Innovation beats the importers

Since it was voted exporter of the year in the early 1990s, Outlook Design Furniture has been struggling against fierce competition from furniture importers.

However, last year the Mt Maunganui furniture manufacturer, best known for its designer bunk-beds, managed to turn the business around with New Zealand-developed technology and some innovative thinking.

New technology developed by Orica Powder Coatings has allowed the company to powdercoat timber, which it is combining with tubular steel in its new range of contemporary bedroom and dining furniture.

Managing director Derek Ireton describes the look as interesting, different and alive.

"What we're producing, retailers like. It's different from anything else out there because it teams wood and steel.

"Consumers and retailers are saying this is neat and different, but importers are just bringing in the same old stuff."

Outlook now has a multi-purpose powder coating facility in its factory where it can colour any material to customer specifications.

"We have speed and flexibility on our side. If a customer requests a bed in silver and black we can make it for them, regardless of whether it's in our existing range or not, and have the order to them within weeks.

"An importer would take six months to turn around that type of request."

Ireton started the company in 1979. By the mid-1980s its range of tubular steel beds were popular with local retailers and selling in the US, Belgium, Denmark, Singapore and Australia.

Free trade agreements in the 1990s brought change to the company, as retailers started to favour the influx of cheaper imported steel furniture products over its own.

Ireton recalls a number of local manufacturers moving their operations overseas in search of cheaper production costs.

"Everything I made they'd just knock off."

An inadvertent purchase of a woodwork factory at the same time meant the company was not only getting to grips with the new market conditions, but was also learning to effectively use the new woodwork part of its business.

Taking steps last year to specialise in timber powdercoating heralded the turnaround.

"It's given me the means to re-invent my business and give it another life. I was a steel company with wood, now I'm a woodwork factory with steel," said Ireton.

The move also revived Ireton's bold innovative streak that saw the business get off the ground.

Twenty-five years ago, sailing home from his OE, Ireton was hit by an overwhelming sense of responsibility, and questioned what he was going to do with his life.

As he mulled it over on the ship, the hammocks on the deck sparked the idea of making self-supporting hammock frames, and that's where his manufacturing career began.

"I got an exhaust pipe bender to bend up some tube I'd bought and made this thing on the lawn. A lot of people laughed, including my old man. I finally got it right and went up to see a buyer in Auckland in my brand new London suit."

He was met with an initial lack of interest and received a lecture about how young New Zealanders thought things came easy. "I was very nervous and had put a lot of effort in, but ended up saying, 'Listen mate, I've put my heart and soul into this. All I want to do is show you'."

He was told to set it up and leave it on display for a week.

Driving back to Hamilton, he feared another manufacturer would steal the idea, but awaiting his arrival was an order for seven.

Ireton made and sold about 5000 of his "hangover hammocks" locally and to Australia.

When demand started to wane he put his mind to making thick tubular bunk beds similar to those he'd seen in England.

He was again turned away by retailers, who said they were a bit "way-out".

It was inquiries from New Zealanders who saw similar ones advertised in Australian magazines that caused the retailers to ring him back and order.

Outlook now specialises in making bunk beds, queen and single beds and dining room suites, supplying 200 retailers around the country and 100 in Australia.

Shifting into a larger factory in May is one of the things Ireton is looking forward to this year. Other goals are building the stocks to about 25 per cent of work-in-progress so he can provide excellent service to Australia and New Zealand. Later in the year he hopes to be back on a cruise ship, reflecting on how it all began.