Hickory Springs: As the coil turns
By David Perry -- Furniture Today, July 12, 2004
Hickory, N.C. — Quality, service and innovation are three keys to the growth of Hickory Springs' innerspring business.
"We are very service-minded," said Jimmy Bush, executive vice president of the company's Bedding Products Division. "We are small enough to turn on a dime but big enough to have a broad line."
For evidence of the company's innovation, he points to the InnerACT innerspring coil design, which features alternating coil technology to deliver what Hickory Springs says is a better night's sleep.
Bush said that design, which he described as "state-of-the-art in innersprings today," has been accepted by the market. "We've been sold out since we introduced it," he said.
According to Hickory Springs, competitors' single-coil innersprings have an inherent tendency to lean when weight is applied to them, because all the coils are wound in the same direction. But the InnerACT innersprings are assembled with an alternating right-turn and left-turn coil construction. Those coils act in tandem when compressed, neutralizing the tendency to shift in one direction.
In addition, the InnerACT unit features lacing wire that runs parallel to the body to help prevent sleepers from rolling together in the center of the bed. That feature, combined with the alternating coil construction, provides "a perfectly balanced innerspring," the company says.
Hickory Springs has approximately 445,000 square feet of manufacturing space devoted to innerspring production, in facilities in Micaville, N.C., which the company built; Sheboygan, Wis., which the company bought in the early 1980s; and in Holland, Mich., which the company bought in 1990.
The Holland plant incorporates the Holland Maid line, which combines old-world craftsmanship with state-of-the-art production techniques. The Holland Maid free-end offset design features the same alternating-turn construction used in the InnerACT unit.
The company's spring offerings include the Edge, a patented spring clip system designed to provide comfortable and flexible support for the innerspring edge wire, and the PowerStack box spring, with smaller grid openings than other units to prevent pocketing, and designed so that it can be assembled more quickly in bedding plants, thus saving on labor costs.
Hickory Springs also offers the PowerBase universal box spring, incorporating more grid wires than many other box springs, reducing pocketing and providing superior support, the company says.
Bush sees a bright future for innerspring bedding.
"I don't see anything replacing innersprings in the foreseeable future," he said. "There will be additional innovations. Innersprings have proven themselves for quality and longevity and will continue to do so."
