Project 06 of 36
Fallbrook CTL Program
- Company
- C.R. Laurence
- Role
- Product manager, stage-gate lead
- Year
- 2025
- Discipline
- Interior partitions
- Status
- Cut-to-length launched July 2025; wood door option at Gate 0
- Images
- 7
Fallbrook is CRL's demountable glass partition system for offices. The CTL (cut-to-length) program changed how it is sold: instead of stock lengths that installers cut on site, every order is cut, drilled and kitted to the exact opening before it ships.
Most Fallbrook sales are on the East Coast, so we set up the fabrication on the East Coast too. Our long-time Austrian fabrication partner opened a shop in Gastonia, North Carolina, about 30 miles from CRL's distribution center in Rock Hill, South Carolina. Profiles ship from Austria straight to North Carolina, a shorter route than sending them to our Los Angeles plant and back across the country, and the partner cuts from its own inventory instead of ours.
For customers that means fewer field errors, less skilled labor on site, and a finished kit in roughly ten business days, at a fraction of the added cost of fabricating in-house. A second program, a wood door option for privacy-critical rooms, passed Gate 0 in 2026.
- 2024 Fallbrook sales in the Eastern time zone
- 58%
- Days by sea from Austria: North Carolina vs Los Angeles
- 21 vs 37
- Added cost with partner fabrication, vs ~200% in-house
- ~30%
- Target from order to distribution center
- 10 days
Overview
- Problem
Rising labor costs and fewer qualified installers meant customers wanted installations that take less time and skill.
- Solution
A cut-to-length fabrication program: Fallbrook components cut and kitted to each opening by a fabrication partner, shipped through our distribution center.
- Value
Installers save time and labor. Temperers get a one-stop shop: material and glass in a box, ready to install in uniquely sized openings.
- Customers
Architects, temperers, glazing contractors and Division 10 contractors.
- Wood door
A kit of two frame extrusions and floating backup plates lets the system accept U.S. standard butt hinges and T, full-lip and ASA strikes anywhere along the jamb.
- Competition
DIRTT, KI, Steelcase, Muraflex.
My role
I co-led the CTL program with the senior product manager from Gate 0 to launch. I built the business case and the logistics comparison, ran the risk and mitigation plan, worked out the order flow between the partner, our distribution center and our online ordering tool, and visited our top Fallbrook customers in Florida and the new North Carolina shop before launch.
Stakeholders I coordinated
- Partner
- Austrian fabrication partner, 30-year relationship · New fabrication shop in Gastonia, NC
- Distribution
- Rock Hill, SC distribution center · Logistics and freight
- Internal teams
- Sales and top Fallbrook accounts · Marketing · Online ordering tool (SFOL) · Los Angeles plant (backup fabrication) · Demand planning
- Gate committee
- VP Engineering · VP Product Design & Development · VP Sales · VP Marketing · Head of Product & Innovation
Stage-gate progress
- G0 Concept Dec 2024
- G1 Define Dec 2024
- G2 Develop Mar 2025
- G3 Validate Apr 2025
- G4 Launch May 2025
- G5 Post-launch Planned
Research
Location data drove the cut-to-length program: where Fallbrook already sells decided where the fabrication partner should build, and the growth trend set the business case.
2024 Fallbrook sales by U.S. time zone
Most of the business sits on the East Coast, which is why the fabrication facility went next to our Southeast distribution center.
- 58%Eastern
- 36%Pacific
- 4%Central
- 2%Mountain
Top accounts by state
Share of 2024 revenue from the 15 largest Fallbrook accounts. Florida and New York account for half of it, and for 87 of those accounts' 112 orders.
Sea freight from Austria
Profiles ship straight from the partner's Austrian base to the new East Coast shop instead of to our Los Angeles plant.
How a CTL order moves
From order to a finished kit at the Rock Hill distribution center in about ten business days.
| Step | Where | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Order placed | Online ordering tool | Sized to the opening |
| Drawings, cut, drill, kit | Partner shop, Gastonia NC | About 1.5 hours per entrance, from partner stock |
| Transfer | 30 miles to Rock Hill, SC | Hinges and components added at the DC |
| Ship | Rock Hill DC | Close to the East Coast accounts that drive most sales |
Fallbrook forecast, with and without cut-to-length
Indexed, 2021 = 100. Actual growth averaged about 21% a year from 2021 to 2024; we forecast cut-to-length adding roughly 10% of Fallbrook revenue once adoption settles.
- Actual
- Forecast with cut-to-length
- Forecast without
Indexed from internal sales data and forecast; actual figures withheld.
Added cost of a custom-cut partition
Cost added to the customer's price for custom-sized components. Partner fabrication made the program viable where cutting in-house was not.
Sound transmission class (STC) for doors
Why a wood door matters: in a partition, the door sets the acoustic ceiling. A solid-core or acoustic wood door with proper seals delivers the biggest privacy gain for the cost.
| STC | What can be heard | Glass doors | Wood doors |
|---|---|---|---|
| 25 | Soft speech heard and understood | Single-pane glass | Hollow core |
| 30 | Normal speech heard and understood | Double-glazed glass | Standard lightweight |
| 35 | Loud speech heard and understood | Laminated glass | Solid core |
| 40 | Loud speech heard, not understood | – | Heavy solid core |
| 45 | Loud speech faintly heard | Acoustically insulated glass | – |
| 50 | Shouting faintly heard | – | Acoustic wood |
| 60+ | Soundproofing begins | Specialized glass | – |
Challenges and resolutions
-
01
Challenge
Cutting partitions on site is where errors happen, and fabricating them at our Los Angeles plant added about 200% to the customer's cost and a cross-country trip.
ResolutionPartner fabrication near the customer base added about 30% instead, includes shop drawings and packaging, and takes an average entrance about an hour and a half to cut and kit.
-
02
Challenge
Shipping profiles from Austria to Los Angeles and then east to customers doubled the distance and tied up our inventory.
ResolutionSea freight to North Carolina takes about 21 days versus 37 to Los Angeles, and the partner fabricates from its own stock, so material no longer moves through our plant first.
-
03
Challenge
A single outside shop is a single point of failure, from machine downtime to running out of stock.
ResolutionThe risk plan made the Los Angeles plant the fallback for fabrication, let the Rock Hill center supplement stock and transport, and set escalation steps for order issues. The partner's experienced crew started the shop and trained the local team to hold cutting accuracy.
-
04
Challenge
Orders needed to flow from our online ordering tool to the fabricator and back without manual re-keying.
ResolutionWe ran test orders from small to large through the tool before launch and defined one escalation path for every party.
Gallery
