Jeff Linville
PULASKI, Va. — Pulaski Furniture says it has cut inventories, improved delivery times and reduced waste as part of a new emphasis on lean manufacturing.


Lean manufacturing has become a buzzword for domestic companies seeking to remain competitive with importers. Pulaski, however, does both, importing case goods but maintains a 415,000-square-foot curio operation here.

The Keepsakes curio line remains big business, with about a quarter of Pulaski’s annual sales coming from goods made at this facility, according to John Oakley, senior vice president, chief financial officer and treasurer.

While the new lean strategies were implemented last year, Oakley said the turnaround began two years earlier when the company set up “continuous improvement teams” in the plant. He said the idea was to train people on better ways of doing their jobs and to condition them to accept change and make further improvements.

Every time a team reached a milestone in improving a process, the company set new objectives, said Jim Kelly, executive vice president of product development and marketing.

In March 2012, Pulaski hired a consulting firm to train middle and upper management on lean manufacturing.

“We jumped in with both feet,” said Oakley, noting that 50 people spent a week in training. “From the CEO down to the line-level team leaders — that’s as cross-functional as you can get.”

From that experience, the company developed strategic plans on how to run the operations. Managers mapped out processes on a wall and figured out how long each should take, and how many people would be needed.

This led to cutting out about 100 feet of conveyor line to reduce inefficiency, and moving machinery and other equipment around in the plant; a few new pieces were added too. Reducing waste didn’t mean cutting any jobs, Oakley said. Instead, some workers were reallocated to other areas as needed.

A driving influence in the decision to remake the company was to reduce inventory both for Pulaski and its retailers, said Oakley.

“We want to be easier to do business with,” said Kelly. Rather than leave retailers choking on inventory after ordering container loads, Pulaski is offering smaller shipments more often.

The plant is looking to turn its entire inventory eight to 12 times a year, said Kelly. With 200 SKUs in the catalog, cuttings are kept short in order to run every product once a month.

The smaller lot sizes required a change in the manufacturing process, said Oakley. Usually, plants run big lots so that the machinery doesn’t have to be recalibrated and lumber can be taken from the same piles. However, by finding similarities between groups, Pulaski has created “families” that use the same equipment settings and/or lumber sizes.

This change has meant standardizing many components, said Larry Webb Jr., Pulaski president and CEO. While the company wants designers to have creative freedom, it helps the plant to have common sizes for parts like curio side panels.

The company offers a limited number of curio depth options — like 14 inches and 20 inches — so the same width side panel can be used in many different pieces. Workers can run many panels at once and not waste time changing equipment and settings.

The end result is that a year after adopting the lean processes, Pulaski has reduced its lumber inventory by 25%, its finished goods inventory by 40% and its works in process by 50%, said Oakley.

Yet shipping times are better. While the company has always kept top sellers in inventory, and still does, every product in the line is now cut at least once every four to six weeks — a shorter waiting period than before the lean management changes.

Rather than stop at improving the curio plant, Pulaski this year has initiated lean strategies throughout the company, including customer service and logistics. Management recommended some books on business practices to its executives. Office work was streamlined.

According to Kelly, the focus on improvement now covers the whole business cycle, from receiving an order to manufacturing and delivering them.