by Move aims to create efficiencies in domestic wood production, while also better utilizing existing capacity
MARTINSVILLE, Va. — Bassett Furniture’s plans to shift its domestic wood operations into one facility here aims to create efficiencies that ultimately could benefit its customers both across its wholesale and retail operations.
As part of its recent Q2 earnings presentation, the company announced that it would consolidate two wood plants in Bassett and Martinsville, Virginia, into a single domestic operation. The company shared details of those plans, including a timeline of the transition with Home News Now following the earnings release.
According to the plan, the company would move its BenchMade bedroom and dining furniture production from Bassett, Virginia, to Martinsville, roughly 10 miles away. This production would fill available capacity of the Martinsville plant by adding those categories to the existing dining and occasional furniture and upholstered dining chair production lines.
As the company has seen some attrition of late, the move is not expected to result in any job losses. Both facilities currently employ about 110 workers, noted Jeb Bassett, senior vice president and chief operations officer of Bassett Furniture.
However, the Martinsville facility has the advantage of being spread over one floor, versus multiple stories in the Bassett BenchMade plant, just next door to the company’s headquarters in Bassett, Virginia.
“It’s all on one level, and it’s much more efficient as far as handling,” Bassett told Home News Now of the Martinsville plant, which first opened in 2000, while the Bassett plant dates back to 1971. “It also has a robust dust (collection) system and has all its finishing permits all in place. We will pick up a lot of efficiencies and capacity by putting them both together in one factory. One factory with all that product will run a lot more efficiently than trying to run two product lines in two different factories that are not at capacity.”
He also noted that the company will use a portion of the existing Bassett plant to produce bedroom case pieces for the Bassett BenchMade line.
“We are keeping one small operation in the original facility, and that is the assembly area for our bedroom case pieces,” he said. “We are keeping those skilled craftsmen in place, and they will assemble the white wood and prep it and those cases will be finished in Martinsville.”
The finishing of all pieces in Martinsville aims to provide customers greater consistency across each product line. In addition, there won’t be a lag in shipping time as products will be made and finished at roughly the same time.
“When you buy a collection, instead of having pieces produced in one factory or the other, all of it being finished in one facility is a plus,” Bassett added. “It also means that as we produce the tables and the chairs together, then you are not waiting on one or the other before you ship it. They will be produced at the same time, so the dining table is not going to be waiting on the chairs or vice versa. This improves the quality of the finish and the speed of the service.”
Bassett said that lead times from the consolidated operation are expected to remain at about three weeks from the time of order, which factors in custom finishing.
The company is expected to make the transition by mid-August and is currently in the process of upfitting the Martinsville facility with some equipment from the Bassett plant including multiple vacuum lift tables to lift pieces such as 2-inch-thick dining table tops that weigh more than 200 pounds. It also is moving some material handling including packaging equipment into the Martinsville operation along with some finishing equipment.
