American Door Opens Possibilities For Contractors Seeking Quick Turnaround And Customization

It was 1977 and Charles (Scotty) Scott had a problem. After more than 20 years as a
general and/or subcontractor in the metropolitan Washington area, he could never seem
to get HM frames, HM doors and wood doors when he needed them. If he did manage to
get them on time, they were of poor quality.
Scotty’s solution to the problem was to open American Door Co. and staff his business
with qualified personnel from the construction industry. After all, who could understand
what contractors needed better than people who had done the job themselves?
Today, Scotty says his company is "the most completely automated door distributor in
the US." But don’t let the word "automated" mislead you.
All that high-tech equipment at his Beltsville, Md.-based firm is there for one purpose:
to provide fast and reliable service for contractors, especially the ones who need custom
or specialty doors.
Recently, we talked with Scotty’s son, Charles, Jr., about American Door, the family
business that has grown into the largest specialty modification company in the area.

AB: Your slogan is "We’re not the biggest, but we’re the best." Can you elaborate on
that?
CS: We work very hard at that and always have. Because of my father’s background as
a general contractor, we understand what it’s like when contractors can’t get what they
need quickly, or when the quality isn’t up to their standards. My father got involved in
American Door to solve those problems for himself and for other contractors. I think
we’ve succeeded in doing that.

AB: Customizing a door must take some time. How are you able to deliver on your
promise of quick turnaround?
CS: For one thing, we have a huge inventory, so we almost never need to wait for a
delivery. And all of our operations are computerized, including our sales, inventory,
purchasing, bookkeeping and shop. We can do things in seconds that would take hours if
we did them manually. In our wood shop, we can machine an eight-foot door with four
hinges and a cylinder lock in 24 seconds. What used to take a week, we can now do in an
afternoon.

AB: Tell us a bit more about how your computerized shop operations work.
CS: We have the same machines as the manufacturers. But we have just one of each
while the manufacturers have several. We modified and installed all of our programs,
and designed and built our metal working machines, special jig tables and press. Our
wood doors are machined by CNC (computer numerical control) automated machines.
That makes us unique -- most shops are still doing it the old way. The main differences
between using computerized machinery and doing things manually are speed, accuracy
and versatility. We still maintain control -- we tell the computers what to do. We can look
at color-coded layouts on the monitors and make adjustments to meet the customer’s
specifications. Both our wood and metal shops are 100 percent UL Extension Services
Licensed. We can UL label any metal or wood door up to the limits of the UL Procedures.

AB: So you don’t feel that automation has taken some of the artistry out of your work.
CS: Not at all. And most of our shop personnel have installed doors themselves, so they
understand what the contractors need in order to do their job well.

AB: You said that you have a huge inventory. Whose products do you stock?
CS: We’re distributors for Pioneer Industries, Mohawk Flush Doors and Weyerhaeuser.
Our hardware lines include Hager, H.B. Ives, Yale, Schlage, Von Duprin, Rixson and
National Guard. We receive three or four truck loads of inventory each month -- that’s
about 2,000 doors that are in and out of here every few weeks.

AB: We’ve been told that your customization doesn’t stop with doors. Tell us about some
of the innovations at American Door.
CS: People who come through our shop won’t find anything that’s as it was when it came
out of the box. We do so much customizing, we have to modify the machinery to fit our
needs. Manufacturers try out their new machines on us. One of our proudest
accomplishments is our computerized fork lift. It took us over a year to find someone who
would make a lift that could fit in 66-inch wide aisles (the narrower aisles give us twice as
much inventory space) and meet our other specifications.

AB: Getting back to your work, it seems like so much customization could lead to a lot of
mistakes.
CS: Our motto is "check it twice, cut it once," so we have very little waste or loss. And
our shop personnel are very experienced. They’ve been with us for years and years. It’s
great to have everyone on the same page -- to know that everyone’s watching everyone
else, and all the work is coordinated. Everyone makes mistakes from time to time, but we
catch ours before they go out the door.

AB: Exactly how much specialty work do you do?
CS: We have very few "bread and butter jobs." I’d say 85 percent of our business is
custom or specialty work -- doors that are odd widths, heights or shapes. We provided
the special machining needs for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Kensington,
Md. And we did 12- and 16-feet high doors for the Smithsonian so they can move
dinosaurs in and out of the rooms. We’re also doing the doors for the gym at Andrews Air
Force Base -- it’s the oldest military gym in the country. For that job, we bought the raw
materials and fabricated the door frames ourselves.

AB: Is there any request you’d turn down. Is there any kind of customization or
modification that’s so complicated even you wouldn’t take it on?
CS: There’s not much that we wouldn’t entertain. When another company says it can’t be
done, that intrigues me all the more. We’ve done some things that were so unusual they
just boggle the mind. But it’s not just the fact that we can do what no one else does that
makes us successful. Being able to get the job done, and get it done right without factory
lead time, is what counts. What makes us successful is knowing where the customer is
coming from and our emphasis on quickness and quality.


Article Written By: Missy Zane. She can be reached via E-mail -- Missy Zane

GREAT JOB MISSY. THANKS!