American Furniture to Resume Full Production Monday 

January 31, 2018  by Larry Thomas in Business Strategy, Industry   

The date is exactly one month after about 40% of the one million square-foot facility in Ecru, Miss., was destroyed by the blaze.

American President Randy Spak said production, in fact, will be at about 120% of the company’s pre-fire capacity because a second shift that recently was started in undamaged areas of the factory will continue to operate.

Continuing the second shift will help the company work through its sizeable order backlog, he said.

“Our goal is to clear out the entire backlog by the end of February,” said Spak.

Motion upholstery production resumed about a week after the fire, but the frame shop and two plants for stationary upholstery production sustained smoke and water damage, and they’re in the final stages of clean-up, according to Spak.

He said most of the warehouse was destroyed, and about 25,000 pieces of finished goods and 3,000 partially finished pieces were lost. He said a firewall prevented the blaze from spreading to the portion of the warehouse where cut-and-sew cover kits are stored.

If the Chinese-made cover kits had been lost, Spak said there would have been a more significant delay in production because the kits could not have been quickly replaced since suppliers are closed for Chinese New Year.

“Thank God for the firewall,” he said. “Without it, we might not have been back in production until April.”

He said the warehouse will be rebuilt, but for now, the company is temporarily leasing a 200,000 square-foot warehouse in Oxford, Miss.