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We get many questions about how we operate and how we are able to keep up with the large demands of our log indoor and outdoor furniture while keeping our quality at the highest level. So we have decided to give a “virtual tour” of our main plant/factory. You may click on the smaller thumbnailed images to view larger images. 
We will start off in front of the plant. Here is the complete front view of the Lakeland Mills, Inc plant (my family's plant who is one of the companies I sell for). We could not fit the whole plant in one picture so we pasted three pictures together.
On the left front side and the right back side of the plant is where we have our finished goods inventory. On the left back side of the plant is where we have our stocks of logs, arbor lumber materials, hardware, and our “moisture control” room. The front right side is our shipping department. The middle area of our plant/factory is where the manufacturing takes place. Our “moisture control” room is a large room with fans and a huge furnace. When our logs come in they in this room for months until their moisture content reaches the desired level. Thousands of logs will sit in this room to dry. We also store our contoured seat slats in this room (they are cut when the logs are wet). The drying process creates the checking (cracking) effect found in all of our furniture.  
After the logs reach our desired moisture content levels they are all stress tested to ensure that the “checking” did not create any weaknesses in the wood. The logs that do not pass our strict stress tests feed the large furnace that dries the logs. This is the first step of our quality control, many other steps are taken throughout the manufacturing process but I view this step as being the most important. This step will ensure that all of our logs entering manufacturing are strong and durable and will keep our log furniture safe. It is virtually impossible to have the logs break under normal operating conditions. This is why we dry logs by the thousands. We want to ensure that we always have enough logs to manufacture with, but we will not manufacture with a less than perfect log. After the logs pass the stress testing they enter our peeling area which takes off the top dark layer of the logs and adds a nice “knifed log” look. The strips of wood that are peeled off of the logs are vacuumed into a large sawdust bin. The cedar shavings are used by local farmers for livestock and other uses. To give you an idea of the size of the sawdust bin, here area few pictures including a picture that I took at the top of the bin looking down. Calvin (one of the friendly co-owners of Lakeland Mills, Inc) is about halfway down. You can get quite a view up here, which is good because once you get up all the way you will want a little bit of time to rest and relax.
  
Along with cedar and pine logs, Lakeland Mills, Inc also stocks up on red & white cedar boards for their garden arbors and for seat backs. Again, thousands of boards are ordered and all are carefully inspected before they are cut to proper length and size for production. Millions of hardware items; bolts, screws, nuts, etc. which are used in assembly of the furniture is also stocked here, along with pallets upon pallets of cardboard boxes to ship the items in.
  
Okay, enough with the inventory. Let’s move along out of the warehouse and head into the plant itself. Calvin will lead the way in his restored & beefed up 66 Ford Truck, if you fall behind just follow the rubber lines on the pavement.
 
Here is the back half of the plant which makes up the cedar and pine log production area. This is where the logs are peeled, cut, doweled, drilled, sanded and then stress tested once again for quality control. Once all parts are inspected they then move on to the next station where they are made into backs, seats, legs, and a multitude of other items.
 
Once the logs have gone through the manufacturing process they are moved to the packing line. As the parts are being packed the packers check over the parts one last time to make sure everything is of the highest quality.
 
We then move to the trellis and arbor side that makes up the front half of the plant. The same quality procedures that were taken in the cedar log area are performed on the trellis and arbor side as well.
 
The following picture is of the top of a building in our production area. On the top of the building and leading off to the right is where some of the world’s greatest thinkers and designers (or so they claim) reside. This is the prototype area. Plans are drawn up and then the products are built either to be shot down or to be praised and then moved on into production.
Here we have entered the right back side of our plant/factory and reached the inventory warehouse. The warehouse connects to our shipping department. All the products are stored at the same temperature and the moisture is monitored closely to make sure that the cardboard boxes stay cool so that no mildew will get on the boxes or products.
  
The following pictures below are of the shipping department. This is where the semi trucks, UPS, and FedEx come to pick up the furniture you have ordered so they can deliver it to you. The first picture below on the left shows the door leading into the inventory warehouse that is pictured above.
  
Below we see product packed up ready to load onto a semi. Nolan, one of our main shipping guys, is getting product ready to load onto a semi using a fork truck. Some lucky person is getting quite a bit of furniture. Next to that picture you will see a pallet of furniture all shrink wrapped and ready to go.
 
Once the product is loaded onto the appropriate truck the product is shipped off and you are the next person to see the product. From start to finish this is how your furniture is made. We hope you enjoyed our little tour. Please feel free to contact us with any questions you may have thought of that were not answered in this online tour.
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