EDG Case Studies - Furniture Manufacturing Companies

In our previous blog article, we talked about Food Manufacturing Companies. Today, we will chat a bit more about Furniture Manufacturing Companies. For easy reference in this article, we will also refer to the Furniture Manufacturing Companies as FMCs.

The operations of FMCs are often international in nature. This is because it is expensive for the manufacturing (called Production) to be done in Singapore. Therefore, many of these FMCs have operations across the region, from China, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, and other suitable countries. Despite that, many of these FMCs still have their HQ and core leadership in Singapore as an international business hub.

After speaking with a few FMCs, we come to realise that all of them have 1 common problem in mind, which is the monitoring and managing of their Production processes in this troubled period when travelling overseas is difficult. How can HQ leverage on technology to bridge this gap, and how can ground operations leverage on technology to increase productivity and also to give HQ the insights into ground operations?

The Production process can be categorised into 3 phases:

(1) Planning Phase. This is when confirmed orders are received. The FMC then has to decide which Production location to use. Within that location, the FMC also has to optimize its Workforce Assignment to ensure that all the projects have sufficient manpower resources to be received. Also, this is accompanied by Workforce Tracking as a project management tool to make sure that the Production process of each project is on time.

(2) Inventory Management. This is where the FMC has to ensure that they have sufficient raw materials to produce the furniture required. After the furniture are produced, these furniture also become inventory to be managed to ensure that they are stored safely and delivered on time. This tracking has several benefits as they can integrated to Order Systems, Delivery Systems and Accounting systems for co-ordination. With sufficient data over time, these inventory data can also be aggregated to provide the FMC with data-driven insights to purchase stocks over time.

(3) Quality Control. The QC process can be a hassle if the FMC has several production sites and warehouses to check on. Staff may find themselves conducting QC checks for extended hours. This may involve the taking and co-ordination of a lot of on-site photos to supplement the Quality Control checks. So how can FMCs plan an optimize the QC check process to ensure that What furniture will be checked by Who, When and How will the checks be done? QC cases must be organised, and their respective photos and files be available easily for collaboration.

All the above Modules must further be integrated Within the production country, Between the production countries, and ultimately provide centralized insights to Management at HQ. Are you a Furniture Manufacturing Company that faces similar pain points? Contact us today and allow us to share with you more insights.