Customization around the world: challenges and solutions

How furniture manufacturers are transforming their production processes for customization 

The stakes are high: as no two orders are the same, companies must manage complex production planning. They also have to find out how to optimize cost per piece in order to maintain their margins. And that’s not all: they must train their workforce on new processes or hire new workers; they must anticipate customers’ expectations. 

This report examines how millennials and contract clients lead manufacturers to intensify their customization endeavors. It also showed, through the analysis of product variants, that most companies are already deeply engaged in customization and many plan to continue expanding their customization offering. 

Read this guide and discover: 

• The main hurdles to customization for furniture manufacturing professionals; 
• Why manufacturers from the US and China are the most committed to customization; 
• How digitalization and automated cutting technology can be game-changers. 

Show me your sofa and I’ll tell you who you are!

As the reign of standardized products is coming to an end, today’s furniture buyers have clearly communicated their desire for products they can customize to reflect their personalities. In order to satisfy this growing appetite for customization, furniture manufacturers are questioning their manufacturing processes and devising new product strategies

We will begin by investigating the main hurdles mentioned by the respondents to our survey. We will also see whether the commitment to customization is similar across all regions of the world. To conclude, we will analyze the solutions and strategies that manufacturers can carry out to succeed throughout their customization journey.

From mass production to mass customization: Discover the most efficient customization strategies

To gather these insights, we surveyed 200 leading upholstered furniture manufacturing professionals from Asia, Europe and North America to find out how companies are adapting to this challenging situation.  

We teamed up with the Centre for Industrial Studies (CSIL) to survey leading upholstered furniture manufacturers around the world. We disclosed a first set of insights resulting from this comprehensive study in a lite paper entitled Customization Around the World: Furniture Manufacturers Take Stock.