Pros' Point of View

Furniture trends from Kathy Basil and Nancy.

Kathy Basil said that lilac colour is the present trends. For furniture, she said that the colour will go well with rich dark wood finishes, clear acrylic and white. But, it wouldn’t look good in a medium-toned wood.

 Bellarine Peninsula. Photo: Armelle Habib

In agreement with Kathy, Nancy also said that lilac colours are popular. But, lilac is not the only colours that are popular right now. She said bright red, deep blue, gray and chrome yellow are also popular right now.

Furniture styles now are influenced by the ‘60s style. The furniture, especially chairs are covered with big and bold prints. The materials that were use back then such as Lucite, are also being use now. The Lucite will go well with traditional elements such as Lucite coffee table combined with classic wing chairs. This style creates a retro looks furniture.

(Source: http://www.smh.com.au/)

Furniture Trends

Nowadays, the consumers’ demand of the furniture are differs. The causes are because of the trends that occur in different places and times. Age is also cause the difference in the consumer demand because of  the old and the young people live in different era and trends so their taste in the furniture will be different also. So in this chapter, the furniture design and trends will be explained briefly.

There are many different trends of furniture. One of them is the mixer between the regal glam with modern sleekness together like the picture shown above. The picture shown dramatic glamorous crystal chandeliers that put contrasted together with Swedish sleek style. This both style  really complimented each other.

The other furniture trend is the wood cabinet. Even though wood is a classic material for furniture, but if the wood furniture were to be combined together with other materials and right lighting, it can make a stunning interior look.

For this 2014, instead of a luxurious look that stands out from the stainless steel kitchen appliances and cabinets, Jenn-Air designed a white kitchen that combines all the white kitchen appliances and cabinets that come in white colour. This style creates a sleek look and went well with wooden flooring also.

(Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/)

How do the factory control the mass production of furniture in Indonesia

Nowadays, there're many factories compete to dominate the market, that's what makes the factories try to maintain or even increase the quality of their furniture. PT.Herdex Sejahtera as one of the factory that produ ce furnitures, also try to do so. They do the quality control from the material (input), the process of furnitures making until the output/outcome of the furnitures.

The aims of PT.Herdex Sejahtera are:

- to produce furnitures that are standardize towards the factory's aims

- to produce furnitures that can fulfill consumer's need

- to produce furnitures that can compete with other furnitures

- to minimalize the production cost but to maintain the furnitures quality

There're 2 types of main materials that are used for producing. The first one that they use is wood that is called German Particle Board and the other one is Melamine Face Chipboard for laminating.

  

The steps that are used to maintain the furnitures quality:

1. Quality control of raw material

    This is the process of what they did to maintain the quality of raw material:

                i.            Supplier

             ii.            Quality Check

           iii.            Stored

            iv.            Produce

    If the materials are found to be bad when they do quality check then they'll return them to the supplier

2. Quality control in producing

    This is the process of what they did when producing:

                    i.            Raw Material

                  ii.            Robotic Machine

               iii.            Measurement Control

                iv.            Cutting

                   v.            Cutting Outcome Check

                vi.            Machine Edging ( Laminated)

              vii.            Laminating Quality Check

           viii.            Finish

     If the cutting outcome or laminating outcome are found bad then they'll reprocess them.

That's the result of my case study in Indonesia. I think the way they do for quality control are quite good and appropriate already because they control the quality from the raw material till the outcome.

Stakeholder (Consumer)

I'm a busy 25-year-old woman. My annual income is just about $20.000. With that income, it's hard for me to support myself and my grandmother because she is a retiree. I had already lived with her since I'm 12 years old. Previous time, she was the one who who work to support both of us but now I'm the one who work because she's too old already. With that low income, I rent a cheap apartment with some furnitures. The furnitures I bought are cheap and quite affordable for me. Now, the living cost are getting higher and higher, I need to move to a cheaper apartment with just a 36 sqm space. Because of the small space, I can't use my old furnitures because they're too big so I buy new ones that are smaller. Then after a few days. I met my neighbour and as time gone by we become best friend. We like to visit each other house when we have free time. Someday, when I visited her house, I saw a really nice furniture. It really has a very nice and pleasant appearance. It caught my eyes the moment I saw it. Then, i asked my friend about where she buy that furniture and astonishingly she said that the cost for that furniture is just about $100. As for your information, the furniture that caught my eyes is a multifunctional sofa-bed. Because I really like it, I bought this sofa -bed too and sell my old sofa that I just used for few months. So you know that as a consumer I have a different demand towards different situation and condition.