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History other pages in this Furniture Industry web portrait | stakeholders | pressures this page design | globalization and imports consolidation of large companies CNC (computer-numeric controlled) machines lean manufacturing

Up until now ...

From logs to stones, humans have been sitting and setting things down back into prehistory. Hand-crafting has been the rule, and we can only assume that people who were good at making furniture always made more than they could use. They bartered or sold the surplus. Given the weight of tables, chairs, cabinets, beds, etc., it was probably a local and informal distribution system.

Over the last five hundred years, furniture has risen to a design art defined by styles and periods and preserved in museums around the world.

Two developments in the 19th Century -- steam-driven cutting and shaping equipment and the railroads -- led as it did in many industries to the demise of the local craft shops and the rise of the regional, national, and finally international factory. The free trade movement has made it profitable to import foreign-made furniture into the U.S. as well as market U.S.-made furniture in other countries.

In the middle of the 20th Century, the U.S. furniture industry spread into two -- the ever-larger national brands often consolidated under a conglomerate umbrella and the hundreds of fiercely independent small factories, often with fewer than two dozen employees.

In the past twenty years, the machines that do the cutting and shaping and finishing are increasingly controlled by computers. The craft aspect is increasingly lost, as is the traditional workforce that endured through the apprentice system.

Recently, the pressures of imports, consolidation, and computerized machinery have led to the promotion of lean manufacturing. Lean manufacturing, similarly to the green manufacturing movement, has affected all industries, not just furniture.

design

style trends / design fashions

University of Victoria - Maltwood Gallery's History of Furniture Timeline from 1550 in Western Europe and North America (incomplete and three years old, but still gives a good overview)

WGA Furniture Design's Period Furniture timeline

The division of the periods from 1500 to 1800 into the ages of the Carpenter, Cabinet Maker, and Designer is convenient because these terms suggest the type of furniture being produced. In the earliest period furniture was made by the carpenter, who regarded furniture-making as incidental to his general work, and it therefore bore the characteristics of a craftsman used to large joinery work. Soon after 1660 some woodworkers began to specialise in furniture, and so came the age of the cabinet maker. Lastly, at about the middle of the eighteenth century, furniture began to be associated with the names of individual designers and craftsmen, hence the term Age of the Designer.

Homestore.com's Furniture Style Guide

FurnitureFan's Styles

Colors, Themes, and Looks for a New Millennium
by Glenna Morton
About.com

FM4's The Eminent Furniture Designers

Biographical and design data about some of the individuals who have made significant contributions in the fields of furniture and interior design.

FM4's Furniture in Public Museum Collections

FM4's The Best of American Furniture by periods and styles

Rose Furniture's Dictionary of Common Furniture Terms

globalization and imports

First-furniture.com - Your On-line guide through the European furniture industry

House of Design

The World Furniture Market
by CSIL, December 2001

World production of furniture is worth about US$ 200 billion. This estimate is based on CSIL processing of data from official sources, both national and international, that cover the 50 most important countries.

The seven major industrial economies (which are, in order of furniture production, the United States, Italy, Japan, Germany, Canada, France and the United Kingdom) together produce 64% in value of the world total. The furniture production of all developed countries combined covers 79% of the world total.

Furniture production in emerging countries currently amounts to only 21% of the world total in value. However, there are three countries (China, Mexico and Poland) where production is increasing rapidly thanks to recent investments in new plants especially designed and built for exports.

World furniture trade basically involves 50 countries, which are the subject of the report. The leading importers are the United States, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Japan and Canada. The major exporters are Italy, Canada, Germany, China, the United States, Poland and France.

In the 1995-2000 period there was a very large increase in the imports of the United States, and small increases in several European countries, Canada and Japan. Italy remains the leading exporter, but the value of Italian furniture exports remained virtually constant in current dollars, while exports from Canada and from five emerging countries (China, Poland, Malaysia, Indonesia and Mexico) increased substantially.

The major structural phenomenon of the past five years was the increased degree of openness of the markets (measured as the ratio between imports and consumption). This increase was particularly important in the United States.

Prospects of the world economy for 2002 are not brilliant. For furniture trade, there are concerns deriving from the fact that the growth slowdown of 2001-2002 is centered in the US, in the market that has been the engine of international furniture trade in the last ten years. On the other hand, demand for imported furniture by the American consumer has grown for reasons that remain largely valid at present: primarily the evolution of taste in the direction of modern european design, but also a special ability of foreign suppliers to provide products well suited to the changing fashion, at highly competitive prices.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau's FT900 - U.S. International Trade
in Goods and Services, Exhibit 15

Top 10 Export Destinations
for Household Wood Furniture

source: U.S. International Trade Administration's
Consumer Goods Industries
Household Furniture Exports
Household Furniture Imports

consolidation of large companies

Furn Today market trends:

big are getting bigger

profit margins getting thinner

more competition, especially from abroad

partnerships

franchises/Company-Owned Stores

CNC (computer-numeric controlled) machines

lean manufacturing

What Is Lean Manufacturing? (.pdf)
by Amy Garrard
Furniture Highlights, Mississippi State University, May 2001

Lean Manufacturing is an operations approach derived from the manufacturing systems and processes of the Toyota Production System. The system focuses on eliminating wastes through continuous process improvements and reducing the costs of non-value added operations in manufacturing such as storage, transportation, and inspection processes. Lean focuses on creating a flexible work environment built on work cells, worker empowerment, cross training of employees, and high standards of quality from parts suppliers. Lean Manufacturing requires a transformation of company culture in which the emphasis is changed from large runs of the same product configuration to a more flexible production system which speeds delivery of the product to the customer and increases product quality. Lean Manufacturing uses a “pull” production system which means producing to customer order.