YPIE Blog Day Nine: DFS

Bespoke maker Sam Ryan writes about the Young Professional Industry Experience’s trip to DFS.

Our trip to DFS head office started with a briefing by consultant Russ Platts, who gave an insight to the history of the company.

DFS is a sofa specialist. Sofas make up 95% of the businesses turnover with home furnishings making up the remaining 5%.

He then took us on three tours. The first was a manufacturing and assembling tour in the main office to see how each sofa and home furnishings design is developed

The second tour was of the design studio to see how each product is designed from the initial sketch, through to making the wooden concept model, and then finalising the design before it is quality checked and put into production.

The final tour was in the company’s Darley Dale shop, to understand the full process of making DFS sofas and furnishings.

As a bespoke maker, I pride myself on making quality furniture. In turn, DFS prides itself on being famous for creating and making quality sofas that every home loves and can afford.

The trip gave me an insight into mass market manufacturing and the assembly line process.

My perception of DFS was that it was simply a mass market sofa company. After visiting the main office manufacturing production, I saw how much attention is given to each design despite the high production rate.

Finding out that DFS raises money for charities, like the British Heart Foundation and Children in Need, by asking for a small donation from each customer purchase was inspiring to learn.

One of the many ways that DFS is evolving  is by investing in three areas of apprenticeships. These include manufacturing, retail sales and customer service managers, to ensure that it will have happy and well trained staff of younger generations to help develop and grow the business.