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President's Message
It is an honour to be elected as President, to follow in the foot steps of so many men who have been President and who helped shape our association into the entity that it is today. I am following a Laurysen tradition, as many of you know my father John Laurysen was one of the pioneers and President of the CKCA and my brother Bill is also a past President. As the first female President I hope to bring a different perspective to the position and help move the CKCA further in its development and expansion as the voice of the Canadian kitchen cabinet industry. The CKCA represents our industry and provides us all with an opportunity to exchange ideas, learn from one another in a non competitive environment for the betterment of our companies and our industry as a whole. The CKCA has recently taken the initiative to create the Construction and material testing certification standards for kitchen cabinets and vanities. Developed by a technical committee of key stakeholders within the Canadian kitchen industry, the CKCA certification standards will provide us all with the opportunity to test and certify the products that we sell. Our goal is to have these standards recognized by architects, designers, retailers and regulatory authorities across Canada. If there ever was a time to join the CKCA now would be that time. I ask you all to encourage other manufacturers to join, to those of you who are members join me by participating to further improve our association and lead the way by being certified by the CKCA Standards. We are bringing in new activities to the CKCA, our monthly newsletter, benchmarking surveys and of course the certification program – things that will add value to your membership. It is no secret that we are all facing tough challenges and over the next 18 to 24 months our business skills will be tested. The immediate economic conditions have already claimed some major player’s, this is a time not to ignore but to embrace new ideas and methods of operation which will help us weather the storm. The global economic crisis is forcing kitchen companies to look beyond their borders and explore different markets. In Canada we have seen a rise in foreign competition in our local markets and it is now up to us to be more creative, welcome change in order to adapt and protect our national kitchen industry. If we do not then we could easily see our industry fall, similar to the North American furniture industry before us. Is it all doom and gloom? The answer is no, quite frankly the economic challenges offer each of us an opportunity to re examine how we do business. We can now work on our business and not in it, We now have time to step back and analyze improvements we can make to our lean manufacturing systems, cutting costs, look at cross promotional opportunities with companies & suppliers within our industry as well as outside. Reduce our overhead and clean out the dead wood. Let’s prepare now for the coming resurgence in our economy and be ready to take full advantage of the opportunities which lie ahead. Education is the key to our survival and success, as a company we need to educate our new employees, improve our current staff and more importantly as owners we have to look at technology not as a necessary evil but as the key to answering and solving our ever increasing shortage of labour. If an owner or manager is not willing to embrace new concepts how do we expect our staff to? Right now we have an opportunity to embrace new ideas and implement them in our own company. There are innovative manufacturing systems around the world that are being used at this very minute by our foreign competitors. It does not matter where the idea came from, what is important is how we use it and adapt it to the Canadian kitchen industry to stay ahead of the curve. Do not discount an idea because it is not how you would do it or because it is not Canadian, rather approach each strand of knowledge as another arrow in your arsenal to keep you alive to fight another day. As an association we need to find new ways to encourage young people to enter our field and show them that they can realize their career dreams in the cabinet industry. The various fields offer a creative outlet for designers and sales people. Our manufacturing technology and the machines which we use offer a place for those attracted to the computer environment. Craftmanship will always be in demand due to the public’s desire to have custom cabinets, installers will always be needed to finish what so many people have worked hard to produce. I would like to invite you all to put forward your ideas to help expand and improve the CKCA, I would like us all to continue to foster the ever present goodwill we have among ourselves which allows us to exchange ideas and solutions to our various business. More importantly I invite you all to be receptive to new methods, new technology and be patient with new people to our industry. We are all owners, managers, cabinet makers but more importantly we are mentors, teachers and if we are really sharp we will remain students willing to learn and expand our horizons. |
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