Furniture production for Russian market based on an IKEA concept

Abstract: Wood is the most ancient material used by mankind for furniture
making. During the ages it was almost completely replaced by new materials
like metal, plywood, chipboard, plastic, MDF and some others. But nowadays,
as the world has become too filled with different chemicals and harmful
substances, people have started to worry about ecological and
human-friendly materials. Thus wood has received its "re-birth".

The market share of solid wood glued board furniture is increasing
every year. However if we take a close look at the Russian furniture
market, we will notice that this process is extremely slow in our country
because of local stereotypes regarding common furniture appearance which
can be clearly seen through IKEA example. IKEA is one of the largest wood
producers on the Russian furniture market. Four years ago IKEA opened its
first store in Russia. Yet the sales share for solid wood furniture is
still much lower than that in Europe. That is why there is a huge need for
solid wood furniture products specifically adapted to the Russian market.

The main goal of this thesis is to design a factory capable of
producing a furniture set made of solid wood which could fit in the IKEA
range in Russia. The choice of overall appearance and construction is based
on the Russian market research. All technological and environmental
requirements are based on internal IKEA specifications.

The designed furniture production viability was checked from
technological and economical points of view.

The well-known “wooden glued board” production system was chosen
because it gives an opportunity to increase the yield. The idea is that
sawn goods are splitted into planed lamellas in 4-side molder and glued
together in pressing machine to get the glued board which can be processed
further like a usual board material like chipboard or MDF. Then the CNC
router center used to get the non-linear shape of the edges. For finishing
the UV-curing line was chosen as the system which can give us the most
cheap surface treatment layer. The exact equipment models were chosen
according to the needed capacities on the each stage of production process.
The whole line is able to produce 45000 pieces of universal furniture unit
per year in case of three shifts which corresponds to ~2600 m3 of highly
treated furniture.

The raw materials needs were calculated using original Russian
method which allows taking into account the exact amounts of all wastes on
each stage of technological process. The annual sawn goods need was
estimated to ~6000 m3. Also all additional need like glue, stains, sealer,
lacquer and sanding paper were calculated in purpose to get the real direct
production costs.

The total factory layout including all additional areas was made
based on Russian legislation and hygienic norms. It was needed to calculate
annual electricity, water and heat assumption.

The final stage of the thesis is the total economical calculation
of all costs to carry out during the production of annual program. Taking
into calculation all direct and indirect production costs the profitability
became 36,5% which is really high figure for Russian market. The IRR of
11,3% and payback time of 4,6 years is also suitable for Russia, so the
project appears to be vital and profitable.