King, Merryson celebrate 20-year, second-generation fabric alliance
By Susan M. Andrews -- Furniture Today, July 30, 2007
High Point — King Textiles and the Merryson Group in Asia are celebrating 20 years of working together, a partnership based on family friendship that is entering its second generation.
The primary shareholders, Lynne Underwood and S.K. Chang, have been friends for more than 20 years. Underwood's son Matthew is now president of King Textiles, and this year Chang's daughter Wei-Chi joined King Textiles here as an administrative and marketing assistant.
Before King Textiles was launched in 2000, the company was called King America, which was headed by Matt's father, the late Harvey Underwood, and S.K. Chang, who is now president of Merryson. Lynne Underwood, Matt's mother, got more involved in the company after Harvey's death a few years ago.
"We really have a special group of people working together for one common goal, which is to differentiate ourselves in the upholstery fabric market," said Matthew Underwood.
He said the key is the extensive Asian manufacturing capacity of the Merryson Group.
"They have the Shangsun weaving mill in Taiwan, as well as two cut-and-sew facilities — Shanghai Leafy and Royal Textile — in Nangtong, China," he said. Royal Textile, just one year old, is expanding and will offer similar products to Shanghai Leafy.
Underwood said the company's product offering grows each season, and it offers more services to meet customers' requests.
"By having our own cut-and-sew operation, we can control our quality to meet the customer's standard and also cut down our costs tremendously. This separates us from others that are converting through cut-and-sew and have no true ownership and control over the operation," Underwood said.
The Shangsun weaving mill has a capacity of a million yards of fabric a month, and has been producing goods for King for more than 15 years. The company has an ISO 9001 quality assurance rating, according to Underwood.
Shanghai Leafy, also an ISO 9001 certified factory, makes products including pillows, tabletop, bedding, slipcovers, curtains, furniture parts and finished products.
Underwood said that before fabrics are shipped to King's 12,500-square-foot High Point warehouse, the product is inspected again and consolidated at the Leafy facility. "This lets us pinpoint problems immediately and take appropriate action to save time and money," he said.
King also offers its customers the option to ship fabrics to their choice of cut-and-sew facilities.
