Fitted furniture manufacturer, Symphony, has made significant investments this year in its manufacturing, warehousing, transport and marketing facilities. Symphony’s new 130,000 sq. ft. manufacturing and warehouse facility in Wakefield opened in April increasing its total space to 935,000 sq. ft. across its three sites in Yorkshire. The new site will accommodate bulk storage of appliances and sinks, as well the central distribution centre for Symphony’s flat pack furniture enabling enhanced service improvements to both its retail and export business.
New Wakefield Manufacturing and Warehousing Facilities
At Symphony’s site in Rotherham, home to manufacturing for its retail brands including the Laura Ashley Kitchen Collection, there have been further enhancements with the expansion of their state of the art paint facilities. Symphony has led the way in its capability and quality of paint finishing and proudly hold the accolade of being the first British furniture manufacturer to successfully convert all its paint from solvent to an environmentally friendly water based option. The expansion is already making an impact in day-to-day operations with a reduced lead time for its remedial services on paint to order items. Simon Collyns, Group Marketing and Retail Sales Director, says “We’ve always invested heavily in our paint plant and manufacturing facilities and we’re pleased to say that that we’ve improved the turnaround time for paint to order remedials. This means that most items will now be delivered in 5 working days.”
Symphony’s transport fleet has also increased in 2018 with the total number of vehicles now exceeding 150 including more of its familiar burgundy double-drawer bar-trucks, as well as over thirty smaller sprinters to manage an express delivery service. In addition to its central distribution points from Barnsley, Wakefield and Rotherham, Symphony has grown its own regional distribution centres to a total of seven (from Scotland to London and the South West) which in turn has enabled enhanced service improvements including fixed day home delivery days and an express seventy two hour delivery by its own fleet. “Whilst we have seen successive years of double digit growth”, Collyns continues “we are not sitting on our laurels. The future will be about logistics and delivering a quality product when and where our customers expect it which is why we are investing now in the systems and logistic capability to deliver this. One of our greatest assets is that we now manage and control fully our transport operation which gives us a totally integrated business right up to point of delivery; some competitors rely on third parties for logistics which can result in others dictating, and even diluting the quality of their service.”
Investments in our transport facilities has seen our fleet grow.
Finally, Symphony has also invested in a remodelling of its acclaimed marketing suite this year, to reflect its expanding range of products within its portfolio of brands. Each brand is now represented in its own themed zone and you can take a journey from the contemporary futuristic Linear zone though to the classic heritage of the Laura Ashley area.
Symphony has always been the premier volume supplier to the retail and contract sectors and this latest round of investments shows how committed we are to our customers and how we value each and every order. Symphony offers a wide range of kitchen and bedroom ranges through the Laura Ashley Kitchen and Fitted Bedrooms as well as the Gallery, Urbano and Aquadi by Symphony collections. They are dedicated to continuously improving its customer services and product offers.
