The Hindu Business Line : Haworth research base in Pune

Haworth, the second largest furniture manufacturer, which has 27 plants globally, is on course to establishing an ideation centre in Pune, which will be its third, and first in the country.

The company, with $1.4 billion revenue, has set up a manufacturing base in India, plans to add more product lines in its Pune facility making it a hub for the region. It has shipped its first batch of products overseas to Dubai.

The Managing Director of Haworth India, Mr Kapil Agarwal, said an ideation or innovation centre would help enterprises to use it as a research base where time and motion studies can be conducted. Thereafter, through simulation, it would be possible to help designers and architects to work out appropriate models.

One of the key problems designers face is with regards to connecting available physical space with business requirements.

Furniture and space management have become central to enterprise office design, but this is gradually moving to other users. People have begun to realise the importance of perfectly designed work place and its impact on employee output and performance and now seek professional assistance. Even in case of well laid out offices, they seek expert advice to fine tune requirements.

Typically, chairs are designed for average heights of 4 feet 8 inches to 6 feet. But depending upon requirements, they can be configured to specific requirements.

"We currently manufacture two lines from Pune, which is backed by global sourcing approach. Haworth plans to add few more streams from the company's German design house," he said.

"In India, Haworth has a direct presence approach and now hosts three centres and plan to add three more at Hyderabad, Chennai and Kolkata with the Hyderabad centre to be operational by January. Maybe, after a year or so, we may even look at the dealer approach," Mr Agarwal told Business Line.

"Haworth is addressing a niche market where typically the engagement is for large enterprises such as Microsoft, Nokia, Motorola, Kanbay among others. Incidentally, many of the companies with whom we work globally are enlisting our services in India too, which includes providing design consultancy," he said.

Providing an overview of Indian furniture market from a manufacturers perspective, Mr Agarwal said that it is extremely fragmented and currently estimated at about Rs 3,000 crore and growing at over 20 per cent per annum.

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