Builders want exteriors early so the house can dry in, so that's the order things ship. On the interior side, what slows a line down isn't volume; it's variation. Consolidating hardware finishes and grouping repetitive units moves an order faster than anything else you control.
The order builders actually want
A dealer sends the whole house at once. Exteriors, interiors, windows, one packet. That's fine. It just isn't how it comes back.
Jason Gert has watched this sequence for 28 years.
They typically want your exteriors first so they can dry in the house, run siding, and all that sort of stuff. So exteriors will really ship early, then it follows up with the interior doors and then windows.
Jason Gert, Production Manager
The logic is the jobsite's, not ours. Exteriors close the building up. Once the house is dried in and siding is going on, interiors can land without sitting in weather. Windows fall where they fall in that sequence.
If you're staging deliveries for a builder, that's the shape to plan around. Ask your rep how it lines up with current lead times, because that changes by plant and by week.
Volume isn't what slows the interior shop down
This is the part most people get backwards.
Monroe's interior door department runs multiple production lines. One line should move about 250 slabs through in a day. There's also a high-capacity line.
On that high-capacity line, a repetitive run can go up to about 800 slabs in an eight-hour day. Same doors, same prep, over and over.
Start adding casing to doors, or a lot of hinge changes, and it comes down to around 500.
Read that again. The line didn't get busier. It got more varied.
That machine is why the number is high in the first place. On the other two machines, you set one hinge at a time. This one sets four at once. It runs on screw hoppers with a primary set for the screws used most of the time, and secondaries on quick dump hoppers so they can be emptied and changed fast.
Fast changeover is the whole design. But changeover still isn't free.
What that means for how you write an order
A takeoff with three hinge finishes on it moves slower than one with a single finish. Not because anyone's dragging. Because the machine has to be changed over.
So when you can:
Consolidate hardware finish across a house where the builder doesn't care.
Flag casing on the order clearly. Casing applied here is different work than slabs going out bare.
Group repetitive units. A house with twelve identical bedroom doors and four odd ones is easier to schedule than sixteen variations.
Get interior takeoffs in early even though they ship later. The sequence means interiors ship after exteriors. It doesn't mean they should be quoted after. You can put them into the Design Portal as soon as you have the plan.
None of this is a rule you have to follow. It's just where the time goes.
Finishes move, and stocking follows
Hinge finish isn't a fixed thing. Satin nickel has carried the bulk of the volume. Before that, it was brass on everything.
What's coming back in is satin brass. Jason ties it to what's happening inside the house.
You're getting a lot of those interior finishes in your kitchens. Your door handles have got that satin brass, and we now are stocking a satin brass hinge.
Jason Gert, Production Manager
That's a stocking decision made in response to what dealers were asking for. The same thing happens with door styles. New ones come in, old ones fade out.
One thing worth pinning down on a takeoff: finish names vary between manufacturers, but the codes don't. The Builders Hardware Manufacturers Association maintains the ANSI finish standard behind those three-digit numbers. Writing the code instead of the color name removes a whole category of mix-ups at the counter.
If you're seeing a finish or a style show up repeatedly in your market and it isn't easy to get, tell your rep. That's how it gets stocked.
The window shop runs on its own clock
Windows don't follow door logic at all. Every window is built to order, and the flow starts with cutting glass, not building frames. That's a different constraint than a slab shop with 98,000 interior slabs sitting in inventory at Monroe.
So a house where the doors are simple and the windows are shaped isn't a simple house. It's a window job with doors attached.
Worth knowing which one you're looking at before you set expectations with a builder.
Before you promise a date
Slab counts and weekly capacity are a snapshot, not a promise. Availability changes by plant and by week. Your rep can check the floor before you commit.
If you've got a house coming up and you want the delivery sequence mapped out, send the takeoff over early. We can tell you what lands when.
Questions on this one
If interiors ship last, should I send that takeoff last?
No. Send it early. Shipping order and quoting order are two different things. Getting the interior takeoff in early gives the shop room to schedule it against everything else moving that week.
Does mixing hinge finishes across a house actually slow the order down?
It can. The high-capacity line runs fastest on repetitive work, and hinge changes mean changeover. It won't stop an order. It just moves the throughput on that line from the high end toward the middle.
Do you stock satin brass hinges?
We were stocking them as of the plant tour, and demand has been moving that way. Stock is a snapshot, though, so have your rep confirm the floor before you promise a builder a specific finish.
Are the throughput numbers here a commitment on my order?
No. Those are what the lines can do on a given day under given conditions, and they're Monroe interior figures specifically. What your order actually does depends on the mix that week. Check with your rep before you promise a date.
Quote it in the Design Portal, or call and talk it through with someone who has built it before.
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