YPIE Tour Blog Day 12: Rack Systems & KI

Craig Thurston from Howdens Joinery writes about the YPIE group’s trip to Rack Systems’ HQ. 

We arrived at York-based company Rack Systems and were greeted by Richard Field, Managing Director, who introduced Tom Pollard, Design Manager, and Jonathan Hindle, Group Managing Director of KI.

Rack Systems is a company that manufactures furniture components for office and educational market sectors. It works with a number of key furniture suppliers in the UK and export markets.

Richard explained how Rack Systems and KI set up a partnership to develop new products and how their goals and designs aligned.

During the day we got to see Rack Systems’ manufacturing facility from the raw material storage area through to the dispatch area.

It was particularly interesting for many of the group to see how the company manufactures metal and the powder coating process, as these are not typical processes for manufacturers in the furniture industry to be using.

Another are of interest was the manufacture of its desktop screens, which use an innovative new manufacturing technique to create upholstered products that aren’t typical of a metal working company such as Rack, thus showing the company’s clear drive to grow and develop.

After lunch Richard explained what it takes to bring a product to market and the key questions Rack Systems have to answer when dealing with a new customer, including the stages involved in setting up a product from a supplier’s viewpoint. This knowledge will prove invaluable to us in the future as we deal with external suppliers.

We also learnt how technology such as CAD/CAM has improved and reduced the development time of new products, as allowances and tolerances can be planned and tested in the CAD software rather than having to produce multiple prototypes.

The visit has changed our perceptions of how a metal working company operates in the furniture industry.  The company’s clear drive to grow and develop can be seen from the company’s expansion of late and its plans for the future.

It was interesting for all of us to visit a company which operates as a supplier, as we all come from companies that design and manufacture many of their own products.

The focus on developing skills within the business drew a number of comparisons to many of our companies, which aim to develop staff during their employment. This helps provide a good future for both staff, the companies and the furniture industry as a whole.