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Furniture Brands is one of the world’s largest home furnishings companies, and we’re known for creating products that offer style and value for a wide range of tastes. Exceeding customer expectations is vital to any successful business, and our companies strive to deliver on promise of their brands to their customers.
We deliver value to Furniture Brands shareholders by operating our business in the most efficient manner possible. Over the past two years, Furniture Brands has been transforming the company from a holding company to an operating company. That means that our portfolio of 10 brands now take advantage of the synergies that come from having a $1 billion worth of purchasing leverage for raw materials, transportation, sourced products, and support services.
Furniture Brands pursues several paths to delivering operational excellence. Here’s a quick look at our strategy:
Shared Services By adopting an operating company structure, Furniture Brands is able to consolidate common functions into a single shared services organization that supports the company’s 10 brands. These common functions include supply chain management, human resources, finance and accounting, credit and collections, information technology, consumer insights and marketing. The immediate benefits of this structure are realized through the elimination of redundant staffing and resources. The longer term and more important benefits are realized through the sharing of best practices and achieving increased speed and agility in decision making.
Supply Chain Management Furniture Brands has a global supply chain of 17 company-owned domestic and international manufacturing plants. The company also relies on numerous Asian and South American contract manufacturers to provide finished furniture products in large quantities and at attractive price points. Furniture Brands manages its global supply chain through centralized management team that oversees all manufacturing operations, product sourcing, quality assurance, procurement, and logistics. Best practices are shared across the organization to increase safety and efficiency. Economies of scale are achieved by forming supplier partnerships that reward not only competitive pricing but quality, delivery, and flexibility.
Lean Manufacturing Our supply chain organization is transitioning our domestic manufacturing operations to a culture of Lean Manufacturing. Lean takes the current focus on production volumes and adds specific measures for safety, quality, on-time delivery, cost, and inventory management. The transition also requires a reconfiguration of the traditional manufacturing line into a smaller, U-shaped “cell” where associates perform multiple tasks and can immediately address issues in the production process. Our Hickory Chair brand has been using its own version of Lean Manufacturing for more than a decade, and it is widely recognized as one of the industry’s most advanced manufacturers. Hickory Chair’s video will let you can learn more about their EDGE program.
