From Design to Production: How Corpus Connects the Entire Furniture Manufacturing Workflow

Design is only the beginning

In a modern furniture business, a project can begin with a fairly straightforward process: someone designs a kitchen, a wardrobe or a bespoke piece of furniture and presents the finished result to the customer.

The real challenge often begins after the customer says, ‘Let’s go ahead.’

The design now has to become information that can be used to manufacture the furniture. Which parts are needed? What are their final dimensions? Which materials and fittings will be used? Where is machining required? What will the project cost? And ultimately, what information needs to reach the machines and the people on the shop floor?

In our conversations with furniture businesses in Greece, we often find that these questions are answered by different systems — and different people.

When a project passes through three different pairs of hands

A typical workflow looks like this:

Design → Technical preparation → Production

A designer may be excellent at planning a space, communicating with customers and presenting furniture, without having in-depth manufacturing knowledge.

Once the design is agreed, a second, more experienced person often takes over. This is the person who understands how the furniture will actually be made and has to break the design down into parts, materials, fittings and machining operations.

The information then moves to a third stage: production and the machine operators.

Every handover takes time. Each time someone has to reread, interpret or re-enter information, there is another opportunity for human error.

Expertise itself is often the biggest bottleneck

There is, however, an even greater challenge.

Furniture manufacturing knowledge is built through years of experience. In many businesses, it is concentrated in very few people.

An experienced furniture maker may know almost intuitively how to break a piece of furniture down into its components. As orders grow, however, more and more projects have to pass through that person.

This creates a paradox: a business may have orders and modern machinery, yet struggle to increase output because technical project preparation cannot keep pace.

If one of those people is absent or leaves, a significant part of the business’s expertise goes with them.

The answer is not to try to replace that knowledge. It is to embed as much of it as possible in the process.

Corpus changes this approach

Corpus does not treat design as an isolated stage that ends with an attractive three-dimensional image.

It is CAD/CAM software for furniture design and production, in which the model can also contain information needed at subsequent manufacturing stages. Corpus supports parametric 2D/3D design, material and cost calculations, manufacturing information and CNC capabilities, depending on the edition and system configuration.

The aim, then, is not:

to design the furniture first, then start again from scratch to work out how it will be made.

The aim is for the same project to develop progressively from design through to production.

One set of information, six connected stages

In practice, the Corpus approach can be expressed in six stages:

Design → Materials & fittings → Configuration → Costing → Production → BOM & assembly

1. Design

Furniture is created in a 2D/3D environment. Corpus includes a parametric editor, allowing objects to adapt to a project’s requirements rather than remaining static three-dimensional drawings.

2. Materials and fittings

A project can incorporate the materials, finishes and fittings used in the actual construction. Corpus supports libraries and modules for different elements and fittings, making this information part of the project itself.

3. Configuration

This is one of the most significant aspects of the system’s approach.

The way a piece of furniture is made can be captured through parameters, objects and rules. This allows a business to transfer some of its technical knowledge from one person’s experience into a reusable digital process.

4. Costing

Data from the same project can be used to calculate materials, fittings and costs. Corpus includes automatic estimating and costing functions that use information from the design.

5. Production

Corpus can generate CNC data and use post-processors to adapt to different production environments. Processes such as cutting optimization and nesting are also supported, depending on the installation and equipment.

This matters because the design does not have to be manually recreated as an entirely new project before it reaches production.

6. BOM and assembly

The project can provide information such as bills of materials, part and fitting lists, as well as technical documentation for production and subsequent project stages.

As a result, information created during design continues to be used instead of being recreated from scratch.

A key part of our approach: Corpus is not delivered as an ‘empty’ application

This is where a substantial part of INNOPAL’s work takes place.

It would be easy to install the software on a customer’s computer, hand over a licence and consider the job complete.

That is not our approach.

We have invested significant time in building an extensive library of cabinets, materials, fittings and construction options tailored to the Greek market.

The aim is to avoid making a partner start with an empty environment and spend months bringing it closer to the way they actually manufacture furniture.

They begin with a much more developed foundation, and we then adapt the system to their needs.

Corpus in Greek

We have also paid particular attention to something that may seem minor until the software reaches the shop floor: language.

We have adapted Corpus into Greek.

For a designer who uses foreign-language software every day, language may not be a major barrier. For a business that wants the same system to be used more widely by people with different technical backgrounds, however, Greek removes another obstacle to training and everyday use.

Our goal is not simply to install a CAD/CAM system.

It is to make sure people can actually use it.

Why we see support as part of the product

INNOPAL’s approach to Corpus extends beyond the software itself.

Through our experience in a real production environment at STEROPAL, we deal daily with many of the same issues our customers face: cutting, machining, CNC, fittings, production flow and human error.

This shapes the way we provide support.

When a partner describes a problem, our aim is not simply to point them to a menu. First, we want to understand what they are trying to manufacture and how their production works.

For us, software and production are not two separate worlds.

What if you currently work with Excel?

The transition does not have to happen overnight.

Many businesses have developed their own processes and files over many years. In some cases, Excel remains part of that workflow.

Installing a new application does not mean everything has to change.

The aim is to identify where work is being duplicated, where errors occur and where the business relies too heavily on one person’s knowledge.

That is where the change should begin.

From three people to one connected flow of information

We do not believe software replaces an experienced furniture maker.

Their experience is exactly what needs to be put to work.

The difference is that, once manufacturing knowledge has been properly captured in the system, the same person no longer has to repeat the same technical preparation for every new project.

The designer, the technical specialist and production do not have to operate as three isolated stages.

They can work with the same information.

For us, more than any individual feature, that is the real value of Corpus.