Emerging Tech Trends & Advancements in Furniture Design

In a recent conversation with Charulatha M (Correspondent, Homes India), Devesh shared his valuable insights on the current furniture design & manufacturing sector in India, recent tech advancements and many other aspects. Below are a few selected parts from the exclusive interview

Devesh Shah, having completed his bachelor’s degree in finance from NMIMS, Devesh has been associated with Amardeep Design for over five years now and played a significant role in developing effective business strategies for the company in recent times.

What are some of the ways in which modern day technologies are disrupting the furniture design space?

We are witnessing a lot of tech advancements pertaining to machinery and other equipment happening within the furniture manufacturing sector lately. Integrating various cutting edge technologies within the manufacturing setup has resulted in the machines become much smarter.

While most of the furniture making was done manually a decade back, today, there are programs that can be fed into the machines and obtain the desired end product. Additionally, technologies such as IoT have enabled companies to get reports about their machines in terms of their process efficiency across various parameters. Also, companies are now able to develop the prototype versions of their final product at a much faster rate by leveraging 3D printing technique.

Briefly explain the role of augmented reality and machine learning technologies in the furniture design and manufacturing process.

Augmented Reality is now enabling customers to view any furniture in the place of their choice, and with their preferred finishing. This will no doubt be the next frontier of selling furniture, wherein any company that implants AR will be at the forefront of embedding technology into the furniture manufacturing and selling arena. In the other hand, machine learning too is slowing gaining widespread acceptance among the furniture manufacturer industry, wherein the software or the application will be able to recommend ways to run the factories in order to achieve maximum productivity and minimum resource utilization. However, it will be paramount for the manufacturers to ensure that all their machinery and applications are advanced enough to be capable of being integrated with machine learning. Only then will the ML model to able to provide accurate insights and recommendations on how to optimize the overall operations of the factory.

"Companies are now able to develop the prototype versions of their final product at a much faster rate by leveraging 3D printing technique"

How can furniture manufacturers ensure that their design philosophy and raw material sourcing processes remain sustainable?

Lately, every organization irrespective of their industry are now moving towards a sustainable approach and implementing green practices within their business functions. Since imports create the largest amount of carbon footprint, the first thing that furniture manufacturers must do in order to make their designs and manufacturing more ecofriendly is to reduce dependence on imports. Most of the international clients that we work with have already started asking us about the kind of carbon footprint that we are creating through our supply chain. Thus, we source the materials only from vendors who are closest to us and even have set a radius limit of 1000 km. Additionally, we are also planning to invest in solar facilities within our factory and aim to make our factory fully solar operated by the next two years.

"Most of the furniture manufacturing companies derive inspiration from various cultures in terms of their designs"

Suggest a few ways in which organizations can maintain a balance between aesthetics and functionality in the furniture design process.

While there are a lot people who design very aesthetically pleasing things on paper, when it comes to manufacturing, it is very important to maintain a balance between aesthetics and functionality. We do so in such a way that it doesn’t impact our supply chain and also enables us mass manufacture the product. Some of the key aspects of product design that we pay close attention to in our manufacturing process are viability, affordability and scalability. This unique approach to our product design has helped us immensely in successfully balancing between the aesthetics and functionality of our end products.   

How can manufacturers customize their furniture designs to satiate the needs of today’s ‘global mindset’ customers?

Most of the furniture manufacturing companies derive inspiration from various cultures in terms of their designs. For instance, Rattan furniture is very popular age old technique that is being used even today in India. When we get a request from the customer to build Scandinavian themed furniture, we try to find a synergy between Rattan and Scandinavian designs, which will give shape to very interesting new designs.