Hi,

I don't think that its either - or - its both.

The Automated joinery making machine should be able to afford customers great economy for the manufacture of their timber frames but currently this benefit is not flowing because there is no incentive for automated joinery manufactuers to drop their prices. There are still too many hand cut frame manufacturers who keep frame prices artifically high. Those choosing to adopt the automated route face high initial investment costs and this has to be recouped and then of course there will quickly follow the perceived need to purchase an additional new super improved machine.

Its easy to loose sight of the whole process i.e. when a timber frame leaves the workshop (or is that factory) it still has to be delivered, raised, closed in and fitted out and so the perceived benefit of adopting an automated approach can simply move the bottleneck from manufacture to construction. Provided the construction teams can be adequately fed by a hand cut frame shop combined with the absence of a cost differential in the total finished product price then some very big players have deliberately chosen not to adopt the automated route becuase they perceive that the bottleneck lies elsewhere.

There will always be room for marketing differentiated products in the timber frame arena. Simply do what you do well and customers will place a value upon that quality approach.

Regards

Ken Hume