G-F Moves Manufacturing Back Home

ATLANTA—While Lennon and McCartney had a hit in 1968 with
Chuck Berry’s “Back in the USSR,” Graham-Field
said it’s hoping for a hit of its own with a new strategic
initiative dubbed “Back in the USA.”
 
Under the program, the company announced it is moving some
manufacturing back to the United States.
 
“Our customers are looking for unique products, greater
flexibility relative to product features and more efficient
logistics,” said Larry de la Haba, G-F’s senior vice
president of business development, in a release. “Domestic
manufacturing allows us to meet these needs.
 
“There are definite advantages to having products
manufactured and assembled in the United States,” he
continued. “The logistics are more streamlined; you have
greater production run flexibility and can more easily customize
products in response to customer requirements.”
 
The first product line produced under the new program, the Patriot
Homecare Bed integrates headboards and footboards manufactured
overseas with a domestically produced sleep surface. The bed will
be produced at G-F’s Fond-du-Lac, Wis., manufacturing
facility, which has traditionally produced beds for the long-term
care market under the Basic American brand name.
 
“By shipping just the headboards and footboards in a
container from overseas, and then integrating the domestically
produced sleep surfaces here in the United States, we were able to
reduce inbound freight costs. With the volatile cost of
transportation, eliminating the need to ship the large sleep
surfaces across the ocean offset our outbound freight cost to the
Graham-Field distribution centers and significantly improved our
service levels for our customers,” de la Haba said.
 
He noted that G-F would utilize its existing U.S. manufacturing
plants “where it makes sense.”
 
The release on its “Back in the USA” initiative is the
first of three, G-F said. Next up, the company will reveal how a
joint venture with one of its supply partners became its newest
manufacturing facility.