The US furniture industry has been generally decimated by imports, especially from China, shedding workers at a rapid pace in the process, down some 250,000 from its peak in 2000.
But now, the Wall Street Journal reports, US furniture makers are mounting a comeback, the result of tariffs on imports but also changing consumer preferences. More and more buyers now want to be able to customize their furniture configurations - but refuse to wait many weeks or months to receive their orders when made offshore.
So now, US production is up, as shown in chart from the Journal below:
Crate & Barrel and Williams-Sonoma are expanding furniture manufacturing in the US, and the factories of longtime furniture makers that have held on are now very busy.
The new threat: not enough workers to meet the available positions in furniture plants and needed to keep the growth going. And upolstered furniture production is very difficult to automate.
Given the devastation the sector has seen, "A generation of prospective sewers and upholsterers have steered clear of the industry, leaving it heavily reliant on an aging workforce,"' the Journal notes. And tens of thousands of industry workers have retired or will reach that age soon.
One answer: The Catawba Valley Furniture Academy in industy hotbed Hickory, NC, created by local companies struggling to find skilled employees in partnership with Catawba Valley Community College.
The probem: The academty can graduate 150 people a year, while Hickory needs 800 to 1,000 people, one furniture company executive there said.
Any Feedback on our Supply Chain Graphic of the Week? What do you think of this contributor list? Let us know your thoughts at the Feedback section below.
Your Comments/Feedback
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R.Jayaraman
Professor, Operations and Supply Chain Management, SP Jain Institute of Management and Research, Mumbai |
Posted on: Dec, 08 2019 |
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Very interesting article which made me read the original by Koda and Mahoney. I was not surprised that they had included a reference to the seminal work of Profs Gary Pisano and Willy Shih on the survival of American manufacturing, an article that appeared in 2009 in the HBR. However, I would like to add a reference to the paper by the same authors in the March 2012 issue of HBR, which puts forth the logic of process driven innovation, which clearly establishes the nurturing and sustaining role of manufacturing in Innovation.
I would like to compliment Koda and Mahoney for their insightful analysis, using some well researched materials, including the video from MIT, and proposing a solution. No doubt, the NMF suggestion will have its detractors, but I think one should see this as another effort, supplementing/complementing other such efforts from the private sector too. The new idea, of 'translational research' , is based on the idea of Pisano and Shih, described in their 2012 paper. However, it adds a contemporary dimension, and the linkage to the monetary effects will probably add value to the business community. Hope the NMF is set up soon.
I am in full sync with the view that innovations don't hang in trees, but are a part of a manufacturing ecosystem. In the good old days, this manifested itself in the form of 'new products innovation', but, just like the TQM, innovations moved out of the 'strictly product' domain into the 'Total Innovation Management' (TIM) domain, where new product was joined by new processes (which used to new technologies), new business models leading to new business processes. Innovation needs to be practiced across the organisation, in all the functions.
In the peculiar set-up between the USA and China, it is increasingly clear that China is not only investing in its mainland - the gigantic iron and steel industry is just one example - but also making deep inroads into US companies by acquiring equity. This is a two pronged attack, which the USA needs to be wary of. As this happens to more and more industries, the Chinese will have both - the manufacturing and the innovation that goes with it. In this scenario, even if the US innovators bring out new stuff, it would have be taken forward by Chinese owned companies, which is not a great prospect. The USA has to take a holistic view, and decide which part of the manufacturing chain it should outsource.
Thank you for a thought provoking article. |
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Rosemary Coates
Executive Director, Reshoring Institute |
Posted on: Dec, 08 2019 |
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Brilliant, Dan! I couldn't agree more.
At the Reshoring Institute (www.ReshoringInstitute.org) our published research and our public speaking always references the need to bring manufacturing back, or expand manufacturing here. After all, industrialized nations have all built strong economies on the backbone of manufacturing (including China).
You are correct that along with the redevelopment of advanced manufacturing in America, we need to provide incentives and regulations that if developmental funding is made available, the production must stay mostly here. We don't really want the 23-cent per hour jobs making t-shirts and other high-touch manufacturing back. We do want fully automated, sophisticated manufacturing deploying the best technology because this produces the best and highest-paying jobs for Americans. All of the jobs won't come back, but we do want the best ones.
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