Short answer: choose a door manufacturer that can prove capacity for your programme on an automated line, supplies complete door sets (leaf, frame, ironmongery preparation, seals) rather than leaves alone, provides certified evidence for every fire-rated door type, finishes in the factory rather than on site, builds a mock-up before production, and holds ISO 9001. Then check references for projects of your size.
1. Can the factory meet your programme?
Divide the number of doors by the weeks available for delivery. A 1,500-door hotel or compound phase delivered over ten weeks needs roughly 30 finished doors a working day on top of the factory's other orders. Ask for daily capacity on the pressing, edgebanding and finishing stages separately — the slowest stage sets the real output. Manual workshops typically finish a few doors a day; automated lines run in the hundreds.
2. What is inside the door?
Ask for a section drawing of each door type: core (honeycomb, tubular chipboard, solid particleboard, or a certified fire core), stiles and rails, lock blocks, facing (veneer, HPL, CPL, lacquer) and edge detail. Hotel guest-room and connecting doors normally need solid or acoustic cores with perimeter and drop seals; residential interior doors can use lighter cores. Timber should be kiln-dried and the factory should control moisture content.
3. Fire-rated doors: is the whole set certified?
A fire rating (typically 30, 60 or 90 minutes) belongs to the complete door set — leaf, frame, intumescent and smoke seals, hinges, closer and lock — not to the leaf alone. Ask for test or certification evidence to the standard your fire consultant specifies (for example BS 476-22, EN 1634-1 or UL 10C) for each door type, and make sure the supplier installs or supervises installation, because gaps and closer settings decide whether the rating holds. See fire-rated doors.
4. Hotel doors: lock preparation and acoustics
Guest-room doors must be machined to the electronic lock maker's template — Assa Abloy VingCard, dormakaba, Salto, Onity and others — with the right backset and door thickness. A CNC boring line does this identically on every door; hand routing does not. Confirm viewers, closers, door stops and acoustic seals in the same package. See hotel doors.
5. Where is the door finished?
Factory finishing on a spray or UV line gives the same colour and sheen on door 1 and door 1,000 and keeps dust and damage off site. Site-painted doors vary from floor to floor. Ask to see the finishing line and a finished sample in your specified veneer or lacquer.
6. Mock-up and approvals
A reliable manufacturer produces shop drawings, material samples and a full-size mock-up door (or mock-up room for hotels) and keeps the signed mock-up as the reference for the entire run.
7. Quality system and safety
ISO 9001 shows that inspection and traceability are documented; ISO 45001 shows a managed, safe factory. Ask for the certificate, the certification body and the certified scope — it should name door production.
8. Delivery and installation
Ask who installs, how doors are labelled and packed per floor and room, and how damage on site is handled. For export, ask for numbered packing, installation drawings and supervision.
Checklist
- Daily capacity per stage, in writing
- Section drawing for every door type
- Fire certification for the complete set, per type
- CNC lock preparation to the lock maker's template
- Factory spray/UV finishing
- Signed mock-up before production
- ISO 9001 with door production in scope
- References of similar size; factory visit
Where Hammer fits
Hammer's door factory in Abu Rawash, Giza runs a fully automated line — Italpresse presses, KDT squaring and boring, SCM Stefani edgebanding and Cefla spray and UV finishing — with a peak of 200 finished doors a day, ISO 9001:2015 certification for wooden door production, and more than 10,000 doors delivered since 2020 for projects including Uptown Cairo (Emaar Misr) and SAADA (Innovo).
