Furniture Manufacturing Process

The production process of hand-carved furniture in Pakistan is believed not to differ much from similar products elsewhere. It is a consecutive chain of activities, comprising:

· Raw material and operational supplies procurement (domestic or imported)

· Pre-treatment (log grading, log trimming, cooking (for plywood and veneer peeling)

· Primary processing (into planks, boards, veneer sheets) and their grading and drying

· Dimensioning into suitable components

· Transferring the designs of furniture parts into components, their cutting into shape

· Preparation of joints (tongue and groove) and other structural design features into components

· Hand-carving of components on visible surfaces

· Assembly, fabrication, finishing decoration, and application of paint, lacquer, hardener and polish

· Packaging, warehousing and transport

In Pakistan, in few cases hand carving is done before assembling furniture pieces. While in other cases, carving is done after assembling the pieces. However, the ideal way is to go for carving before assembly. The process of some furniture types requires carving to be done before they are assembled for making beds, sofas, chairs, etc. It has also been noted that detailed master drawings are used in relatively few companies in the Pakistani furniture industry. This may affect the quality of transferring designs to the components as well as the accuracy of component making. On the other hand, in some of the more sophisticated companies, computerized CAD systems are deployed.

For those companies that have reached a semi-industrial or industrial operation, there are possibilities to enhance the process flows and gain better operational efficiencies.