Nigel Morley, Managing Director at Rise & Recline Limited, talks about recent investments and a rising demand in electric furniture.
In challenging market conditions, being agile to adapt to the changing landscape and shifting demands is imperative if a business is to succeed. For Rise & Recline, specialists in the manufacture of electric chairs, 2 – 3 sofas and beds for the mobility and healthcare sectors, this ethos embodies the core of the company.
Established back in 2001 and based in Long Eaton, manufacturing bespoke products is key to its ongoing success, while continuous invest has allowed the business to maintain growth and react to market demands. However, growth does not come without its challenges.
“Like every SME we are working in challenging times and our whole ethos is to adapt to the market conditions especially when there are elements that we cannot control such as NIC & minimum wage increases,” said Nigel Morley, Managing Director at Rise & Recline.
“We have mounting competition from cheap imports and customers don’t always understand the difference between those products and those manufactured by Rise & Recline, the old adage of you only get what you pay for has never been truer.
“Electric chairs and beds need to be made to a high standard as the fact that they move continuously from one position to another puts stress on the wooden frame. We always say that it is what you don’t see in our products is what makes the difference between us and our competitors. We’re acknowledged as one of the strongest in this sector.”
Keeping the company in pole position is continued investment across the board. More recently, Rise & Recline has invested in latest technology CNC equipment, as well as system upgrades and the introduction of AI. “The new equipment has enabled us to design a lightweight but incredibly strong frame, made in our own wood shop utilising wood from sustainable sources,” Nigel said.
“This has the added advantage of us being able to design and produce new styles for both R&R branded and white label products at short notice. We are able to offer a lifting capacity on chairs & beds of up to 25st with additional capacity, if necessary, as we understand that customers come in all shapes and sizes.
“We have also invested in additional production space to ensure that we can significantly flex our production capacity to both meet increased demand and support our industry leading 7-10 lead time on bespoke/white label products.
“We are currently working with NTU on a government funded initiative called KTP (Knowledge Transfer Partnership) which allows us to have a Computer Science postgraduate mostly funded by KTP embedded in our business for a 2-year project.
“The project will reset all of our internal systems to create an automated process from order placed to delivery with minimal human input. After seven months this project is well on track and is already making significant improvements.
“In another project, we identified that if we could link into Academia, we would have access to a wealth of talent and support at minimum cost. Our initial pilot scheme with Nottingham Trent University (NTU) enabled us to have the expertise to develop an automated production planning system to replace our old paper-based process. This has revolutionised our ability to produce more products on time and track every product as it goes through production.
“Finally, the introduction of AI has given us real time data collection, which has created a dashboard of information across all areas. Our production team can see where they are against the target as they close off each stage of production and we can see who has made what and when.
“This means that every R&R chair and bed will be identified at every stage as to who completed each process during manufacturing, ensuring total quality management control.”
Nigel added that these investments will enable the business to meet growing demand, which has risen significantly over the past couple of years. “We have seen an increasing interest in electric chairs and beds outside of the mobility industry and many furniture retailers offer variants of electric chairs & beds.
“For those interested in ordering for Christmas our cutoff date for all products to be delivered by Christmas is the 8th December. This gives our retail partners many more opportunities to sell in the run up to the festive season.
“We believe we are now in a position to expand into the broader furniture market and are looking for new retail partners to work with us. Get in touch (info@riseandrecline.co.uk or 0115 913 3572) to see how we can work together.”
