Collecting field rules can become a small design tool

A three-day draft took another four and a half months

Randy Lorenson, president of Premium Cabinets, a US kitchen-cabinet company with more than 30 locations including stores, said he built “Turnkey Cabinet Design” on his own using Claude Code, a tool that creates a software draft from a written description of the desired result. He described the work in an interview with Practical AI Show.

The starting point was the price of existing design software. Lorenson said it cost $6,600 upfront and $1,850 per user each year. Using the Korea Customs Service’s notified exchange rate on November 1, 2026, that converts simply to about KRW 8.77 million upfront and KRW 2.46 million per year. That is a difficult amount for a small store to take on just to test a system.

He said he spent about five minutes one Sunday night writing down the functions he wanted, then had a working first draft three days later. But getting it ready for real orders took about another four and a half months, using two paid Claude Max plans.

The finished program imports manufacturer product numbers and prices, lays out a kitchen, and calculates a quote and the materials needed. In the interview demonstration, an L-shaped kitchen with an island was laid out in about five minutes. Lorenson said first-time users usually take 15 to 30 minutes.

Speed is not the key point. He said he thought the first draft was nearly complete when he saw it, but later described handling exceptions as 99% of the work. The product was still in pilot operation at the time of the interview. Its development time and speed are also the builder’s own account, so four and a half months should not be treated as a standard production timeline.

Put the broken handoffs on one screen first

Consider a fictional owner, Mr. Kim. He runs a custom-kitchen business with 12 employees. Sales staff consult with customers in the store, another employee measures the site, and the factory prepares materials before handing work to the installation team.

Today, the person measuring the site sends paper notes and phone photos to the office. A designer enters values such as a 2,400-millimetre width into the design screen. A sales employee retypes the same value into a spreadsheet for price calculations.

Once a design is confirmed, the production manager reads the drawing and transfers counts for panels, doors, hinges, and rails into another file. A purchasing employee enters that list again into a supplier order form. The installation team checks printed drawings alongside photos in a group chat.

If a customer changes one drawer into a door, the work repeats backwards. The drawing may change while the quote still uses the old price. The materials list may still include drawer rails that are no longer needed. The problem is not the screen that draws the picture. It appears when the same dimensions and product information are moved across several tools.

A wrong value at the site-measurement stage costs more. In a dispute case from the Korea Consumer Agency, a hallway measured 1,200 millimetres but the shoe-cabinet drawing was made at 1,040 millimetres. Even after reinstallation, a 20-millimetre difference remained. The discrepancy exceeded the five-millimetre tolerance mentioned in the case and led to a refund decision.

The first thing Mr. Kim should build is not a full 3D design program. It could be an order-check screen where a measurement entered once flows into design dimensions, a quote, and a materials list, with a red warning when the values differ. When a customer changes an option, the screen shows only the changed price and materials. A purchase order is generated only after a responsible person approves it.

Some work still stays with people. Someone must check on site whether a wall is tilted, plumbing can be moved, or a special hinge will actually open. AI can produce a screen draft quickly, but deciding which exceptions need to be blocked and testing them against real orders belongs to Mr. Kim and his staff.

Other businesses started by moving field rules

US-based CabDesign was started from the workshop of Ahmed Hamade, a custom cabinet maker in California. It lets customers and cabinet companies create plan, elevation, and 3D designs in a browser, then connects them to a bill of materials, cut list, and panel layout.

The rules set by people in this service include the grain direction of a panel and the width lost during cutting. The company says it uses AI for software writing and checking. It says it plans to run a public beta for free until the end of 2026, then charge $29 per month for individuals, $89 for professionals, and $229 for businesses. That is roughly KRW 39,000, KRW 118,000, and KRW 304,000, but it remains the company’s own plan while the service is in testing.

UK custom-kitchen company Baker and Baker has 12 employees and produces about 15 large kitchens a year. A kitchen can contain up to 1,000 parts, and the workshop manager had spent at least three days each week calculating dimensions and transferring cut lists into spreadsheets.

The company adopted design software called Cabinet Vision so drawings and cut lists could be produced together. According to a customer case published by the supplier, cut-list preparation time fell by about 20 weeks a year. But the designer said they still had to check first that the materials and corner mechanisms would work in reality. The savings figure comes from a supplier-published customer case and needs independent verification.

Four things you can build now

1. A measured-dimension order lock

• What it does: It compares dimensions recorded during consultation with on-site measurements and locks the order button when the difference is too large.
• Who uses it: A neighbourhood furniture shop with around five employees making built-in wardrobes from KakaoTalk photos and paper measurement sheets.
• Why now: A small screen with dimension entry, photo attachments, and approval records can be tested quickly without complex design features.
• First screen: Next to the order name, place consultation dimensions, measured dimensions, the difference, site photos, and the approving person side by side.

2. A rule-based quote for store consultations

• What it does: When a user selects cabinet width, door material, handles, and number of drawers, it blocks unavailable combinations and calculates an estimated price.
• Who uses it: A kitchen-furniture store that has hired new consultation staff but struggles to teach product combinations and discount rules.
• Why now: Start with the existing price list and commonly used combinations. This can reduce consultation mistakes without building a full design system.
• First screen: Show the customer’s space dimensions on the left, available products in the centre, and price plus reasons for unavailable choices on the right.

3. A drawing-and-materials change checker

• What it does: When a confirmed drawing changes, it compares the old and new materials lists and identifies panels and parts to add or remove.
• Who uses it: A small custom-furniture company that designs in the store but outsources cutting to an external factory.
• Why now: It can start by comparing product numbers in existing drawings with spreadsheet materials lists, without creating new design software.
• First screen: Upload the before and after orders, then display only added materials, removed materials, the price difference, and whether an order should be placed.

4. An exception-approval notebook

• What it does: It collects orders that could not follow the standard process, such as sloped walls, plumbing conflicts, or discontinued parts, and turns them into checks for future orders.
• Who uses it: A furniture brand that takes orders through several stores while one or two head-office quality staff review every unusual case.
• Why now: Organising cases scattered across group chats and employee memory into photos, causes, and solutions creates rules for the next tool.
• First screen: Show recent exception orders and their status, with an approval button labelled “Add automatic warning next time.”

Follow one order’s path today

Take one recently delivered order and spend 30 minutes tracing how one dimension or product number moved from the consultation record to the drawing, quote, materials list, and purchase order. If you find a point where the same value was typed manually more than once, or where someone had to call to check conflicting values, that one handoff may be worth a small prototype.

Why this matters where you are

Look for work where dimensions, product codes, or other operational information move between separate tools and are re-entered by hand. Your local suppliers, pricing, measurement practices, and approval steps may differ from the cabinet examples here. But one recent order can show which field rule is worth turning into a first small tool.