Engineered Floors to launch luxury vinyl tile production
Carpet manufacturing giant Engineered Floors plans to revamp a 1.2 million-square-foot plant in Dalton, Georgia, where it will launch production of luxury vinyl tile, according to the company.
Engineered Floors plans to use an underutilized factory where it said it will install “the latest and most innovative manufacturing equipment available” to produce LVT.
“A complete revitalization of the … facility will not only drastically reduce lead times, but also allow for
the necessary flexibility to expand in the future,” the company said Tuesday.
Robert E. Shaw, Engineered Floors’ chairman and chief executive officer, said its model to manufacture carpet is to have a large operation that allows for efficient product flow and minimizes work-inprocess inventory, and that’s what it plans to do with LVT.
“The Seretean facility will certainly permit that model to be executed with our LVT production,” Shaw said in a statement about the plant where it will make the flooring product.
Kemp Harr, publisher of Floor Focus magazine, said the Seretean plant that’s to be renovated is an old facility that came to Engineered Floors when it acquired the assets of Beaulieu Group in 2017. Harr said that plant hasn’t been in production for some time.
Harr said Engineered Floors has been having LVT made for it by a third party.
No investment figure was offered by Engineered Floors for its
LVT plans, and the company didn’t indicate if it expects to hire more people or shift existing staff to make the new product. Shaw said in a 2018 interview that the company then had more than 4,600 employees.
Engineered Floors cited the growing popularity of LVT in the market for its new plans. The company said the domestic production of LVT in North Georgia will provide unique opportunities for research and development, design, and quality assurance “bringing a new level of excellence to the hard-surface arena.”
“With this investment in American-made LVT, Engineered Floors continues to broaden our product assortment in order to meet the needs of our valued customers,” the company said.
Just last week, Dalton-based Shaw Industries Group said it plans to spend $20 million to expand production of LVT in its Ringgold, Georgia, plant.
Over the past year, several Chinese companies have announced new spending for projects in Northwest Georgia in the same flooring segment.
“It’s the fastest growing category in the flooring industry,” Harr said. “You’ve got both domestic and Chinese producers investing heavily.”
Engineered Floors CEO Shaw recently told Floor Focus magazine that the company is learning “a good bit” about LVT. Shaw said in the interview that Engineered Floors is “learning the good, the bad and the uglies.”
“There’s no question we are going to see more domestic production of LVT,” he said.
Shaw founded Engineered Floors about 11 years ago and the company has grown rapidly over the decade to become a major player in the industry.
Shaw made a name for himself in the carpet business over many decades when he headed Shaw Industries, building that company into a key one in the sector. Shaw Industries was sold in 2001 to Berkshire Hathaway Inc., the holding company of investor Warren Buffett.
Shaw retired from Shaw Industries in 2006 and then decided to create Engineered Floors at age 77.