Chair foam by CFS helps furniture manufacturer meet tight deadline

CFS helped a furniture company facing a crisis when its regular foam supplier failed.

Custom Foam Systems Ltd. (CFS) has a reputation for helping customers with tough projects requiring fast turnaround. One example involved a respected manufacturer of institutional furniture. This company was preparing to introduce a new line of healthcare chairs at a major trade show, but faced an emergency regarding chair foam.

Here is how CFS saved the day for this furniture company after the latter’s regular supplier dropped the ball.

A durable armrest support

Each chair had a large 30-by-30-inch black integral skin part with an over-moulded metal substructure that created a durable armrest support. The customer had a relationship with an offshore supplier of off-the-shelf components. But this supplier struggled with high scrap rates and could not surmount current manufacturing issues, causing it to miss deadlines.

As the trade-show deadline approached, the furniture company still did not have the chair foam for the part. The company needed a partner who knew integral skin components and could work quickly and cost-efficiently. Enter the CFS team.

The challenge CFS faced was to preserve the unique features of the chair design and maintain the structural integrity without altering the outer shape. The task would consist of re-engineering the inner frame to solve the moulding issues and meeting strict strength and aesthetic requirements. CFS had to build new mould and frame fixtures and produce enough components for the show, all in less than six weeks.

CFS’ advanced technical team met with the customer to review the project goals, then analyzed the CAD information, part samples, and the chair assembly’s key attachment points. The CFS crew engaged key supply-chain partners for metal fabrication and tooling to get their input and expertise. Among the redesign elements that CFS had to address were establishing a metal substructure part design that could be manufactured predictably and within tolerance and developing tooling that pushed the boundaries of the reaction injection moulding due to the component’s size and complexity.

The pilot run was a success. With CFS chair foam, the component met all output and scrap metrics, earned perfect customer acceptance, and met the deadline.

For more information, contact CFS.

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