November 18,
2008 by in UnCategorized 
By Home Furnishings Business in Bedding on November 2008
Leggett & Platt honored 12 employees for their contributions to technological advancement at the second annual J.P. Leggett Innovators Awards Dinner, held recently at the bedding and furniture component manufacturer’s Carthage, Mo., headquarters.
The awards are for both individual and team-created innovations. This year’s recipients range from product designers to engineers to heads of marketing.
2008 J.P. Leggett Innovator Award recipients are:
• LeRoy Johnson, senior director, emerging technologies, for eCoupled technology.
Johnson worked to develop eCoupled, an evolution in traditional energy that delivers power through advanced wireless infrastructure. eCoupled will be showcased by Leggett at the 2009 Consumer Electronics Show.
• Ryan Chacon, software controls engineer; Niels Mossbeck, senior director, advanced technologies; Mark Quinn, executive vice president of sales and marketing, bedding group; Chuck Steers, mechanical design engineer; Jason Turner, director of controls & technologies; and Tom Wells, Jr., director of engineering strategy & technical, all for Starry Night Sleep technology.
Chacon, Mossbeck, Quinn, Steers, Turner and Wells created and promoted Starry Night Sleep Technology, the first bed to incorporate diagnostic and entertainment technologies to create an intelligent, intuitive and comfortable sleep environment. Starry Night was not only a revolutionary concept that redefined the boundaries of the bedding industry, but also was an international media sensation.
• Dana Lockwood, senior seating designer, Indiana Chair Frame business unit for the Responder Office Chair.
The Responder office chair is an ergonomically-designed office chair that responds intuitively to all body movements and is uniquely engineered, designed and tested to withstand more than one million cycles of 24/7 intensive use.
• Jennifer Guerndt, vice president of marketing, Gamber-Johnson business unit; Jason Lewandowski, vice president of engineering, Gamber-Johnson business unit for MAG Dock.
Guerndt and Lewandowski created and promoted the design and technology of the MAG Dock, the industry’s first low-density and affordable magnesium docking station. MAG Dock is used in thousands of vehicles worldwide.
• Greg Lawson, chief engineer, Omega Motion business unit, for ZWAHL (Zero Wall High Leg).
Leggett & Platt saus Zero Wall High Leg technology is the world’s only high-leg motion mechanism for furniture. Zero Wall High Leg technology utilizes geometry to balance chair operation, ensuring that when reclining, a chair will adjust itself to never come in contact with a wall or other obtrusive objects.
• Glenn Wiecek, product designer, furniture hardware division, for Patients Choice Medical Care Mechanism.
Patients Choice is a new mechanism for coupling a seat back to a base, providing for smooth and simultaneous extension and retraction in seating items including sofas, loveseats and modular sectionals.
November 17,
2008 by in UnCategorized
By Home Furnishings Business in Furniture Retailing on November 2008
The company that operates Albuquerque, N.M.-based American Home Furnishings gained permission late last week to hold going-out-of-business sales at its six Arizona locations.
The sales will be conducted by Planned Furniture Promotions, Enfield, Conn., at three locations in Tucson and one each in Prescott, Mesa and Sahuarita.
AFC Acquisitions, American Home’s parent company, filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy last week. In court papers, the 11-store chain revealed plans to consolidate three locations in Albuquerque into one store and operate it with locations in Santa Fe and Farmington. The court papers stated that the bankruptcy came after a key lender, Wells Fargo Retail Financing, cut off a revolving credit facility.
Company officials have said Arizona was particularly hard hit by foreclosures. A statement issued last week stated that the plan to rebuild the company around three stores will preserve the company’s 70-year heritage and serve customers in New Mexico.
November 17,
2008 by in UnCategorized
By Home Furnishings Business in Home Office on November 2008
Knoll announced Monday that its Chadwick task chair has been granted a Sustainable Gold rating under the SMaRT Consensus Sustainable Product Standard.
The designation is granted by the Institute for Market Transformation to Sustainability (MTS), a non-profit group. The group’s certification process measures a product’s environmental, economic and social benefits over its life and throughout the supply chain, from raw materials to reclamation and re-use. SMaRT-certified products can contribute to achieving a LEED Innovation in Design credit.
Chadwick is the second product in the furniture industry to be SMaRT-certified after Knoll’s Life chair earned the SMaRT Sustainable Gold rating in March. Both feature efficient use of materials, recyclable content and easily replaceable parts. The two chairs are manufactured at Knoll’s East Greenville, Pa., factory, which has a LEED Gold certification and is 100 percent powered by wind energy.
“We are pleased with our progress in implementing SMaRT certification for Chadwick because it considers all three criteria of the sustainability triple bottom line: environmental, social and economic impacts,” said Lou Newett, Knoll environmental health and safety manager. “We believe this standard is the most meaningful certification too for sustainable products.”
November 17,
2008 by in UnCategorized
By Home Furnishings Business in Furniture Retailing on November 2008
Jerome’s Furniture has received the San Diego National Bank Founders Award in the family-owned closely held business category, the San Diego Business Journal reported last week.
Jim and Esther Navarra founded the business in 1954. Jerome’s employs 370 people, including seven members of the Navarra family. The company operates five San Diego-area showrooms and clearance centers, and a 450,000-square-foot distribution center.
The retailer’s community activities include work with several charities such as the YWCA’s Becky’s House, a non-profit shelter for victims of domestic violence and their children; and Cortez Hill Family Center, which provides short-term housing to homeless families, along with job placement, and medical and legal support.
The retailer also supports My Sister’s Closet Thrift Stores; San Diego Women’s Foundation; and Business Link at University of San Diego, which encourages relationships and collaboration between USD and the corporate community.
November 17,
2008 by in UnCategorized
By Home Furnishings Business in Youth, Juvenile Furniture on November 2008
In a time when more furniture manufacturing moves off shore, case goods vendor Stanley Furniture, Stanleytown, Va., has revved up efforts to build business for its mostly U.S.-made Young America line among upscale shoppers for youth bedroom goods in the People’s Republic of China.
At a news conference last summer, Vice President of International Sales and Clare Zhang, chinese sales representative and a furniture retailer, held a press conference to communicate the brand’s business objectives.
“First and foremost, we wanted the press conference to serve as a vehicle to establish the credibility and history of the brand and Stanley Furniture Company since its founding in 1924,” Miller said.
The conference also helped Stanley differentiate its brand from other infant and youth furniture lines in China.
“We used the conference to emphasize Young America’s key brand tenets--safety, quality and functionality through the concept of ‘Built to Grow,’” Miller said. “Safety is one of the primary concerns among China’s upper class, largely the market purchasing these products. Plus, Young America products transform over the lifetime of the child, so it makes sense that investment in quality, timeless furniture has become a key selling attribute to Chinese parents.”
Miller added that Chinese consumers are very interested in brands, especially those from America.
“What makes the Young America story so powerful and unique is that the majority of the products are actually produced in the U.S.A.,” he said. “This attribute truly separates Young America product lines from other competitors in the Chinese marketplace today.”