The Company
Bassett Furniture Industries Inc. (BFI) has been a leader in the furniture industry for more than 90 years. Located in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, Bassett Furniture is a global corporation with facilities in 16 states and more than 33 countries. The Bassett, Virginia facility currently employs over 250 workers. The company manufacturers high-quality wood and upholstered case goods, bedroom furniture and dining room furniture under the popular "Bassett" brand name. For many years, Bassett has been generating millions of dollars in retail sales worldwide.

The Problem
In recent years, Bassett has seen increased competition from foreign furniture manufacturers, which are now able to supply like-styled products of similar quality at much lower prices. The company decided to renew its focus by dedicating efforts to its core business – wood and upholstered furniture under the "Bassett" brand name. At the same time, BFI has been pushing to find ways to improve the manufacturing processes via lean manufacturing techniques.

By the time Virginia's Philpott Manufacturing Extension Partnership (VPMEP) met with company executives, Bassett had already begun to implement a lean transformation within the cabinet assembly area. In order to measure the results of the transformation, standard times for work had to be determined. Establishment of the initial baseline process outputs would allow BFI to benchmark future lean improvements facilitated by VPMEP.

The Response
VPMEP project manager Ken Martin led a time study project to determine time standards to be used in scheduling the 113 cabinet and bed products at the Bassett, Virginia facility. VPMEP project managers Jerry Clarke and Mark Oakes spent several weeks at the facility video taping the processes and taking stopwatch observations, calculations and analyses. After observations were complete, Martin developed standard times for each product.

VPMEP then suggested that Bassett undertake a set-up reduction and lean improvements project in the molder operations area to attack the facility's "bottleneck" and improve product flow at the facility.

The Results
• The VPMEP time study project provided Bassett Furniture with measurements to compare to future lean improvements in reliable deliveries, and allowed capabilities to double their SKU'’s with a wider variety of product line, customer order-to-shipment cycle times and shareholder value.
• Improvements were also recommended in set-up time and balanced work, which increased the capacity of the cabinet assembly area by at least 10% and improved flexibility by allowing quicker changeovers between products.

Management’s Comment
"The information provided by VPMEP proved invaluable in setting time standards on the flow of product through the assembly process. This gave the company capabilities to set up new product with the baseline set by existing SKU's. In addition, it allowed us to identify bottlenecks for SKU's and make necessary changes faster than with previous techniques. With limited engineering support, VPMEP completed the studies confidently and in a timely manner." -Brian Cecil, Industrial Engineer

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