commercial upholstery

Our Fabric Supply – Proud, But Why?

March 25, 2020 by Lee Ness 1 Comment

Chieftain Fabrics and Global Upholstery Solutions Ltd have a long-standing fabric supply relationship; one of which we’re extremely proud.

Chieftain supply many of the fabrics used by our group partner Stannah Stairlifts, the world leading stairlift manufacturer, and so we use hundred’s of metres of Chieftain fabrics every week. Most of this is from their extensive Just Colour range. Stannah, in partnership with Design Agency blackswan has also just launched a premium range of upholsteries which includes the Chieftain Ravel and Lionella ranges.

Through the ever-changing demands of the customer and the Industry, and necessity of our delicate planet, they maintain a high level of achievement when it comes to Sustainability, a subject close to our heart.

Any supplier of any type of fabric will know that it’s not easily achievable and months, even years, of trials, testing, and market research is involved. But Chieftain Fabrics have achieved just this and continue to strive with further developments and improvements to their products: “It is not an easy task to produce a high quality, high performance vinyl fabric that has little impact on the environment. Here, at Chieftain Fabrics, this is our goal. Through making small frequent changes to our ingredients and production methods, we hope to eventually manufacture a coated fabric that is PVC free and yet fulfils all the requirements of a high-performance contract fabric”.

Chieftain Fabrics have implemented several changes – organic cotton backing cloth, switching to organic pigments from naturals sources such as plants, plant products or other carbon-based life forms, and use recycled polyester thread. They use pallets from recycled wood, sourced from FSC approved mills and in addition reuse the pallets too. All cardboard is recycled and sourced from FSC approved sources. Even in the office, they stay as paperless as possible, separate waste and use energy efficient lighting. I could go on, but you get the gist. But if you’re interested in knowing more, take a moment to visit their website and go to the Blog tab…

So, I go back to my opening line and reiterate how proud we are to be one of Chieftain Fabrics customer’s and now you know why. Their ethos is aligned with ours (take a look at our Sustainability Ethos here); we want to be a part of their fabric supply journey – discovering what is possible, bringing it to market for all to adorn.

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Lindsay Watson-Jones

Materials Manager

Upholstery Production Week 12

March 23, 2020 by Lee Ness Leave a Comment

As expected we experienced a drop in output in our upholstery production last week. As it happens, it isn’t as significant as the numbers suggest. We had pushed hard on some high-volume low value items and have corrected that this week and this has skewed the numbers. In terms of adjusted output, we ran around 10% lower than previous weeks. Considering the current circumstances with orders being rescheduled and staff being quarantined, this is another excellent result form the team, with no impact on customer shipments.

Products Shipped – 1597

Number of different product types shipped – 71

OTIF – 100%

Click here to read more about our Commercial Upholstery services

Our 20,000 square foot upholstery factory is designed into manufacturing cells with all our processes built to make our Upholstery Production with an efficient and effective use of resources. This allows our 50-strong shop floor team to produce large quantities of high-quality products in short lead times and deliver on time, every time.

Each cell includes CNC fabric cutting, adhesive spraying for foam, multiple sewing machines and machinists, multiple upholstery benches and quality inspection, packing and despatch benches.

Our team are multi-skilled and experienced so that one day we could be making 1500 identical theatre seats, the next we could make a single banquette seat. Our process is designed to adapt to whatever our customers need from us as we don’t make any of our own products – everything we make is for our business customers that need highly reliable deliveries of a range of products.

Headboards at The Queens Hotel and Spa

March 19, 2020 by Lee Ness 1 Comment

For the past few weeks our highly skilled upholsterers at Global Upholstery Solutions have been working hard on making bespoke headboards for The Queens Hotel and Spa in Bournemouth.

The Queens Hotel and Spa has now been owned by the Gordon family since 2006. During this time, the family have concentrated their efforts and combined their passion for hospitality into ensuring The Queens is one of the foremost and best loved Hotel in Bournemouth.

The Queens Hotel and Spa is currently undergoing a large renovation and we are proud to have produced 55 stunning pieces so far. These have been upholstered in Sunbury fabrics in some wonderful colourways; Madison Asgard, Cobra, Solitaire and Volcano. The best thing about Madison has to be its natural soft touch combined with a comprehensive colour palette. This makes it the ‘go-to’ plain velvet collection and works brilliantly in this design.

The headboards for floors 3 and 4 have been completed and delivered. Floors 1 and 2 are in progress and are due to be completed by the 1^st week in June.

We have worked in close cooperation with award-winning Interior Designer, Janine Powell at Hampton Design. Janine has been extremely pleased with the quality of work done by the team at Global Upholstery Solutions. We truly believe these headboards will top off the renovation of all the bedrooms in the hotel beautifully.

Global Upholstery Solutions specialise in commercial upholstery services . We have a very experienced team that have all the skills required to realise the vision of Interior Designers like Janine and the team at Hampton Design. If you have a project you are working on, please contact us.

Upholstery Production Week 11

March 16, 2020 by Lee Ness Leave a Comment

Upholstery Production Week 11

The second week of March was back to a more stable output without any major problems, although still the second highest output in terms of product quantity of the year. Due to the more stringent cleaning regimes within the factory due to Corona Virus, we should have been a little less productive but the teams are responding brilliantly. The large delivery of headboards cleared a bit of space in the factory ready for the next batch. Overall, a good week with another 100% OTIF performance.

Products Shipped – 2260

Number of different product types shipped – 67

OTIF – 100%

Click here to read more about our Commercial Upholstery services

Each cell includes CNC fabric cutting, adhesive spraying for foam, multiple sewing machines and machinists, multiple upholstery benches and quality inspection, packing and despatch benches.

Upholstery Production Week 10

March 9, 2020 by Lee Ness Leave a Comment

Upholstery Production Week 10

Week 1 of March gave us a bit of a challenge. Not only did it see the highest number of products in a week so far this year, we also had a slight hiccup. In fairness this wasn’t our fault. Some of our customers free-issue parts to us and once of the shipments was short of a set of parts. This shipment was due out on Wednesday and had a high work content. There were 10 products short. The parts arrived late morning on Wednesday, the production cell reacted like a swat team and the shipment went on time at 3pm. Due to the problem being caused by the customer, they would have rescheduled the shipment which of course would have protected our delivery performance, but it isn’t just about the measure. Our customers problems are our problems, so the shipment went on time!

Products Shipped – 2654

Number of different product types shipped – 75

OTIF – 100%

Click here to read more about our Commercial Upholstery services

Each cell includes CNC fabric cutting, adhesive spraying for foam, multiple sewing machines and machinists, multiple upholstery benches and quality inspection, packing and despatch benches.

Spotlight for International Women’s Day 2020

March 8, 2020 by Lee Ness Leave a Comment

Further to our general post on our women leaders on International Women’s Day 2020, we are spotlighting our Materials Manager, Lindsay Watson-Jones who manages all our Supplier Accounts for our Commercial Upholstery operations plus our Goods In and Despatch team and has just this week completed her CIPS Level 4 Qualification and is an inspirational figure for others.

Her’s the background on Lindsay from our International Women’s Day post

“After 15 years of working at Stannah Stairlifts, I made the leap to join another part of the Stannah Group, Global Upholstery Solutions Ltd. You’d think after all those years I’d know a bit about stairlift upholstery but there is way more to it than you think!
Working my way from Administrator, Supplier and Customer Account Management, I’m proud to be Global’s Materials Manager which includes Supplier Account Management and looking after our Goods In & Despatch teams.
There is a phrase ‘it’s a man’s world’ but in fact all my reports are male. We have mutual respect for one another and there is certainly no gender conflict. GUS believes if you’re right for the job and you do it well, you can achieve anything.”

After taking on the role of Supplier and Customer Account Management, Lindsay committed to the Commercial Procurement and Supply qualification which included a CIPS accreditation route. The CIPS accreditation arrived this week, just in time for International Women’s Day!

Here is Lindsay’s thoughts on the process:

“I didn’t like school much, I certainly didn’t like exams and still don’t! But courage, determination, and a lot of studying got me through the 5 exams I had to pass to gain my Level 4 Diploma in CIPS. I wont lie, I had a tear of relief and overwhelmed with pride when the certificate landed on my doorstep.
At nearly 40 years old, I really didn’t think I was ready to go back to the classroom. But with guidance and confidence from my colleagues, I was sure to get through it and I did.
Not forgetting the team at SRSCC who deliver the training and mentoring through the Student Apprenticeship Scheme.
With this qualification and my new found skills, I am more confident in my role as Materials Manager at GUS. The knowledge gained with help me and my team successfully grow the efficiency of the business.”

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