Company Profile: Highland Forge, co-owned by Ford Kinzey and Mark Woodward, specializes in custom drapery hardware and interior design. Founded in 2005, the vertically integrated manufacturer has 11 employees who operate out of a 12,000-square-foot facility in Atlanta. They handcraft brackets, finials, rings, and rods using durable, eco-friendly, and high-quality materials that have a lifetime warranty. With more than 50 years of combined experience, they take pride in delivering tailored solutions to commercial and residential clients and have been featured in Country Living, New York, and Southern Living magazines.
Georgia Manufacturing Extension Partnership
A Unit of The Enterprise Innovation Institute
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Highland Forge Success Story
Custom Drapery Hardware Manufacturer Embraces Continuous Improvement, Boosts Productivity
Situation
In late 2023, Kinzey and Woodward learned about Georgia Manufacturing Extension Partnership (GaMEP) at Georgia Tech through a recommendation from a fellow manufacturer. Interested in optimizing their operations, they contacted the GaMEP South Metro Atlanta region manager. After touring their facility, he suggested a value steam mapping project to evaluate their current processes and identify opportunities for improvement and connected them with Brad Wood, GaMEP operational excellence project manager.
Solution
Wood kicked off the project by introducing lean manufacturing principles, such as continuous flow, value-added activities, and waste elimination.
The team then selected three products — curved return rods, end caps, and standard brackets — to map and time every step from fabrication to production. This visual approach helped them identify inefficiencies and prioritize opportunities.
“We don’t know what we don’t know,” said Kinzey. “We didn’t go into this expecting to see the outcome that we did, but it was a very nice surprise that we ended up with the results that we did.”
Most of the actionable steps comprised minor product and layout changes, including replacing jigs to prevent slippage and repetitive adjustments and relocating product bins to more accessible areas to save time.
This process also revealed inefficiencies in their fabrication batch processing. Wood introduced them to a continuous flow, team-based approach where products move seamlessly from one employee to the next. This shift not only increased individual and overall productivity, but it also led to opportunities, such as crossing-training and flexibility for three fabricators and more time for product research and development.
“The biggest impact was our mindset change,” said Kinzey. “When you adopt a continuous improvement, lean mindset, every little thing counts. You start looking at how to reduce a few steps here and there and before you know it, you’ve reduced thousands of steps and you’re really saving time.”
Highland Forge looks forward to continuing to sustain this momentum and expanding their product line to include home décor and metal products while continuing to embrace lean manufacturing principles.
Results
Over the past year, Highland Forge has:
- Identified 95 actionable improvements, including 28 high-priority actions
- Boosted productivity for 20 products by 50%
- Improved overall productivity by 20%
- Invested $1,300 in reliable measuring devices to eliminate recalibration
- Maintained a three-week lead time longer
As a result, this project has led to an improved layout, increased production and throughput, and reduced downtime.
Testimonial
“Working with Brad was a really great experience. He’s an enjoyable and a great person to work with. He’s very knowledgeable with real-world manufacturing experience. He really understood our manufacturing challenges and pain points.”
– Ford Kinzey, Co-Owner, Highland Forge