These days, the furniture industry is a very difficult one, with many small furniture makers being forced to close down.


PAUL MCCARTHY: Australia in the '70s was a land of opportunity for a European migrant and South Australia was a hub of furniture making.

JOE RUFENACHT: You know there were companies like Noblets, which employed about 150 people; Macrob, which employed close to that same number; Micro Furniture.

PAUL MCCARTHY: Back in 1975 the Swiss-born physics engineer turned his hand to furniture design from his home at Angaston in the Barossa.

Joe Rufenacht brought a Scandinavian style to the German-flavoured valley and it took him to several awards with a thriving business.

JOE RUFENACHT: I started with the swivel chair, which took me about six months to develop, but it was more or less straightaway a success. It won an Australian design award in 1978.

That was the first one and I had several more after that and at one stage I had probably more design awards in my pocket than anybody else in the country.

Well Paul, this is my second design. That was a dining chair which I designed about 26 years ago now, and it took me 40 different prototypes to get to it but even that chair still sells today.

PAUL MCCARTHY: But over the past decade that success has turned sour.

Cheap overseas imports have begun flooding in and now make up to 50% of the market. And like the clothing and footwear industries, local furniture makers are struggling.

MARTIN VIDEON: How many companies have fallen by the wayside? Probably 50%. The South Australian market was the biggest and the leading furniture manufacturer in Australia. It has slipped down that ladder.

PAUL MCCARTHY: Martin Videon's company Charmwood makes chairs in a small factory at Lonsdale. He's also president of the Furniture Industry Association. 'Whether anyone likes it or not', he says, 'imports are here to stay' and he's pushing for companies to adopt a new approach to stay in business.

MARTIN VIDEON: It's good. We've just got another order of 36 they want approximately delivered in two weeks, so it's looking good for this new model.

PAUL MCCARTHY: Charmwood saw the writing on the wall five years ago and turned to the local car industry for inspiration.

MARTIN VIDEON: General Motors is a prime example of new technology, a new approach to lean production systems. We produce our goods as a GM factory does. We are able to quickly change from product to product within minutes. We don't have masses of inventory lying around.

PAUL MCCARTHY: Like the car makers, Martin Videon says furniture companies should network to make components a niche market for their products.

MARTIN VIDEON: Companies that don't change their designs, don't change their approach to manufacturing and don't pick up new technologies are falling by the wayside.