Where 45 days actually go

Forty-five days sounds like one number. On the floor it is seven overlapping stages, three of which can slip without anyone noticing until the booking is missed. Here is the schedule we run on a 1,000-chair order.

Published by JPChairs · Chair manufacturer in Foshan, China · 2026-10-15

The 45-day schedule, stage by stage

These are working days, not calendar days, and they start the day the deposit clears and the specification is frozen. A 1,000-unit mixed order of side chairs and armchairs breaks down like this:

• Days 1 to 3 — specification and drawings. Final dimensions, joint detail, finish code, fabric or leather reference, glide type. A change after day 3 costs days, not hours.
• Days 3 to 10 — material release. Timber leaves the kiln store at 8 to 12 per cent moisture content and rests 48 hours in the workshop before cutting. Fabric and foam are ordered against a 300 to 500 m minimum per colour.
• Days 8 to 22 — frame production. Cutting, machining, mortise and tenon, sanding. Beech and ash frames run 12 to 15 days; a welded steel frame with powder coat runs 10 to 14 days including the 180 to 200 degree C cure.
• Days 18 to 30 — finishing. Two to three sealer coats and one topcoat, with 4 to 6 hours between coats and 24 hours before handling. Rushing this stage is the most common cause of a finish that marks in the first month.
• Days 24 to 34 — upholstery. Cutting, sewing, foam bonding and covering at roughly 60 to 90 chairs a day per line on a simple seat pad, and 30 to 40 a day on a fully upholstered shell.
• Days 33 to 38 — assembly, inspection and packing. AQL sampling, carton checks and palletising.
• Days 38 to 45 — inland haulage, customs clearance and vessel loading.

Note the overlaps. Upholstery starts before finishing ends. Drawn as seven sequential blocks the same schedule reads 60 days, not 45.

What a sample adds, and what it saves

Pre-production samples take 10 to 15 days to build and 3 to 5 days to ship. Sampling is the only stage that reliably removes time from the back end, because it turns a thread of emails into an object everyone can measure.

Record six things when it arrives and confirm them in writing: seat height to 1 mm, seat depth, back angle, foam firmness, fabric colour under a D65 light box, and finish sheen. A buyer who approves a sample verbally and then asks for a 20 mm lower seat on day 20 loses the slot.

Sample cost is normally USD 120 to 350 per chair plus express freight, and it is credited against the order on most programmes. The alternative is a container that arrives wrong, which costs 45 days plus the freight.

The five delays that push 45 days to 70

• Fabric not in stock. Contract fabric at a 300 to 500 m minimum carries a 20 to 25 day mill lead time. Confirm stock before you confirm the date.
• Custom colour or finish. New stain or powder-coat colours need a lab dip and an approval round: 7 to 10 days, and longer if the first dip is close but not right.
• Chinese New Year and the autumn peak. Output drops to near zero for 15 to 20 days around the holiday, and the four weeks either side are fully booked. Orders placed in November for a February vessel routinely land 25 to 30 days late.
• Design change after cutting starts. Once the cutting list is released, a dimension change scraps the parts in progress and puts the job back in the queue.
• Booking left too late. Peak-season space closes 14 to 21 days before sailing. Without a booking the container waits for the next vessel, which is 7 days on most lanes.

Wood, metal and upholstery: why the numbers differ

Solid beech frames sit at 40 to 50 days because timber has to dry and finish. Welded and powder-coated steel frames are 30 to 35 days. Fully upholstered shells on metal frames are 35 to 45 days, dominated by fabric and foam rather than by the frame. Banquet chairs with a ganging device and a trolley add 5 to 7 days for the hardware.

Mixing three frame types in one container does not mean the schedule is set by the slowest item. It means the packing date is set by the slowest item, and everything else sits in the warehouse for up to 15 days. If the opening date is fixed, ship the slow line first.

Booking, cut-off and the ten days nobody budgets

Production ending is not the same as the container leaving. Between the last carton and the bill of lading there are four fixed dates:

• CY cut-off — containers must be gated in 2 to 3 days before sailing.
• Document cut-off — shipping instructions and the verified gross mass 24 to 48 hours before CY cut-off. A declared weight outside tolerance by more than 1 tonne or 5 per cent is rejected.
• Customs release — 1 to 3 days normally, longer if a document is wrong.
• Transit — 18 to 30 days to northern Europe, 25 to 35 days to the US east coast, 12 to 18 days within Asia.

Book space at least 14 days before the expected ready date. A booking is free to move; a missed one costs a week.

How to shorten the schedule honestly

Three things genuinely compress a schedule, and none of them touch quality:

• Freeze the specification before day 1. Every confirmed drawing removes a decision from the critical path.
• Use stocked fabric. Choosing from a mill stock programme removes 20 to 25 days outright.
• Standardise the finish. One stain code across the order removes the colour changeover between batches, worth 3 to 5 days on 1,000 chairs.

What does not work: skipping the 24-hour finish cure, or asking for inspection on the loading day rather than three days before. Both buy one day and risk thirty.

The shop-floor capacity and production calendar behind these numbers are described on the factory production calendar, and the frames we build to them are in the commercial restaurant chairs.