Cabinet Manufacturers

[Steve S]

JoAnne, that is the biggest issue (availablility of pricing in 20/20) we are having in trying to convert completely to Chief. It sure cuts the time to have the program price the cabinets. One can dream.

[Mikephall83]

Ultracraft Please. And Whiteriver For Accessories.

[Adrean]

Pat -- I'm from Idaho, I do the best I can...

JoAnne, Steve -- Pricing requests are certainly something that we get often. Although there are obviously great benefits, this is an area that requires a lot of work in Chief Architect. We've sat down with some manufacturers to understand better what exactly "pricing" would mean for them. It is amazing how differently each brand handles the process... and they all have to be different to keep their product unique and on the cutting edge.

We recognize that 20/20 does a great job with pricing, but we also recognize that Chief Architect does a great (some say better) job with ease of design and editablity... we want to focus as much as we can on our strengths. We are hearing more and more frequently that having catalogs themselves for design and specification purposes is much more important on the front end than supporting pricing.

We also occasionally hear that Chief Architect users/designers send their cabinet info/schedules to someone else to do the pricing anyway. Do any of you find this to be a true statement?

Also, as a response to comments about more flexibility in Chief's cabinet tools...
One great benefit of trying to support manufacturer catalogs is the fact that we uncover more and more issues with Chief's tools, which opens the door to more fixes and features added in this area.

p.s. thanks for all the comments and feedback... keep it coming!

[Rich M]

That's typically the method I use. Design and label in CA - then send off to cabinet mfg to price.

[Allen Brown]

Adrean, I do the same thing. I do the conceptual/space planning on the print when it comes to kitchens, and send the prints off to the suppliers of the cabinets for detailed designs. With the amount of different possibilities in cabinets with each manufacturer, & interior design not being my specialty, it's not that big of an issue for me.

However, someone like Adam Gibson who does high end kitchens and baths, would I'm sure feel completely different that me.

[JoAnne04330]

See being the person who's designing and selling cabinets/kitchens, pricing and specs would be useful. I understand this may make me unique.

Pricing is where 20/20 is strong. Yes, you can get some nice graphics using 20/20, but it can be cumbersome to manipulate. Plus if you need anything unique you could be SOL. Chief is a lot easier to use and I find is a lot more stable. Pricing would make me very happy, but if all I got were the catalogs to the manufacturers I supply. Then I would be content. If having those catalogs made exporting a kitchen into 20/20 easier, even better, or if I could import the 20/20 pricing into Chief great! Cabinet pricing fluctuates annually and sometimes to keep things interesting twice a year, so I understand that it would be a lot of work. I understand not everyone needs pricing, but if I no longer needed to use 20/20 I would be a very happy woman. That program frustrates me to no end.

[GaryT]

I design for Wellborn cabinets, also custom cabinets.

[Adrean]

One additional note:
If your brand is not in the poll, but someone else has already mentioned it, feel free to mention it again...
This way I can get of feel for the popularity of brands that I couldn't fit on the poll.

JoAnne, I hear you. Hopefully one thing that we will be able to eventually do, which isn't technically pricing, is create better tools to track accessories, add-ons, and other cabinet modifications. This way, you can have a much more accurate list that requires only that the prices get plugged in. In theory, you could then update your Master List, which should get you quite closer to auto-pricing in Chief Architect.

[GaryT]

To elaborate a little.

Though I had an architectural practice for many years and was doing 3D modeling on projects as early as '86, my primary business is designing, selling and installing cabinetry. Because of my background and that of my partner, who is an interior designer, we do a lot of design work beyond the kitchen and bath. We are also doing some design build.

I have tried 20/20, Cabinet Vision and ProKitchen. If I was only laying out and designing cabinetry, I would go with ProKitchen for value. However none of these programs are very appropriate for general design work. We have used Architrion, BOA and VectorWorks and continue to use Sketchup and PowerCad.

Our normal workflow might have us designing in Sketchup, detailing in PowerCad and doing kitchen layout/pricing in ProKitchen. We have been looking for a primarily on program solution for most our needs. Unfortunately we couldn't find a Mac native program that was scaled and priced for our needs. If we worked on large non-residential projects, we would have probably purchased ArchiCad.

After trying Chief Architect on our intel Mac under Bootcamp, we decided that it would meet most of our needs. I agree with many of you that the pricing component in 20/20 or ProKitchen is quick and easy. But I find that these programs tend to influence design decisions by promoting normal, convenient solutions. We do some "outrageous" things with "semi custom" cabinets. A lot of our work is custom, so pricing is not available in any program. In this case we provide very detailed designs to the shop for pricing.

I believe with time we can construct a reasonably effective pricing routine in CA. It may never be as quick as a dedicated cabinet software, but it should suffice. I would like to see more flexibility in the cabinet design and layout tools in CA. Maybe the next version?

[perryh]

I use nothing but custom cabinets in all my designs and work with my cabinet maker for final designs with all the goodies that I may not be aware of.

[Gene Davis]

I am a new Chief user, so forgive me if what I have to say about cabinets might not square with what the software is currently capable of doing. Some of what I am seeking in capabilities might be there now, and I just have not found it yet.

We do both design and build work, and use name brand cabinetry, totally custom cabinetry, and a version of totally custom cabinetry we build (this is most of what we do) for which we use eCabinets software for the design, then outsource the parts, carcase parts from a CNC shop, fronts and drawers and panels from someone like Conestoga or Walzcraft, and hardware and specialties from wholesalers.

Having spent a couple of months with eCabinets developing and refining the complete "line" we need for seed cabinets, and including all the door, drawer, panel, hardware, and finish option pricing we need for accurate pricing development, I can say that it is probably far too complex a project for Chief to want to undertake, to deliver manufacturer-specific pricing.

It seems to me that it is more important for the Chief render to have the overall look correct. For example, if a crown mold "looks" reasonable as to height and reach, it doesn't matter that the actual bead and ogee pattern doesn't match what will be supplied. The crownmold patterns available from just one of our suppliers go on for pages and pages.

I have found I can use Chief to build and render most any kitchen we can design, but to really complete a package with a lot of elements, Chief would need to supply me with these additional capabilities:

1. A way to build and install stile-and-rail end panels and back panels, of the type to dress the ends and backs of islands and peninsulas.

2. The same for the kind of custom vent hood arrangements that are done to match details for the doors and panels seen in the cabinets.

3. Rendering capabilities so that when elevation shots are taken of cab runs, pullout drawers, shelving, and lazy susan turntables all have the option of showing dotted behind doors, in the rendering.

4. A very large library of appliances to cover a much broader selection of hood, fridge, range, oven, cooktop, and microwave/microhood looks than there are now. I am not requesting full manufacturer lines at all here, because that could go on forever. Just for a broader selection of basic configs, so that a kitchen rendered in Chief is fairly representative of what the client will get.

5. In rendering, the ability to have anything like a 5-piece door, or stile and rail panel, be rendered with true woodgrain orientation. Furthermore in rendering, a reasonable selection of woodgrained textures and colors.

6. Linear undercabinet lighting, including all the abilities in rendering for adjusting light. Pucks and boxes don't do it for us.

7. Since when we do the cab builds ourselves (which is most of the time), and since we do frameless, an easier way than today's workaround, for doing AFEs (that's applied finished ends in cabspeak).

In my opinion, the application developers at Chief should continue as they are apparently doing, studying the details, features, and options of the various manufacturers, so as to then build into the native Chief software, the ability to model a complex kitchen more completely. This, for me, is far more important than getting into play manufacturer-specific libraries. The manufacturers are constantly evolving their product lines and adding new products and features, and any library issued would be out of date quickly.

[Adrean]

Great comments, Gene...

I think this explains in general what we hope to make Chief Architect do, in addition brand-name catalogs.
Also, some very good feature requests, which I've noted!

[Max]

JoAnne and Steve S.,
While the setup takes much work, you will find that setting up an external pricing list for each component used in Chief to be much more efficient in that updating prices can be done by import rather than manually updating each and every price in Chief. By exporting the cabinet portion of the material list and defining the number for each component (entered into the cabinet definitions) you can easily link a price list in excel in such a way to automatically generate a total cost. You can also factor in the labor in Excel in such a way as to allow a quick change overall rather than the manual mode in Chief. Anyway, the point is that you can have what you want right now and with much more flexibility if you are willing to invest a little time and learn the methods. You have everything on your computer to do it as long as Excel is loaded. I would say it's a matter of how serious you are about having such here and now.

Obviously this is a vote that Chief needs to refine the materials spreadsheet into a more powerful version that would allow inporting various data if the goal for the material list is to be truly useful rather than sales flash.

Max

[Mark]

I also think better cabinet tools also as chief is sold all over the world not just US

[Max]

...We also occasionally hear that Chief Architect users/designers send their cabinet info/schedules to someone else to do the pricing anyway. Do any of you find this to be a true statement?

As with in the rest of the estimating in Chief, if the tools were there to do the job this would change. Chief, Inc. has been asked, for as long as I have used the program, for a better materials list and costing methods. After so many years of waiting users have given up, at least for the present, and found other ways which usually involve outside parties such as the actual cabinet distributor. This has a tendency to always cost more as those doing the pricing do so in there favor. This is especially true when sending a plan in to a lumber yard for a materials takeoff and cost estimate.

Instead of having to go through and add prices for each component within each cabinet line, how about working with the manufacturers on a standardized cost list format that can be inported directly in order to update pricing for a specific cabinet group. This isn't that hard to impliment once the cost lists are standardized. This holds true for everything shown in the materials list too. If this were to be implimented Chief would be the 1st to do it this way and would end up with one of the most powerful solutions offered.

Max