Who's the Customer?
Founded in 2008, Zhejiang Tucson Customized Home Furnishing is a Chinese company that designs and manufactures high-end wooden furniture and home decorations. Concentrating on medium- and high-end consumers, the group has created a series of lines covering a range of styles, all of which are produced at a facility covering over 80 hectares that has more than 1400 employees.
The Challenge
To meet customer needs, ensure prompt delivery and control costs, the company constantly seeks to optimise the balance between its customisation and mass production capabilities. To ensure flexibility and efficiency, Tucson has developed a unique approach to production: it breaks down and reorganizes each job order into smaller order packages. During the critical business development period, however, this approach has led to bottlenecks both in customisation processes and in the optimisation of economies of scale.
The Cefla Finishing solution
Following an in-depth joint study with Cefla, Tucson installed six lines for the large-scale manufacture of various component types: the smart roller coating line is used for fast, centralised coating of the front/back of flat panels, while the edge coating and sanding line is used for the smart processing of panel edges. The spray coating line is used to coat the majority of raised panels, as it delivers both productivity and quality. Then there’s the highly flexible robotic spraying line, which handles a small portion of complex-shaped panels. Lastly, the frame moulding spray coating line and frame moulding sanding line are used to perform high-speed application of various decorative mouldings and other trims.
Risultati
The extensive automation achieved by implementing Cefla's solutions not only allowed Tucson to find the best possible compromise between customisation and economies of scale: it also optimised their production process. Significant labour and material savings have been secured. Simultaneously, quality levels have become more stable and high-precision manufacturing standards achieved.
Combining mass production and customisation by leveraging automated processes
"For wooden furniture, final coating is crucial as it gives consumers a visual, tactile impression of the product, generating the desire to purchase. In some ways, it's like make-up. And, for our products, the Cefla finishing line works as an excellent make-up artist”
Hua Weifu, Finishing Production Director of Tucson
In the high-end customised furnishing accessory market, Tucson products are positioned in a way that’s comparable to BMW and Mercedes Benz in the automotive world. It’s therefore easy to see why uniqueness of product design and superlative quality have to be consistent across the group's range.
As one might imagine, right from the start the challenge was to balance customisation and mass production needs, without ever compromising on the quality of the finish.
More specifically, in 2018 Tucson decided to overcome a series of potentially critical issues concerning what looks like, to all intents and purposes, a mismatch: that is, the conflict between the need to expand production through economies of scale and the group’s main mission.
The mission in Italy and the meeting with Cefla
A team led by President Wang Weiyang therefore visited Italy to discuss the issue and explore new product development ideas with renowned Italian designers. They advised top management to look at some of the solutions created by Cefla Finishing.
The Tucson delegation visited not just Cefla's headquarters, but also the factories of its main Italian customers. This allowed them to identify, among the applications taken into consideration, a series of systems which were then merged into a solution co-developed with Cefla technicians: six integrated lines that have led to automation of the entire Tucson product finishing process.
"The outstanding technology, stable performance and high input-output ratio of Cefla lines lets us convert our designers’ instincts into reality, giving products a more captivating shine and ensuring we stand out from the competition "
Hua Weifu, Finishing Production Director of Tucson
A partnership that goes beyond the mere supply of technology
The scope of the Tucson-Cefla partnership extends well beyond that of technology procurement: after-sales assistance is essential to this Chinese group, and they can count on Cefla to promptly identify - and quickly resolve - any problems that might arise.
Even after the project was completed, both parties continued to discuss new technical requirements emerging from the life cycle of Tucson's products, generating new ideas and a mutual drive to seek out new solutions. The partnership remains active across the board: Tucson, in fact, continues to keep its eye on Cefla's products and technological upgrades with a view to adding further solutions and fuelling the group's strategy of continuous improvement.
An increasingly sustainable factory
Tucson has made the construction of a sustainable, carbon-neutral factory a priority. For example, the company has long used water-based paints and collaborated with some of the most innovative international manufacturers to co-develop bio-coatings. Workers' health is safeguarded throughout the production process by a sterilised facility in which all dust is absorbed, collected and re-used by the centralised particulate removal system. Waste generated during production is also collected and reused.
What’s more, the factory is gradually being equipped with photovoltaic systems that will let it produce all the electricity it requires, while rainwater collection and reuse systems will meet internal needs. Automation systems co-developed with Cefla also help lower plant energy needs, making production increasingly sustainable in terms of the use of consumables. By combining all these initiatives, Tucson plans to become carbon-neutral by 2030.
"The partnership between Cefla and Tucson has had a positive impact on the Chinese market for both parties and is an excellent example of win-win cooperation "
Hua Weifu, Finishing Production Director of Tucson
