Factory Tour

All Westwood products are made in a new state of the art factory just outside of Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Vietnam. We’re always taking pictures when we’re over there, and we thought you might like to see a little bit of the factory and the manufacturing process.

This is the main office building. Behind this is living quarters for the management and supervisors who don’t live in Vietnam. Sometimes we stay here too.

Factory garden. I was here right after this had been planted in 2003. It’s amazing how quickly things grow in that climate.

Motorbike parking. Beyond this is a smaller section for bicycle parking, but almost everyone has a motorbike. The traffic all over Vietnam is indescribable. It moves pretty well, there is just a staggering volume of motorbikes, and everyone is constantly honking their horn.

Here are some parts being shaped.

This is one of the main milling rooms, where parts are made and sent onto the assembly areas.

A few of our groups have hand carved elements. This is the carving room.

This is the crib assembly area. Here they are cleaning up any adhesive that may have squeezed around around the slats when they were put together. They have just used that nail gun to also further secure the slats with pin nails.

After assembly, the cribs go to this climate controlled drying room to bring the moisture level down. This is a very important step. Wood absorbs humidity from the air, and it is of course extremely humid in this part of the world. If you don’t do this (and a lot of manufacturers don’t), when you bring the furniture into the low humidity, climate controlled environment of your house, the wood will shrink and crack. This is also my favorite spot in the whole factory. After walking around in 80-90° heat (with 90% humidity), coming in here is like stepping into a nice chilly fall Denver day.

This is the finishing line. The pieces slowly snake around on a twisty track going through several spray booths (you can see a couple in the background with the numbers on them). While they ride around, they dry before hitting the next booth. The two women in the red shirts are looking for finishing flaws that they will mark with tape so the pieces can be pulled out and corrected.

After finishing, everything is looked over one last time. These two are checking and adjusting the drawer fit. To the left of this picture is packaging, then it goes right out the door and onto trucks.