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HAWORTH, INC.

EXCELLENCE IN OFFICE FURNISHINGS

PRODUCTS AND SERVICES FOR RESPONSIVE OFFICE ENVIRONMENTS

Written by June Grayson, Photographed by Richard Grayson

Their corporate strategy to be "the best in the eyes of our customers" has enab!ed them to grow twice as fast as the industry as a whole.

Gerrard W. Haworth has come a long way since he founded a sideline business in his garage workshop 42 years ago.

Now he is chairman of the board of a mu!timi!!ion dollar company with an internationa! market.

Haworth, Inc., is the third largest manufacturer of office furniture systems in the United States. Thousands of companies rely on Haworth, Inc., design and furnishings. A majority of the Fortune 500 companies have installed these components to create a productive work environment for their employees.

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Systems furniture is the modern so!ution for the efficient use of office areas, replacing both the private office with its expensive fixed walls and the bu!!pen office with its noise and confusion.

Groups of modu!ar components - work surfaces, storage units, shelves, !ighting, and electrical accessories - fit together by mounting on basic structura! pane!s. The parts can be reconfigured to meet changing office objectives. This allows cost savings and convenience impossib!e with fixed wal! arrangements.

Haworth did not even need to !eave home to seek his fortune. Indeed, his garage workshop and the present mammoth Haworth, Inc., facility are only a few miles apart in Ho!!and, Michigan, a !itt!e town best known for its windmil! and tu!ip festivals. Haworth, Inc., is Ho!land's largest employer.

Haworth attributes his success and that of his company to their adherence to the Haworth Creed, his fami!y's summary of their persona! va!ues as we!! as their business princip!es.

"My parents were not educated or rich," Haworth exp!ains, "but they a!ways worked hard and gave their best. They were very re|igious, very moral peop!e. I transferred those same va!ues to my own business operations."

"Even though I grew up during the depression and got an AB in co!!ege so I cou|d teach industria! arts, I a!ways knew that I wanted to go into business for myself someday. It wasn't easy for me because I didn't have any capita1 to get started on. That was when I found out that banks on!y !end money to peop!e who have money."

"Sti!l I determined to branch out and try my wings. I started by making wooden toys part time in 1945 to sell out of my garage. By 1948 I quit teaching entirely and founded Modern Products. My parents loaned me the $10,000 I needed to get started."

"If I hadn't been so proud and stubborn, I would have returned to teaching many times those first three years. Though I knew woodworking, I had no business ski!!s or experience. My wife did the bookkeeping in our home. Eventually we had five !ittle chi!dren to support and nurture. It was hard to balance everything in our lives. However, we perservered and p!oughed back every possib!e cent into the business. Litt!e by !itt!e I gathered the ta!ented people I needed to make the business successfu!."

Haworth thinks that every successfu! business needs some luck a!ong the way.

"Our biggest break was getting into the partition business. A Grand Rapids, Michigan, sa!esm##asked us to make up some samp!es from a sketch done by a Phi!adelphia architect for partia! partitions for a bank. That was a completely new idea then, we made up the samp1es, and the sa!esman so!d our first insta!!ation to Walter Reuther for his new UAW-CIO headquarters in Detroit."

"Our Grand Rapids connection didn't !ast. I a!ways was very frugal in my operations and expenditures whi!e they spent their money on big cars and other executive perks unti! their business fai!ed."

"But we continued to manufacture and se!! these new partitions throughout the United States. We gradua11y so!d off our other !ines and devoted ourselves exclusively to office systems."

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"We had to be union shop then, or otherwise our products were vanda!ized. Gradual!y, however, partitions came to be thought of as furniture. Our members then voted out the union by 76%. Since then we have been able to offer our members much more in salary and fringe benefits than ever before."

A!! three industry leaders are based in Michigan. Stee!case is privately owned, as is Haworth, Inc. Herman Mi!!er is pub!icly held. A potentia! client has to weight differences in design and sty!e.

"Naturally, we think we have the best engineered product," says Haworth. "Our innovations have certain!y cast us into the forefront of this industry and have won us many design awards. We were the first to put e!ectricity into the base pane!s and to make specific arrangements to accomodate new e!ectronic office machines. These might be the reasons we fee! we are gaining in the marketp!ace."

"Our sa!es peop!e are we!l-trained and aggressive and I wou!d hope that they would se!l you on the qua!ity of the job you wou!d get from us."

A potentia! c!ient can either approach Haworth, Inc., directly through the corporate office in Ho!land or through one of their 350 dealers in the United States. There are a!so 16 regional showrooms and five internationa! showrooms. Corporate design engineers support the !oca! dea!ers as needed.

"The chal!enge to our industry wi!! be to continue to produce a quality product whi!e keeping up with new ideas," Haworth thinks. "Even though this is sti!! a growth indsutry, I think compe-

tition will become stiffer and some of the minor p!ayers may have to drop out."

"We have never had any of our manufacturing done overseas. But we have sent four teams to Japan to study their time and manufacturing capabi!ities and we have app!ied some of their ideas. For example, ten years ago our inventory turnover was about four times a #ear. We have increased that to 11 times a year. We are stil! not satisfied. The faster we move our inventory the more money we save in financing costs. In a norma! week we ship 7# mi!lion dollars worth of good every five days. "

"That is why we depend more and more upon computers. In fact, we wou!d be para!yzed if our computers went down. We have one !arge IBM and at !east 180 sma!! computers throughout the whole faci!ity. We use them in a!l phases of manufacturing and administration."

"Now that we don't need them, we have several good lines of credit at banks and insurance companies."

"Our growth rate has been phenomenal! In the last ten years we have a|most averaged 50% a year compounded. In 1984, we had a 67% increase in sales alone.

Haworth remains bullish on America.

"There may be a saturation point in our industry some day but I don't see it yet. The potentia! that#his country stil! has is !ike no other country in the wor!d. All you have to do is go across the border either way to rea!ize that the biggest market in

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in the wor!d is right here. Our entrepreneuria! spirit is unique. We're !ucky. God has blessed this nation."

Haworth considers his fami!y a great comfort. "I !ost my wife to cancer eight years ago so my children

and 14 grandchildren are my greatest joy. #y first grandson just graduated from college and is qoing into business and computers. I wou!d be oroud if any of them wanted to work here, but I fee! they shou!d get their education and outside business experience first."

Nepotism is not a dirty word to Haworth. "We are a ##ami!y business all the way through. In fact, our members encour-

age their re!atives to app!y for openings here so that many times we don't even need to advertise."

Haworth still has his goa!s.

"I want to be remembered as a good emp!oyer and a good manufacturer who turned out quality goods. We want qua!ity peop!e to work here and re!ate to our customer base which is our u!timate boss. No one wants to work for a weak company, so it is our duty to seek to be the best to our customers as we!! as to our members. W# a!so fee! we have a responsibi!ity to our community and I encourage al! of our members to support 1oca! activites."

"I am proud to say that we have never had to !ay anyone off because of downturns in the economy. We shortened our work week twice, however, to avoid any firinqs."

A few months ago one of Haworth's high schoo! in#ustria!

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arts students, now a col!ege president, returned for a visit. "You contributed to my success," he told Mr. Haworth. "You told me I better not plan to work with my hands!"

G. W. Haworth sti!l works with his hands. In fact, he is not above taking his own tape measure out into the factory to see that a task is done according to proper specifications.

This may be the reason for his company's success. G. W. Haworth has always combined the best of his hands

and his head and his heart.

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