Our vision of US Manufacturing Excellence begins with Childrens Wood Furniture

I made the first childrens wood furniture with the One-at-a-time feature in my garage workshop for my grandchildren. It took dozens of prototypes until I perfected and patented the safe, reliable furniture you can see in the video.

I'd retired from careers in engineering, management and sales. I was getting firmly into grandparenting, while still teaching part-time. Many friends and relatives encouraged me to make limited quantities of these unique toy storage systems available to parents beyond my immediate family and neighborhood. So I thought I'd combine my own father's trade of wood working with my earlier career skills to produce the One-at-a-time Toy Cabinet.

With help from SCORE (Service Core of Retired Executives) in February 2009 I started a company, One at a time products, Inc., to make and distribute children's furniture based on the original idea. For a while I made them in a sub-let woodworker's shop and selling them at Arts and Craft shows. One day I'd like a full-time facility somewhere here in the Low Country, SC. In this shop, material and quality controls will insure customers receive the attractive, safe and reliable American Built products they expect.

Here is a photo of me, Rick Rantilla, in the classroom. I still teach manufacturing practices part time at Kettering University Graduate School in Flint, Michigan.

Since I live with my wife of 42 years in coastal South Carolina, this means I travel to Michigan once a month to videotape several weeks of classes. The students are mostly working managers who are getting their masters degrees. The videotapes are distributed to the students' homes anywhere in the world. The Internet allows me to email, talk to, videoconference with and evaluate the students progress from home or wherever our travels may take us.

In the 1980s and 1990s I had the opportunity to work with the visionary Dr. W. Edwards Deming. Dr. Deming continued to lecture manufacturing leaders until he was 93 years old. He was known as the man who taught Quality to the Japanese starting in the 1950s.

From Dr. Deming I acquired a vision of winning back some of the manufacturing business that the USA has lost in the decades since World War II. Foreign companies once had an advantage of lower wages, but the USA really gave manufacturing away to them by NOT using the best lean manufacturing practices in our own factories. These manufacturing processes and technologies were often invented right here. Many of them were taught to foreigners through, for example, the post World War II Training Within Industry initiative and by Dr. Deming mentioned earlier. Now that American industry is in such chaos, maybe some of our own business and Union leaders will start to take these lessons to heart.

By supporting our unique product, you can help One at a time products, Inc. do its share to reverse this decades old trend and create excellent manufacturing jobs right here in the USA.

One of the best ways you can get a One-at-a-time toy chest is by visiting us at an one of the upcoming Art and Craft shows in the South East.

We are often at the First Saturday on the River in Savannah, Georgia.

I'll keep you posted right here on additional craft shows and progress on our new shop in the coming weeks.

Leave a message or see more toy chest photos at our craft show blog.

Contact us with any questions about One at a time toy storage products for your child.

Why does childrens wood furniture leave us with such good memories? How does this material meet the needs of parents and children alike? Where can you find good, safe, reliable furniture for your family?

Your child will put their toys back into the One at a time Toy Cabinet if they want another toy. They do it willingly to get another one. Imagine, childrens wood furniture that gets them to do clean up their rooms automatically!