Together with representatives from leading UK upholstery manufacturers, Furniture & Joinery Production’s Paul Farley was invited to a state-of-the-art facility in Bordeaux to explore Lectra’s world-leading range of technology for the upholstered furniture market.
Established in 1973, Lectra develops integrated technology solutions – software, CAD/CAM equipment and associated services – specifically for industries that employ fabrics, leather, technical textiles and composite materials in the manufacture of their products.
A truly global company, with close to 1500 employees based in France and at 32 subsidiaries around the world, Lectra has customers in over 100 countries – indeed, many are in attendance at this annual gathering alone, at the heart of its operation, the International Advanced Technology and Conference Centre in Bordeaux-Cestas.
Whilst the automotive and fashion industries account for the majority of its business, the growing furniture market remains a key industry for Lectra. The company’s unique combination of furniture expertise and innovation – covering the whole manufacturing process from product development through to leather and fabric cutting – makes Lectra unique, and its technology some of the best in the business.
“The three markets we work in are customer driven, and the customer is taking charge once again,” says Edouard Macquin, Lectra’s executive vice-president of sales. “There’s a need for newness.”
This demand drives Lectra’s considerable investment in R&D – around 260 of its employees are specialised engineers who develop design and manufacturing solutions for customers including Klaussner, B&B Italia and Ekornes. Ekornes, manufacturer of the Stressless recliner brand, now employs 11 Lectra leather-cutting solutions in manufacturing facilities in Norway and the US.
“Ekornes chose Lectra for its in-depth understanding of the furniture business and latest innovations,” comments Céline Choussy Bedouet, Lectra’s chief marketing officer. “Long term, our goal is not only to maintain performance, but to help our customers continuously improve their business processes.”
Klaussner Home Furnishings, one of the largest producers of domestic furniture in the US, opted for Lectra’s advanced 3D/2D design and product development solution. Glenn Kahn, Klaussner’s vice-president of manufacturing, says: “We were looking for software that could help accelerate our development cycle time, provide clean geometry, create up-to-date technical files and standardise our process across developers.”
Lectra’s DesignConcept Furniture software suite is a completely integrated 3D/2D CAD package for the design, costing and development of upholstered furniture collections, from virtual prototype to pre-production, delivering all the necessary technical documentation.
This intuitive package has been designed to streamline the process of making physical prototypes, ensuring no time or money is wasted during the initial stages of upholstery manufacture. DesignConcept allows furniture companies to adhere to the designer’s original intent, whilst also respecting production constraints and cost targets.
“It is often difficult to express the exact design you are envisioning, so this rendering enables us to start from a better concept, eliminate the communication gap between our groups and significantly reduce the amount of time we spend on the development process,” affirms Glenn. “The number of prototypes we create today can vary from style to style. With this advanced technology, we aim to get down to one physical prototype before validation on every piece we develop.”
When it comes to machinery, Lectra’s cutting solutions are tailored to deal with both fabric and leather. Vector, Lectra’s fabric-cutting range, is a high-performance tool which blends technology and software to improve speed and optimise efficiency, and is suitable for both limited series and mass production.
Versalis fulfils a similar remit, but for the cutting of leather, incorporating flaw identification alongside the nesting, cutting and offloading processes.
Following a purchase from either range, customers can rely on the ongoing support of Smart Services, including predictive maintenance via international call centres and support from Lectra’s network of experts.
According to Italian research agency CSIL, production in the upholstery market has grown by 45% since 2009, and now accounts for around 15% of the world’s furniture production. CSIL estimates that the UK is responsible for around 3% of the world’s upholstery output. Fabric production accounts for about 75% of the UK’s output, and leather the vast majority of the remaining 25%.
CSIL predicts that the UK industry will grow by 2-3% over the coming years – lower than the global average of 4.1%, but a positive outlook nonetheless. Given this forecast, the time would seem ripe to invest in technology that facilitates faster and more profitable, efficient and responsible upholstery production.
