting to learn that it’s cheaper for a reason.”
Whenever possible, Dittmann said they try to source material locally. Their cardboard and packaging products come from Mid-North Containers. Most of their laminate comes from Huntsville.
“If we have a choice to buy local, we do.”
Though the company has won a provincial Global Trader’s Award and a Northern Ontario Business Award, Dittmann is always surprised how many Northern firms are unaware of them.
In generating $12 million to $15 million in sales annually, Dittmann believes Three H can sustain growth of 10 to 15 per cent annually over the next five years. New office products are in the pipeline as well as a physical expansion of 5,000 to 8,000 square feet within a year to create more production space.
“Always searching for better ways to become more efficient to get more out of the people we have. We’re competing with companies that are 100 times our size and a lot of times they don’t realize how small we are.”
