Elite Contract Furniture

• Location: 2 – 6 Earl Haig Road, Hillington Park, Glasgow, G52 4JU
• Industry Sector: Manufacturing
• Size: SME
• Project Result: The launch of a new retail business, supporting the embedding of new product development and marketing tools within the original company.

The original aim of the KTP project was to develop knowledge and capability in Business Process Engineering and product design re-engineering to design and embed a Business Process Excellence Framework, increasing operational productivity; and a novel subscription-based Product Service System (PSS) furnishing business model within Elite. The PSS furnishing business model was originally aimed at Elite's core business which is the hotels and care home industry. It was a response to customer feedback, coupled with societal trends in 2019 which highlighted an increasing demand for both, a shift from furniture ownership to usership, and sustainable furnishing solutions.

This project commenced in January 2020. However, two months into the original project, the COVID-19 pandemic struck and the Associate was furloughed for three months. The pandemic devastated the hotel and care home industry which was Elite’s core business and so we had to quickly pivot the project from a PSS solution to a New Product Development (NPD)and digitalization project. Therefore, a key challenge was to find an industry where Elite's in-house skills and manufacturing expertise can be leveraged for NPD. After extensive market research, where ideas for a ‘furniture restoration service’, ‘re-manufactured furniture from reclaimed whiskey barrels’, ‘kids’ furniture’ and ‘home office furnishing solutions’ were explored in detail, we discovered an opportunity within the pet furniture industry. Developing hand-crafted dog beds, an eco-friendly mattress and accessories was deemed to hold enormous potential. It would also diversify Elite's current product portfolio. This resulted in the design, introduction and subsequent sales of the Poco range of dog beds (5 beds) and accessories. A new ecommerce website and sales channel was also developed as part of the KTP project.

This project gave the KTP Associate, who was a recent Product Design Innovation Graduate, a rich experience in market research, new product development and introduction and digital sales and marketing. She won the 2022 ‘Innovators of the Future’ Award at Scottish Knowledge Exchange Awards. The project also ensured that Elite had a new and potentially lucrative line of business which was sufficiently diversified from their core furniture business. It also accelerated digitalisation of the core business (and the new business). New digitally enabled work flows were introduced and embedded within Elite resulting in significant improvements to Product Planning, Demand Forecast Management, Production Scheduling and Asset Utilization and Shop floor Control. The new range of Poco products also allowed Elite to transition from being predominantly a business-to-business organization to becoming a business-to-customer firm. The University of Strathclyde too has gained enormously from this project. The collaboration with Elite has resulted in a total of five 22 to 26 weeks long DMEM Industrial Group Projects. These projects have offered 20 DMEM students unique industrial experiences working directly on industry relevant problems within their field of study. We are also currently developing an Impact Case and teaching case on the Poco product range that demonstrates how firms can design and embed our novel New Product Development (NPD) process framework that’s inspired by the ‘Lean-Start Up’ methodology.

Elite emerged from the KTP with a brand-new retail business, named Poco. Poco is a luxury dog bed business, manufacturing bespoke beds and dog accessories. This utilizes Elites core capabilities and tools, while allowing them to enter a new, lucrative retail market.

Many new activities were undertaken for the first time throughout the KTP including photography, branding development, online marketing and website development. All of these tools and experiences were documented and embedded within Elite.

These processes and capabilities are now being replicated for Elite with their new Ecommerce website due to launch in November 2022, allowing customers to buy directly online for the first time since Elite was founded in 1954.

(Picture of Poco Dog Beds logo).

This was the first KTP undertaken with significant learning at each stage of the process. Firstly, there was a fine balance in the application to conveying underpinning theory, novelty, and links to tangible economic impact for the business. Guiding the company through this process was also a new management experience and it was particularly challenging to quickly rescope the project to same depth. Secondly, the DMEM department teaches and researches well defined and systematic multidisciplinary approaches to product development and industrial innovation. It has been particularly insightful to move through the Associate recruitment process, and line management, observing first-hand how effectively Juliette, a DMEM graduate, represents the ‘DMEM way’, and how that was valued by the company.

Thirdly, the shift in the project scope moved the project towards a ‘start-up-like’ product development project. A familiar scenario but with significantly unique challenges:

• Instilling formalised and rationalised methodology in a small busy company who are instinctively reactive in their operation.
• Being unable to visit the company to fully understand the production issues or to see the new products physically.
• The success of the product is heavily dependent on its communication in the market place. This aspect of the project required significant persistence – much more than the transfer of knowledge. So both staff have been active in enabling specific promotion streams (e.g. selling products through Etsy and the Scottish Design Exchange) and new business opportunities (introducing Bella and Duke) without being able to promise success.

This KTP has received significant press coverage. The KTP project was picked up by The Scotsman newspaper in November 2019. Their article featured Dr Nair, the PI on this KTP project and extolled the virtues of industry-academia collaborations. The social media output and press for the project has been high quality, and 2 award opportunities were well publicised and connected with the DMEM department and Strathclyde. The Associate won a Scottish KE Award as ‘Innovator of the Future’ which was not only recognition of Juliette’s individual excellence, but also a reflection of the team achievement. The Poco brand and products were also shortlisted for an Innovation and Technology ROCCO award, as recognised by Renfrewshire Chamber of Commerce. Another good example of staff and department publicity was where the product range was displayed at the Glasgow Dog Lovers Event at the Scottish Exhibition Centre. Yet another benefit that we gained was the extensive networking and business collaboration opportunities that came with the launch of the Poco product range. We were able to cultivate close ties with firms like Bella and Duke, William Grant and Sons and Chivas Brothers as part of this KTP journey with Elite.

(Picture of a potential customer lounging on the Barra dog bed at DogFest Dalkeith).