In response to significant pressures this year, sofamaker Westbridge plans to consolidate all of its production into a single-site facility, with all work transferring from the WB3 building into WB2 by the end of 2024, reports owner, The Belfield Group.
Westbridge says WB2 will become the its sole manufacturing facility, retaining significant capacity through a proposed use of shift patterns – although the business says it will retain its WB3 facility, with a view to restarting operations in this facility "when market conditions improve and volume demand returns".
"Westbridge have faced several impacts over the past year that have led to this decision," states the sofamaker. "The uncertainty in consumer confidence, combined with supply-chain and inflation pressures, created a difficult trading environment in 2024, an environment that has impacted the whole industry.
"In addition, M&S’ decision to exit the ‘bulky furniture’ market has resulted in us accelerating transformation plans to mitigate the loss of a significant portion of our traditional intake. The decision to move to a single manufacturing site allows us to accelerate our ‘factory of the future’ concept, providing us solid foundations for growth, whilst rationalising cost to ensure the business can complement its superior design and quality with competitive prices. We believe this additional resilience will ensure the long-term success of our business."
Westbridge says it is taking great steps to ensure that there is no impact to customers during the transfer of work from WB3 to WB2: "We have a project team assembled, led by a skilled project manager and supported on all project meetings by our exec team and senior management team. We are now very experienced at managing the transfer of work between our multi-site facilities, so we are extremely confident we will continue to meet the Westbridge high standards of quality and delivery performance on any transferred product through this period.
"It is our intention to transfer work in stages over the next two months, so we drip-feed out of WB3 and drip-feed into WB2, ensuring our skilled workforce transfers at the appropriate time alongside all necessary stocks, componentry and customer-specific instructions on a customer-by-customer basis. This step-by-step approach will ensure that each customer is treated as a standalone transfer project, with each subsequent project then beginning once the previous project has been completed and production is running with no impacts."
The news follows a consolidation of Westbridge's workforce this summer (see related). In addition to site consolidation at Westbridge, The Belfield Group has also announced a further review of headcount within the Belfield Leisure business, "ensuring resource is aligned appropriately for the forecast demand in 2025", and says that it proposes to exit the soft furnishing market, with an expected wind-down of operations at the Belfield Home business by 31st January 2025.
