Hickory Chair to streamline
By Thomas Russell -- Furniture Today, October 13, 2003
Hickory, N.C. — Upholstery and case goods manufacturer Hickory Chair plans to consolidate two of its manufacturing plants here into one by the end of the year.
At a cost of just over $1.5 million, the consolidation and renovation will combine work into a 640,000-square-foot building at 37 Ninth Street Place SE in Hickory. Work done in a neighboring 250,000-square-foot plant will be shifted to about 150,000 square feet of available space in the larger five-story building.
The smaller plant dates to around 1911, when the company was founded. The consolidation is not meant to reduce the company's 500-plus-member work force, but instead aims to better utilize space in the main headquarters and plant, said President Jay Reardon.
In recent months, teams of workers have been determining how to best accomplish that by mapping out work areas. The teams are just one facet of an employee-driven continuous improvement process called EDGE, or Employees Dedicated to Growth and Excellence.
Efficiency already is improving. In the past month, for example, the company moved all administrative support, including accounting, purchasing, product development, order entry and customer service functions, onto a single floor in the main headquarters. Because those functions were originally spread out over the two buildings, officials say the change will allow about 40 workers in those departments to communicate more effectively.
The company also is reducing warehouse and distribution space to accommodate more manufacturing. Reardon said the company will limit its inventory and allow customer orders and demands to drive the manufacturing process.
"We're taking an asset, which is our skilled employees, and are just moving them into another asset, which is our building, and basically being able to double the productivity of that building," he said.
He said the changes also are helping the company reduce the amount of time product sits in the warehouse from two weeks to about two days. Reardon and Kevin Ward, vice president of manufacturing, said the new system accomplishes that by tailoring its production process to specific orders versus forecasts, which often led to more product than demand required. Ward said the change allows the company to essentially "pull" production in instead of "push" product out of the plant.
"The pull system requires no inventory," Ward said. "The entire plant is set up that way."
As part of the renovation, the company also is changing some manufacturing processes. For instance, an area on the fourth floor where chairs were finished on a suspended track-like system will be set up differently to allow people to work more in teams for case goods finishing and other processes.
The renovation also will create new lighting and other plant safety improvements.
Finally, the company is converting a former customer service and accounting area into a 5,000 square-foot showroom and education area for key clients and employees.
When the consolidation is completed, the company will turn over the empty building to parent company Furniture Brands International, which will put it on the market for sale.
