Bill Melnik, CEO, founder and owner BRC Group of Companies, who got into manufacturing right after graduating from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario acquired Woodlore International a few years
ago and has been busy transforming the company ever since.
When he took over Woodlore it made “things” to someone else’s design.
“Customers have a design and tell us exactly how to make it, here are the colours, features and materials and perhaps even the supply chain,” Melnik says.
“The new Woodlore will do that as well, we’re there, but in addition we will offer to bring your products to market much faster. There are many clients who take years to develop a new product, because they are so large and have so many other things on the go. So by the time they complete all the engineering and studies necessary, the market may have changed or shifted.
“So what we are saying is that we offer our customers rapid to market, rapid design, rapid execution, immediately. We can go to market in six months rather than in two years or more and we use our, that is Woodlore’s, intellectual property.
“We can show you how to make this attachment better, we can bring in our own suppliers who make great products and value to you, and we can show you international supply chains and maybe there is a part or a component in there that would be great for your product that they may not know or have access to, that we can bring into this for you and then co-design or co-develop that new product rapidly for you.”
Melnik says that’s the new Woodlore that’s the new OEM.
“There is nobody in Canada who does this and people in the United States who do OEM - of course we have competition in the world – they usually do it by saying OK, what would you like me to make for you today? Send me all your drawings, send me all material and supply and when we have all of that, we put all of that into our software systems and we start testing it and we’ll make it for you.”
Melnik says that’s the traditional model of an OEM, to sit back, don’t offer value and make exactly what they are told to make.
But that’s not what the new Woodlore wants to do.
“We don’t want to be hewers of wood and drawers of water. We want to leverage our intellectual property, our history and our people to bring better value to the market.
“We can bring a well-made, quality product to market faster than they can and that’s what we are offering.
“And we are helping them develop new products. We are working with a very large, well-known company right now. They want to develop new shelving, but that’s all they know. They don’t know how good they want to make it, the price point, or anything really. So that’s where we come on. By co-developing that product with them, we bring the intellectual property to do that for them quickly.
That’s the way you co-develop, it’s not just faster and better, it’s all of that. Faster and better design, engineering and manufacturing.”
Getting started
Melnik has been involved in the office furniture industry since shortly after graduating with a degree in engineering. He says he was interested in the oil and gas industry and manufacturing.
“But 1982 saw the largest recession in Canadian history and oil and gas were hit hard. So I decided to stay in Ontario for family and personal reasons and grow my career here.”
So in 1983 he founded BRC Business Enterprises, a Canadian manufacturer of commercial office furniture solutions. He got engaged in the industry quite quickly after university and has been in it ever since. He grew that company largely as a Canadian entity until around 2000 and then started expanding into the rest of North America in what he calls mid-market premium office furniture.
“We grew that company to distribute product to the major resellers and dealers of office furniture in North America,” Melnik says.
Melnik built BRC’s business and reputation on his personal integrity and commitment to excellence and their client list includes some of the top North American companies in banking, finance and aerospace, as well as leading educational institutions and governments.
Continued growth and expansion
”By around 2022, we made an acquisition of another Canadian company called Tayco, which is Tayco Office Furnishings located in Etobicoke, Ontario, a supplier of office furniture to the mid-market,” Melnik says.
“And then about a year later, my group also acquired Woodlore in Brampton. Woodlore came to us as an acquisition of three other companies and we felt it was the greatest of the three and we wanted to grow its business.”
So in a bit of a nutshell, there are three active companies in this office furnishings group that we created, the combined revenues of the group is about $160 million in revenue and each of them occupies a different place in the office furniture world.
“BRC is mid-market premium, Tayco is mid market and Woodlore is what we call an OEM, an original equipment manufacturer to the entire industry. Usually focused on the premium market as well and this is where Woodlore makes, creates, ships and provides all the supply-chain services for major clients who usually bring branded product, or bring their product to Woodlore for Woodlore to remanufacture for them.”
Among their clients are Steelcase, Hayworth, Herman Miller and Knoll.
The group employs around 750, about 180 work at Woodlore, which occupies about 150,000 sq. ft.
Change is a constant
If there is anything constant in our market, it is change,” says Melnik. “If the market changes, we change. It’s about adapting to market needs and that’s what we are really good at.
“So from Woodlore’s perspective, what we liked about the company, is that it is the premier OEM office furniture manufacturer in North America and certainly in Eastern North America. We are known to have the systems, the quality controls, the people and the machinery to manage great quality products at very fair and reasonable prices so we can make a branded product for another manufacturer and they can carry that product with pride and confidence into the marketplace under their own brand.
“And for us, what we recognized, was that there is a need in the marketplace for exactly this kind of service.”
“So to keep everything straight, BRC makes its own products and its own brand in the premium mid market, Tayco does the same in the mid market. And then in comes Woodlore, kind of like the foundational element that makes product for other people to put their own sticker on it.
“There are all kinds of OEM manufacturers around the world. Like the companies that make the iPhone for Apple.
“It’s a complicated business. We may be in the office furniture business with Woodlore, but it is a different model. And we are totally unique for Canada as probably the largest and only OEM manufacturer in Canada. And arguably one of the largest in North America.”
The new Woodlore
Melnik says what they did with Woodlore, is to change the culture and the direction. The previous owners had begun to move Woodlore into the kitchen business without a lot of identity in that industry. And they started manufacturing kitchens for large retailers such as RONA and Home Depot and “those customers didn’t care about Woodlore, they just cared about how cheap they could manufacture those kitchens for them and how fast you can ship them out the door.
“So what we did, successfully, is bring that pride back to Woodlore. We were founded in this industry (office furniture) we have a tremendous reputation in this industry and we will continue to grow in this industry.
“So yes, we brought confidence for our customers, staff and salespeople.
“Rather than being an anonymous kitchen manufacturer, we built a separate kitchen product – Veros – that’s the kitchen side,” Melnik says. “And that side does not compete with our other business and doesn’t take any resources away from it.”
Veros is based in Western Canada and has proven to be quite successful and they are now migrating it back to the rest of North America. It has already come east, and their distribution channels extend all over Eastern Canada, to Quebec and Ontario and as soon as there is a bit of clarity about the tariff situation they plan to rapidly expand it to the U.S. as well.
Going forward they will grow the kitchen business, grow the Veros line, grow their OEM product line and continue to bring OEM business as a viable business model to Canada.
“Where we see a change from the past is that we now have a sense of pride in the industry.”
“We know how to do things that are world class and these are things that are not done anywhere else.
“So the future for Woodlore is to not just wait for large customers to come up to us and say hey, could you make us this family of product, but rather to say to them you bring us your ideas, your design concepts and we will either co-develop or develop that product for you so that you can then take it into the market. We are not trying to introduce a brand necessarily, we want to introduce this concept of OEM manufacturing being viable and successful here in Canada to supply anywhere in North America.”
The idea is that customers can bring their product here and “we’ll make it for you, we speak your language, we offer the quality services the people services and the design services - including engineering services et cetera et cetera - to be able to do that for you. Where you sell it and how we help you distribute that keeps us as a North American proud entity with our roots in Canada.”
A special thank you
A special thank you to Robin Rooker, Woodlore’s VP Operations & Business Development.
Rooker lead a recent WMCO tour through Woodlore’s impressive manufacturing facility and made the connection for Woodworking Canada to speak with company owner and CEO Bill Melnik.
Rooker has been with Woodlore since the very beginning in 1988.
“I got started in the business through a next-door neighbour who needed some help and asked my if I wanted to do that on weekends,” Rooker says. And that’s how I ended up working there.
“I started working there regularly after school and on weekends and then it became my real job. It’s funny really, it’s the only job I ever had.
At the time, Woodlore was just 3,000 sq. ft.
