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D cube built on hard work, dedication

Stephan Kleiser
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Luxury contemporary custom home by D cube.

 

Dcube of Burnaby, BC has built its reputation through hard work, innovation and ingenuity.

Have a ‘headache’ job? Call them and they will get it done. But it wasn’t always like that. When Mehran (Ran) Mansouri came to Canada – with his wife Sahel and 9-year-old son Sam - he faced the same accreditation problems tens of thousands of other immigrants encounter every year. They have degrees from their homeland, but Canada doesn’t recognize them, which means they have to find another trade. As if coming to a new country isn’t difficult enough without the added difficulty of having to rein- vent your professional life.

But Mansouri didn’t miss a beat. A trained architect from Iran, he decided to stick close to what he knows and instead of designing things he decided to build them - at least initially.

Starting in 1990, Mansouri went to work for himself – as a contractor - turning other people’s designs and ideas into reality. His training obviously gave him an edge, but it took hard work and a lot of determination to get from there to today’s successful D cube group of companies, which includes D cube Construction Ltd. (founded in 2003) and D cube Millwork Ltd. (founded in 2007).

Mansouri holds a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering as well as a Master in Architecture, but when he came to Canada he had to start at the bottom again. After working for other people for many years, in 2003 he co-founded D cube Construction Ltd. (formerly known as Artech Construction Ltd). The millwork company was added a few years later.

“We’ve had so many problems with suppliers and contractors that I decided we can probably do the millwork better our- selves,” he says.

“I’ve always loved wood and I love designing with it, you can say it’s in my blood. So I decided to open my own shop.”

Mansouri said he learned from the Japanese and the Germans that you don’t necessarily need a large facility and his training as an architect helped him lay out a relatively small and efficient shop.

“I learned very quickly that you can do a lot of work even from a smaller shop, so that’s exactly what I did,” he says. “And since I’m an architect I had no problem laying it out to make it all work.

The result: D cube Millwork occupies just 6,000 sq. ft., but generates annual sales of about $2.5 to $3 million and employs 15.

 

Solid reputation


D cube Millwork’s accomplishments include works in the Vancouver Olympic Village, Shangri-La Vancouver, Fairmont Pacific Rim, Obakki on Water Street and many more.

But their bread and butter is residential custom millwork and retrofits projects as well as complete custom homes from design to completion. They also do complete custom home building and design and manufacture custom kitchens.

Its mostly custom woodwork, but Mansouri never stops thinking about new things, like new projects and processes, which is why he designed his own line of furniture, the Mansouri Collection.

His Plexippus table, modeled after the Monarch butterfly (Danas plexippus) - hence the name - consists of dozens of pieces of bamboo all held together without any glue or a single nail. It’s all interlocking and once put together is strong enough to hold the heavy glass top and doubles as storage and display for wine bottles. Depending on size, the tables range in price from $750 to $4,500 and are available directly from the company.

The company is also the Western Canada Distributer of Planika Architectural fireplaces and the sole North American Distributer of HAATZ hoodfan collection from Korea.

 

The shop


When Mansouri decided to start D cube Millwork, he knew he wanted it to be compact and efficient like the Japanese and Germans do it. He travelled overseas to see for himself and then made his plans.

He purchased a panel saw, CNC machine, table saw, planer, thickness planer, edgebander, veneer press, finishing machine and vacuum press as well as a number of smaller machines such as mitre saws etc.

“I laid it all out very efficiently to allow us to do a lot of work, but without guys tripping over themselves.

“It’s important to lay it out properly, plan it, and buy the right machines,’ he says.

One of his favourites is the Striebig vertical panel saw he purchased from Colonial Saw in Ontario. It’s accurate and dependable, offers high productivity and it doesn’t take up a lot of room, Mansouri says.

Setting up a shop from scratch meant a significant investment, but Mansouri said he never regretted it.

“I considered it an investment in the future, it was necessary to grow the company and ensure we could offer the kind of quality work we were promising our clients,” he says. “And we recuperated our money after three years so it worked out well.”

By all accounts, D cube is a success story, but Mansouri didn’t get there without a lot of hard work and dedication – and it helps that he loves his job.

“I really, really like what I do, I love it,” he says.

“I’m always the first in the office, I open the doors and turn on the lights and I’m at my desk at 6 a.m. getting ready for my day. And I enjoy thinking about new and better ways of doing things. I also believe in never doing something the same way again, because I firmly believe there is always a better way of doing it. I like the challenges that come with figuring things out and I think that is part of why we have this reputation that if a job is too difficult or complicated – what we call a ‘headache job’ – people come to us because they know we can figure it out.” But that didn’t happen overnight either. Mansouri had to work hard to earn that reputation, he had to prove himself, and he did. ‘That was the biggest challenge when I got started. I had to earn people’s trust in my ability,” he says. “It took a few years, but here we are.”

One job led to another and another and another. It was strictly word of mouth and it served him well.

D cube is still a family business and his son Sam Mansouri is the company’s marketing director, while his wife Sahel, an interior designer, looks after accessorizing their projects. Mansouri loves Canada, but worries about the loss of manufacturing jobs. “I think it is really important that we all work a little harder to make sure we keep our edge,” he says. “Canada is a great country and we have all the expertise and innovative people we need right here, we just have to work a bit harder, to pick it up, so that we don’t get left behind. I think if we do that we will be alright.”

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