King Hickory Furniture Company selects Plataine’s TPO FabricOptimizer and NESTERwood solutions to optimize its upholstery fabric and frame cutting processes

TPO deployments to support King Hickory’s ongoing drive for lean manufacturing and increased competitiveness

Hickory, North Carolina, March 31st, 2010 – King Hickory Furniture Company seeks to increase productivity and material utilization in its facilities in North and South Carolina using Plataine’s TPO solutions.

 

According to John Palmer, President of King Hickory, “Coming out of the recession, we were looking for technology that will help us do more with our current resources. TPO was chosen to help us automate manual tasks such as fabric nesting and roll-selection, as well as plywood nesting and router programming, while seamlessly driving our Lectra fabric cutters and CNC routers”.

 

“TPO’s approach to dynamic nesting," Palmer adds, “will allow us to more easily deal with a growing number of orders for custom product, while increasing our material yield and keeping the number of remnants in stock to a manageable level”.

 

Plataine’s Total Production Optimization (TPO) solutions include NESTERwood for plywood nesting and cut-path optimization, and FabricOptimizer, for real-time dynamic nesting, roll-picking and cut-planning optimization of upholstery fabric. Both solutions are integrated to the manufacturer’s ERP/MRP and CAD systems, and create ready-to-cut production plans by automatically selecting the optimal materials to use, and generating the optimal nests for each order.

“We are looking forward to the upcoming deployments of our TPO solutions at King Hickory, who chose Plataine’s optimization technology as part of their continuous aspiration to maximize production efficiency” says Avner Ben-Bassat, Plataine's President. Ben-Bassat adds that “TPO software is now offered as a hosted service to its customers (Software as a Service - SaaS), offering users a fundamentally faster, less risky and more cost-effective alternative to the ‘traditional’ (on premises) software installations”.

 

About King Hickory Furniture Company King Hickory Furniture Company is a family owned company. The company began manufacturing fine upholstered furniture in 1958 in Hickory, North Carolina. For over 50 years, the company has proudly provided the highest quality, upholstered fabric and leather furniture to the consumer. King Hickory has used three major assets in building its reputation over the years; solid frames, master craftsmen, and 8 way hand tied springs.

For more information, visit http://www.kinghickory.com

 

About Plataine
Plataine is a leading provider of production optimization solutions for manufacturers of metal, wood, textile and composite-material products. Plataine’s production optimization solutions enable manufacturers to be more competitive by increasing material utilization, improving productivity, and shortening manufacturing cycles to ensure on-time delivery of products to customers. Plataine’s solutions are used by hundreds of manufacturers worldwide, including Bassett Furniture, Boeing, Century Furniture, Drexel Heritage, Ethan Allen, Ford, General Motors, The Gap, Hagger, Nike, and Wrangler. For more information, visit www.plataine.com or contact your local Plataine office.