With the improvement of people’s living standard, mass customization production model has been the trend of the furniture industry. A model of furniture product design and assembly for customization is proposed. It can decompose customers’ needs and transform them into homologous modules set in the structure tree. This process will not only save manpower and resources, but also improve enterpri...

We investigate the manufacturing strategy of 72 Chinese furniture companies based on a nationwide survey conducted in mid-2001, just prior to WTO accession. We provide an overview of the industry and its context before reporting on the operations objectives of the firms — focusing on their relationship to financial performance and technology. We report on the current status of, and future plans...

One of the most important objectives of the Business Innovation and Virtual Enterprise Environment (BIVEE) project is the management and fostering of innovation and production improvement in small and medium enterprises (SMEs). This short paper presents a brief description of the key factors and the methodology followed during the analysis of the current situation of the companies selected as e...

As energy costs continue to rise, industrial plants (even those of energy nonintensive industries such as furniture industry) need effective way to reduce the amount of energy they consume. Besides, there are a number of economic and environmental reasons why a company should consider environmental management initiatives. This paper provides a detailed guideline for implementing joint energy an...