Description
Wooden furniture machine operators run machines that manufacture wooden furniture parts, according to the established operating procedure. They ensure the machine works smoothly and repair parts if necessary.
Duties
Here are some typical duties a wooden furniture machine operator may have:
- Design, produce, and test wood products.
- Build furniture using hand tools.
- Use automated machinery, such as computerized numerical control (CNC) machines.
- Perform work in high production assembly line facility.
- Set up, operate, and tend drill presses, lathes, shapers, routers, sanders, planers, and wood-nailing machines.
- Cut, shape, and smooth wooden parts.
- Verify dimensions using caliper or rule.
- Add fasteners and adhesives and connect the pieces to form a complete unit.
- Sand products using sander or sandpaper.
- Stain or coat products with lacquer or varnish.
- Set products out to dry.
- Operate specialized pieces of woodworking machinery.
- Work to preserve antiques.
- Design and create sets of cabinets that are customized for particular spaces.
- Create wooden accents and trim.
- Create scale models of products or buildings that are used in construction
- Construct dies used in castings.
- Complete all stages of woodworking process.
- Ensure wood isn’t warped, cracked, or swollen.
- Repair wooden furniture, cabinets, and other wood products.
- Apply paint to raw wood.
Working conditions
Working conditions vary, depending on specific job duties. Often, wooden furniture machine operators have to handle heavy, bulky materials, and they encounter a lot of noise and dust. They must often wear earplugs, gloves, respirators, safety shields or goggles to protect themselves.
Wooden furniture machine operators work indoors and outdoors. When they work indoors, the location may not have heating or air conditioning. They are often exposed to hazardous equipment and situations that may produce cuts.
Wooden furniture machine operators work full time during regular business hours.
Other titles
The following job titles also refer to wooden furniture machine operator:
wood furniture machine specialist
timber furniture machine operative
wooden furniture machinist
timber furniture machinist
wood furniture machine technician
timber furniture machine tender
wooden furniture machine technician
timber furniture machine setter
timber furniture machine worker
wooden furniture machine tender
wooden furniture machine setter
wood furniture machine worker
wood furniture machine operator
wooden furniture machine worker
wooden furniture machine operative
wooden furniture machine specialist
wood furniture machinist
Minimum qualifications
No formal educational credential is required to work as wooden furniture machine operator. However, a high school diploma is preferred.
Training in computer applications and math constitute an asset to get hired.
ISCO skill level
ISCO skill level is defined as a function of the complexity and range of tasks and duties to be performed in an occupation. It is measured on a scale from 1 to 4, with 1 the lowest level and 4 the highest, by considering:
- the nature of the work performed in an occupation in relation to the characteristic tasks and duties
- the level of formal education required for competent performance of the tasks and duties involved and
- the amount of informal on-the-job training and/or previous experience in a related occupation required for competent performance of these tasks and duties.
Wooden furniture machine operator is a Skill level 2 occupation.
Wooden furniture machine operator career path
Similar occupations
These occupations, although different, require a lot of knowledge and skills similar to a wooden furniture machine operator.
metal furniture machine operator
mattress maker
mattress making machine operator
nailing machine operator
frame maker
Long term prospects
These occupations require some skills and knowledge of wooden furniture machine operator. They also require other skills and knowledge, but at a higher ISCO skill level, meaning these occupations are accessible from a position of wooden furniture machine operator with a significant experience and/or extensive training.
pulp control operator
automated assembly line operator
industrial robot controller
wood production supervisor
machine operator supervisor
Essential knowledge and skills
Essential knowledge
This knowledge should be acquired through learning to fulfill the role of wooden furniture machine operator.
- Quality standards: The national and international requirements, specifications and guidelines to ensure that products, services and processes are of good quality and fit for purpose.
- Types of wood: Types of wood, such as birch, pine, poplar, mahogany, maple and tulipwood.
- Machine tools: The offered machine tools and products, their functionalities, properties and legal and regulatory requirements.
Essential skills and competences
These skills are necessary for the role of wooden furniture machine operator.
- Supply machine with appropriate tools: Supply the machine with the necessary tools and items for a particular production purpose. Monitor the stock and replenish when needed.
- Operate furniture machinery: Operate machines and equipment used for making furniture parts and the assembling of furniture.
- Remove inadequate workpieces: Evaluate which deficient processed workpieces do not meet the set-up standard and should be removed and sort the waste according to regulations.
- Maintain furniture machinery: Maintain machinery and equipment in order to ensure that it is clean and in safe, working order. Perform routine maintenance on equipment and adjust when necessary, using hand and power tools.
- Remove processed workpiece: Remove individual workpieces after processing, from the manufacturing machine or the machine tool. In case of a conveyor belt this involves quick, continuous movement.
- Dispose of cutting waste material: Dispose of possibly hazardous waste material created in the cutting process, such as swarf, scrap and slugs, sort according to regulations, and clean up workplace.
- Monitor automated machines: Continuously check up on the automated machine’s set-up and execution or make regular control rounds. If necessary, record and interpret data on the operating conditions of installations and equipment in order to identify abnormalities.
- Supply machine: Ensure the machine is fed the necessary and adequate materials and control the placement or automatic feed and retrieval of work pieces in the machines or machine tools on the production line.
- Consult technical resources: Read and interpret technical resources such as digital or paper drawings and adjustment data in order to properly set up a machine or working tool, or to assemble mechanical equipment.
- Set up the controller of a machine: Set up and give commands to a machine by dispatching the appropriate data and input into the (computer) controller corresponding with the desired processed product.
Optional knowledge and skills
Optional knowledge
This knowledge is sometimes, but not always, required for the role of wooden furniture machine operator. However, mastering this knowledge allows you to have more opportunities for career development.
- Woodworking processes: Steps in the processing of wood for the manufacturing of wooden articles and types of machines used for these processes such as drying, shaping, assembling and surface finishing.
- Cutting technologies: The variety of cutting technologies, such as software or mechanics, guiding cutting processes through lasering, sawing, milling etc.
- Furniture trends: The latest trends and manfacturers in the furniture industry.
- Glassworking: The process of melting, working and shaping glass to create individual products or pieces of glasswork.
- Organic building materials: The types and processing of organic materials to build products or parts of products.
- Metalworking: The process of working with metals to create individual parts, assemblies, or large-scale structures.
- Furniture industry: Companies and activities involved in the design, manufacture, distribution and sale of functional and decorative objects of household equipment.
- Metal smoothing technologies: The various technologies used for the smoothening, polishing and buffing of fabricated metal workpieces.
Optional skills and competences
These skills and competences are sometimes, but not always, required for the role of wooden furniture machine operator. However, mastering these skills and competences allows you to have more opportunities for career development.
- Handle delivery of furniture goods: Handle the delivery and assemble the furniture and other goods, according to customer’s needs and preferences.
- Clean furniture: Remove dirt, marks and other unwanted material from furniture.
- Join metals: Join together pieces of metal using soldering and welding materials.
- Join wood elements: Bind wooden materials together using a variety of techniques and materials. Determine the optimal technique to join the elements, like stapling, nail, gluing or screwing. Determine the correct work order and make the joint.
- Paint with a paint gun: Use a paint gun to coat or paint surfaces of items which are stationary or moving on a conveyor belt. Load the equipment with the suitable type of paint and spray the paint onto the surface in an even and controlled manner to prevent paint from dripping or splashing.
- Create smooth wood surface: Shave, plane and sand wood manually or automatically to produce a smooth surface.
- Apply spraying techniques: Apply the most optimal spraying techniques, such as a perpendicular spraying angle, maintenance at a consistent distance, trigger the spray gun gradually, overlap surface spots, and others.
- Wear appropriate protective gear: Wear relevant and necessary protective gear, such as protective goggles or other eye protection, hard hats, safety gloves.
- Use CAM software: Use computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) programmes to control machinery and machine tools in the creation, modification, analysis, or optimisation as part of the manufacturing processes of workpieces.
- Sell household goods: Sell household devices and goods such as microwaves, blenders and kitchen supplies in accordance to the client’s personal preferences and needs.
- Program a CNC controller: Set up the desired product design in the CNC controller of the CNC machine for product manufacturing.
- Repair furniture machinery: Repair broken components or systems of machinery and equipment used for making furniture, using hand and power tools.
- Sell furniture: Sell pieces of furniture in accordance to the client’s personal preferences and needs.
- Prepare furniture for application of paint: Set up furniture for standard or custom paint job, protect any parts that should not be painted and prepare painting equipment.
ISCO group and title
7523 – Woodworking-machine tool setters and operators
References
- ESCO
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
- Woodworker Job Description | LocalJobNetwork.com
- Woodworking Machine Operators – Working Conditions – Illinois WorkNet
- Featured image: Photo by Ono Kosuki from Pexels