by The $3 million project will include investments in building, equipment and inventory at its Robbins, N.C. production facilities
ROBBINS, N.C. – A planned $3 million expansion of Minhas Furniture House Ltd., also known as Flair Enterprises, is expected to cut the company’s backlog for its domestic upholstery in half, allowing it to ship product more quickly to new and existing customers.
The company is adding about 165,000 square feet of space in Robbins, said Bill Minhas, president of Flair and Minhas Furniture. With most of that space being used for production and some planned to hold inventory, the building will be more than double the 125,000 square feet it continues to operate a couple of miles away.
In addition to the 200,000-square feet of manufacturing it has in Calgary, Canada and the 100,000-square feet it has in China, the latest building will bring its total production space to about 590,000 square feet, Minhas told Home News Now.
He added that the $3 million being invested in the project is for building upfit, inventory and machinery that includes a fiber opener, a compressor, a seat filling machine, a forklift, plus a floor cleaning machine. The expansion is also being supported by a $74,000 building reuse grant from the N.C. Rural Infrastructure Authority approved this past fall.
The company purchased the building, a former hosiery mill, in June and expects to spend nearly $400,000 to renovate the facility, according to the North Carolina Department of Commerce, which oversees the grant program.
Before the expansion, the company employed 65 workers in Robbins. As of mid-December, it had hired another 30 workers and is looking to hire another 45 in the next six months.
During that timeframe, the company is looking to cut into the backlog for its custom fabric upholstery line. It currently ships in 10-12 weeks from the time of order, and the new facility is expected to reduce that to about four to six weeks.
“We produce upholstery in North Carolina now, and the new plant will help us ship orders on time, and meet the demand we have for our product,” Minhas said. “In the short term it is going to help us clear the backlog we have, which might take 3 months or more.”
While he declined to reveal how many pieces the new plant will produce, Minhas said that the expansion will double the company’s current production by the end of the second quarter. This, he noted, will help meet both demand for the upholstery line from both existing customers and new accounts that have voiced interest in recent months.
In addition to clearing the backlog, he said the expansion will provide customers quicker deliveries compared to what they are getting now.
“It will expand our retail base a lot as we are looking to double the production in the next six months,” he said of the company’s long-term growth plan, adding, “This is our 25th year and we are still growing. We are proud to be a manufacturer in North American, both in Canada and the U.S. As the demand is there, we will be there to support it.”
