Standard expanding promo line
By Ray Allegrezza -- Furniture Today, January 14, 2008
Bay Minette, Ala. — After a 12-year hiatus, case goods source Standard Furniture will reenter the promotional side of the business in a big way.
In February, the company will have eight suites in production at its Frisco City, Ala., plant and eventually will have 15 suites coming out of the 400,000-square-foot facility.
As part of this initiative, Standard said it has invested upwards of $4 million to convert the Frisco City plant into a flow-for-standardization production facility. The company said this method achieves superior efficiencies by using more mechanized production, standardized case sizes and limited options or customizations.
Standard's existing lineup of domestically produced engineered-wood case goods with paper laminates includes four-piece bedroom suites from $699 to $999. The line used to include lower-priced sets, but it hasn't hit $399 in six years, according to Todd Evans, senior vice president of sales and marketing.
But the newly reconfigured Frisco City plant will produce 6,000 groups a month set to retail from $399 to $599. It has the capability to bump the capacity to 10,000 groups a month, according to Billy Hodgson, Standard president and CEO.
The new lines, sold under the Frisco Mfg. brand, will be launched at the Tupelo furniture market in February. But buyers visiting the Standard showroom in Las Vegas this month will get a sneak preview of Sweet Dreams, a youth collection, and Avanti, a contemporary line.
"As an international company, we learned that from a raw materials perspective, domestic producers could certainly compete globally," Hodgson said. "But where most domestic manufacturers often fell short was in the area of labor costs.
"Now, with the enhanced efficiencies we are realizing at our Frisco City plant, we are realizing a 30% reduction in labor costs."
Because of the plant modernization, Standard said last week it would lay off as many as 190 workers at Frisco City. But Hodgson said he anticipates those workers will be rehired in the future as the plant increases production.
Just under four years ago, Standard began incorporating a number of lean manufacturing techniques in its U.S. facilities. But as Hodgson said, "While we have dramatically increased our efficiencies, what we've done at the Frisco City plant is not so much lean manufacturing as it is a streamlining and standardizing of the product lines we are manufacturing there."
Standard employs about 1,200 people at its main facilities in Bay Minette and will maintain more than 100 workers in Frisco City, about 50 miles northeast. The company also imports product itself through its IFM division.
| Acknowledgements | ||
| Staff Writer Jeff Linville contributed to this story. | ||
