Founded in 1996 by ex-directors of Smallbone and Neville Johnson, Manor Interiors is a major manufacturer and supplier of furniture to the KBB industry.
Although the company’s name is, perhaps, not as well-known as it might be, Manor Interiors is certainly a key player: the company employs one hundred staff at its centre in Swindon, produces fifty to sixty kitchens each week in its 100,000 square foot manufacturing facility and has a turnover in excess of £11m. Manor Interiors sells its products both to house builders and to independent retailers, including Optiplan. Twenty leading retailers stock products only from Manor Interiors in their showrooms.
In 2014 Manor Interiors took the decision to replace its existing CAD software with ArtiCAD-Pro.
Bob Mills is the company’s Sales Director Contracts Division: “We decided to change to ArtiCAD in early 2014 from our previously used software. We had been a customer for over 7 years but had become concerned that the package was being left behind in terms of capability and were experiencing poor service from both their sales and technical support departments.
“Given the investment required in new software and upgrading our IT where necessary, we needed to make the correct decision so looked carefully at everything on the market. Following demonstrations of ArtiCAD we felt that this best suited our needs. As a company we have strong retail and contracts divisions so needed something which could deliver on both fronts. Contracts is more about speed of planning and volume work whereas retail is more detailed. Also as we have teams who are not office based we needed something which worked on a laptop as well as a desktop PC. We felt that ArtiCAD had the functionality to do both. The fact that ArtiCAD works with industry suppliers to give us access to their latest finishes, and appliance graphics was also an important factor as it enables us to make our presentations as accurate as possible.”
Because all the kitchens supplied by Manor Interiors are built to their own high quality specification and design in Swindon, ArtiCAD has produced a catalogue of all the company’s products which is included within the ArtiCAD-Pro software. Designers are therefore able to quickly and easily browse the Manor Interiors’ online catalogue and select whichever products they want for their design from the numerous different ranges.
Bob Mills: “Once an agreement was made we were impressed by the way which the ArtiCAD team were able to build a catalogue based on our product, no mean feat in itself as we have a massive product range. This was delivered on time and with very few issues.
“Overall we feel we now have software which is very capable but more importantly is constantly being updated and improved. As with any software there are things that crop up from time to time, but our experience is that any issues have been resolved very quickly once reported.
“I would recommend ArtiCAD to any kitchen designer or specialist as it is the best all round package we have seen, you can choose the level of detail you want to get into based on your particular area of work but the important thing is knowing the software has the capability should you need it.”
