Custom upholstery manufacturer Sam Moore will resume production on Monday, May 11 at its 300,000-square-foot facility in Bedford, VA. Following the federal and state government stay-at-home guidelines as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, the company furloughed most of its staff, leaving a small group to focus efforts on building work in process and enhancing facility, operational and quality process improvements. Many employees will return to work next week.
Upon return, employees will follow new health and safety protocols that have been put in place at the factory and within the office. The protocols include social distancing with workstations spaced six feet apart, temperature checks, daily symptom questionnaires, face coverings, restrictions on visitors within the facility, regimented handwashing and sanitation stations and expanded cleaning protocols across all work areas. Employees who can perform their job duties remotely will continue to work at home on a rotating basis to limit the number of employees in the office areas.
“In conjunction with neighboring companies in Bedford, Sam Moore abided by the CDC, state and federal guidelines to help minimize the spread of COVID-19 in our community,” said Alex Reeves, president of Sam Moore. “Over the last several weeks, we have been monitoring the situation and have been slowly – and cautiously – returning our manufacturing workforce to a level of normalcy.”
During the temporary reduction in workforce and production, the company took advantage of the “down time” to focus on enhancing its facility, operational efficiencies and quality processes. Supervisors across all departments banded together to implement several initiatives that will improve its overall performance and speed of delivery when capacity returns to full production. Some of the initiatives include revamping and relocating its product development department, implementing new quality control systems, creating a new sales aids department, refurbishing and reorganizing its COM, spring-up and cushion departments as well as a variety of building maintenance and improvement activities.
“This has most certainly been an unprecedented time, and while it did present a ‘bump in the road,’ we were not going to let it derail our plans for this year,” Reeves said. “We had to keep moving – safely – toward our goals and I am so proud of the tremendous work our team accomplished to ensure that Sam Moore will emerge even stronger on the other side of this. They truly made the most of an extraordinary situation.”
The factory was not completely quiet during this time. Furniture production continued with work already in process and orders for its contract business, which was not as impacted by COVID-19 as its residential products – which had softened due to temporary retail closures across the country. In addition to producing contract furniture, Sam Moore used its sewing expertise to provide fabric masks for healthcare providers and first responders at its local hospital, fire department, EMS and veterinarian offices. The company also provided masks for many of its sales reps and dealers across the country.