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Thread: What furniture companies don't do...

  1. #1
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    Default What furniture companies don't do...

    One thing that our industry really drops the ball on are real-time updates on orders in production. This can be very frustrating for the dealer and customer both, as neither are aware of a particular order status without making a phone call. Perhaps one day suppliers will have real-time access on order status available to their dealer network via an internet dealer log-in, but that day is not here yet.

    Even Hancock and Moore, considered a mainstay in the industry, has no system in place of notifying their dealers when an order is running late due to a leather out-of-stock. As a dealer, I have to make a phone call every time I want an update.

    So when you order your pieces, don't expect too much in the way or progress tracking of your order. Call or email your store to get updates if you would like to have them, and they in turn can call the factory.

    Seems like an archaic system in the age of computers, doesn't it?
    Duane Collie
    Straight answers from thirty-six years in the business.
    My Private Messages are Disabled - Please ask questions here in the forum.

  2. #2
    dwainw Guest

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    This is good to know. I was wondering myself what the chances were that H&M would have my leather in stock. It would be great if status information could be quickly at hand. Even Domino's Pizza gives you a blow-by-blow of just where in the delivery process your dinner is if you order it online. For certain personality types, this can spoil you.

    However, I am sure that for pretty much any manufacturing company, the more time people spend with their hands actually on the widget that they are making, the less time they have to put their hands on a computer to keep someone updated on the process. For example a car company could probably allow customer tracking of their order as it rolls down the assembly line and delivered to the dealer becuase the whole process is already automated to keep track of ordering and allocation of parts inventory and the like. Job status is already tracked.

    I am guessing that at a company like H&M, order status is checked by manually tracking down the piece to see who has done what to it. When you make the call to check on an order there, do they have an answer within a few seconds or do they have to put you on hold for a few minutes (or even call you back)? That answer could give some insight into how order tracking is done to begin with, if at all.

    Small hands-on companies often don't have time allocated to tracking jobs quite that tightly. Order tracking does have a value (monitoring efficiency, keeping stock at reasonable levels, answering the 'where is my order' question, etc.), but it also has a cost (time and materials used to collect and track all of these details). Each company's bean-counter must decide how to balance that equation.

  3. #3
    soster Guest

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    Another reason why the furniture industry is so messed up. This would never be accepted in any other manufacturing setting.

    Just how bad are furniture ERP systems? I cannot even count how many times I've been told it will ship next week, and a month later I'm told the same thing. And, I cannot even count how many times I've been told it will ship next week, and it went out the week before.

  4. #4
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    I hear you Steve. Its the bane of our industry, for sure. The # 1 customer issue of all time is delivery dates based on estimates at time of order. Its hugely frustrating and I've actually dropped suppliers over it when it gets too chaotic.

    Back in the 90's I had a supplier, ELDRED WHEELER out of MA that was notorious for missing delivery times. They'd quote 12 weeks on everything just to have something to say. One summer, to drum up business, they had a sale on tiger maple pencil post beds. Very aggressive pricing. I took orders for about thirty of them, all promised in - you guessed it - 12 weeks.

    Well, they took in all these orders and had several hundred to make. Then they couldn't find a tiger maple lumber source to buy the 12/4 stock for the bed posts at anywhere near the price they needed to purchase them for to make the beds. They sold them too cheaply during the sale. So, rather then bite the bullet and make the beds they delayed-delayed-delayed, all the while shopping for all this 12/4 tiger maple they wanted to buy at $ 3.50 a Board Foot. (its a small industry, word travels).

    Meanwhile customers are getting angry as 12 weeks became 12 months, and still no beds. I'd pass the updates on to the customers, but since ELDRED WHEELER was lying to me, they were inaccurate as well. It took two years before the beds arrived from that sale period, and when they did get here, there was almost no figure in the tiger maple, they were almost dead plain. Why? Because there was no tiger maple at $ 3.50 a board foot in 12/4, so they finally used plain maple with a slight amount of figure in it.

    I was cursed and cussed at by over half those customers who had waited two years for these sorry-looking beds. Lost many of them forever, and that's when I decided that Eldred Wheeler was not viable and cut them loose.
    Duane Collie
    Straight answers from thirty-six years in the business.
    My Private Messages are Disabled - Please ask questions here in the forum.

  5. #5
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    Default Tracking Furniture Orders

    I have a small factory (12-15 employees in the manufacturing/shipping end of the business). You would think that with so few employees it would be fairly simple to track orders, even without elaborate inventory control systems. We do everything we can to simplify the tracking process and to maintain a 4 week production time (plus 1 week for delivery. )
    In order to maintain this relatively short cycle for custom made upholstered furniture, we attempt to maintain stock on all 50 of our fabric selections at all time. Unfortunately, most fabric these days originates overseas and the delivery period can be as much as 3 months or more so maintaining stock can be a problem. At the time the customer's order is placed, our acknowledgment notifies the customer whether or not their fabric is in stock and whether we expect to be able to meet the 4 week production deadline.
    The order then goes into a queue. Within a week the fabric for the order is cut, and within another week the fabric is sewn and ready for the upholsterer. Upholstering is the big bottleneck. At times it is necessary to add additional "temporary" upholsterers to take up the slack. What can really throw us off are the special "rush" orders that cut in line. They throw off the scheduling, and can confuse the employees. More mistakes are made on the 10% of "rush orders" than on all other orders combined. (Fortunately the customer rarely sees these errors as they are caught and corrected before the furniture leaves the building. This takes time, however, and further disrupts the schedule.)
    Our order tracking system is fairly primitive. Basically,when a customer calls up during the first three weeks after an order is placed, the order date is checked, the fabric availability is re-checked and the number of orders in line ahead of that customer is checked. If it appears that everything is normal, the customer will be informed that their furniture is on schedule and will be shipped approximately 30 days from the date the order was placed and that shipping should take no longer than 1 week (for the east coast.) This actually gives us a little leeway as actual shipping times (via UPS) will normally take only 1-3 business days for east coast destinations.
    When the customer calls during the 4th week, we literally have to go out onto the factory floor and verify that the fabric has been cut, the sewing has been completed, and that the upholstering has been scheduled before we can verify a ship date. Since the amount of time that it takes for each order to be upholstered is only an estimate, this estimate can easily be off by 2-3 days in either direction.
    One or two days before shipping, we will notify the customers of an approximate ship date to be sure that they are ready to receive the furniture. We then recontact them the day that the furniture is actually shipped and give them their UPS tracking number. If it looks like a ship date will be missed, we notify the customer and calculate a new ship date.
    Of course everything depends upon everything working smoothly. Shutting down for a week at Christmas threw all schedules back for a while. When the factory's compressor that supplies power to the pneumatic tools went out, it took nearly a week to replace.
    I didn't mean for this message to be so long and rambling, but I am trying to describe what it is like for a small manufacturer to track orders. With a larger manufacturer, the order tracking problems are hugely magnified. Basically, computerized order tracking systems do not work for furniture manufacturers (at least upholstered manufacturers) because so many of the manufacturing processes cannot be computerized. A few of the giants in the industry have invested in automated cutting machines, but most of the labor intensive processes such as the sewing and upholstering will probably never be automated. Furniture making is still more of an art than a science.

  6. #6
    soster Guest

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    Here's another example. We had a backorder on some stools for a customer. Last week the supplier told us another 4-6 weeks. I called the customer and prayed she wouldn't cancel. She wasn't happy but agreed to continue to wait.

    They showed up today.

  7. #7
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    How's this one... I once ordered a custom made solid 60" round wood table in a wood called capropriato (native to Puerto Rico) with 8 matching chairs with wicker seating and backs. When I ordered I was quoted 12 months delivery as they had not yet cut down the tree. Twelve months turned into 18 and then after 6 months of enjoying the table it had to go back for extensive repairs for another 8 months. As it turned out the custom manufacturer had never made a 60" diameter table and the wood was not properly dried and started to warp (this was a top that was a full 2" thick with 5/4 support bracing) Duane this was a delivery challenge since the top and center support post/base are a single unit. The entire table weighs 160 lbs. and is extremely difficult to handle. I still have the table and chairs although my DW would like it to somehow disappear forever. I know custom made furniture is a different case altogether, but I do have some sympathy for both the manufacturers and customers with unfulfilled lead time promises.
    Last edited by cuse69; 02-06-2009 at 09:58 PM.

  8. #8
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    <laughing> Reminds me of a customer who demanded we make him a 90" round table for his new, high end dining room. I told him it was impractical to build, expensive and that he'd regret it because it would be a terror to move and install. He was a high-flying corporate CFO and didn't want to be challenged, so he told me to not interfere and just build it, he knew what he wanted. OK, so we did it to his order, having him sign a binding contract that it was non-returnable. $12,000 table and it was beautiful and HUGE (in 2 pieces).

    We got it to his house and it wouldn't fit in the 84" high doorways into the home (almost all doors are just 7' tall). I tried to tell him, but would he listen? He sheepishly wrote the check and we left it in his 3-car garage. Dunno whatever happened to it, I assume he had to hire a carpenter to take out the doorways to get it in.
    Duane Collie
    Straight answers from thirty-six years in the business.
    My Private Messages are Disabled - Please ask questions here in the forum.

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