Ashley’s Statesville, N.C., RTA facility is set to close next month.
Consolidating Carolina production into larger facility
By Alan Wolf, YSN
Ashley Furniture Industries plans to shut down a ready-to-assemble (RTA) furniture factory in Statesville, N.C., next month and move production to a nearby manufacturing hub.
According to the Winston-Salem Journal, the 310,000-square-foot facility will cease operations by Nov. 15, affecting 111 employees. Ashley acquired the plant three years ago from Homestar North America, the newspaper reported.
At the time of its acquisition, Ashley said the Statesville plant would allow it to “expand its diverse offering with an additional lower price-point and packaging system geared around a timelier customer-delivery process,” the Journal noted. The facility produced more than 500 SKUs including upholstered beds, occasional tables and bedroom, entertainment and home office furniture, and generated more than $50 million in annual wholesale sales.
In a statement issued to FurnitureToday, Ashley said the Statesville acquisition provided it entree into the RTA category, but that the company has since “been able to learn, enhance and better automate the production capabilities for our RTA assortment. By shifting production to other facilities, we will create more efficiency and better use of existing capacity in our manufacturing network.”
Ashley said it will consolidate Statesville’s production into the company’s massive 3.8-million-square-foot manufacturing, distribution and fulfillment facility in Advance, N.C., located about 40 minutes away, and will offer employees “many opportunities” to transfer there.
According to the Journal, the workforce consolidation could help allay a longstanding labor shortage at the Advance facility that predates the COVID-19 pandemic.
