Context of Project

• Company: SouthShore
• Wood furniture company in Quebec city, Canada
• (Medium size, 40-60$M sales, 500 employees)
• Needed to change business model to survive Asian imports
• US wood household market: $4.2B in 1997 to $19.6B in
2002
• Imports rose from 25% of sales to 50%, and Chinese
imports rose from 20% of sales to 40%
• During same period, due to MC, Wood cabinet industry
in N.A, rose but not imports!
• In 2006, President had vision of offering Mass Customized
furniture
 Case of ShouthShore
• Product
• Particle wood boards + accessories
• Household and office furniture
• Assembled and ready-to-be-assembled (RTA)
• Markets
• 70% US, 30% Canada
• 5% online (RTA) in 2007
• Production
• 2 production plants
• Time-to-market
• 4-6 months for new product
Product types
Sample “case” item from their offer
Top

Sides
Drawers

Moulding
Assembly
bar
 Sample drawers

T1 Front T5

T2 Back

T3 Sides and slides

T4 Bottom

T5 Fixtures T1

T4

T3
T2
 Drawers
Ready to assemble

Unique bag for all

1 drawer heights!

3 4 fixtures

2
5
stabilizer
Hollow dowel
4
Drilling patterns
 Night table platform
Configurations of night table with common tops, drawers and sides.
Good Better 1 Better 2 Best

Full

Semi

Interior
 New structure for casings

Base casing, with

top
parts that can be
added as
accessories

Mass-customization
‘ready’
mould B

side

mould A kick plate

 Fixture for decorative mouldings
‘Key-hole’ groove in the
moulding to insert fixture

No tools
Quick
Removable
Tighter fixture,
Cleaner edges
Less costly
 Drilling patterns
Unique drilling pattern for sides of casings

Night tables Dressers Chests

Enormous savings set-up times for drill

machines, a major bottleneck and expensive
machines
 Standard Assembly bars
Interior bars have standard dimensions
65mm, 82mm

Standard drilling patterns