
From High-Mix, Low-Volume to High-Mix, Higher-Volume: Reinventing Manufacturing in Decorative Lighting
- Bill Shott
- Hammerton
Hammerton is a high-end decorative lighting manufacturer that designs and produces all products in the United States. We operate in a highly fragmented category where demand is driven by design breadth and customization rather than standardization. This creates a structural challenge: how to deliver high product variety with consistent quality, while maintaining throughput and cost discipline.
Mass-market lighting manufacturers solve for efficiency through scale, long production runs, and offshore labor arbitrage. In contrast, luxury manufacturers operate in a high-mix, low-volume (HMLV) environment, where necessary product variation drives frequent changeovers, variable routings, and scheduling complexity. The central question is whether a HMLV system can be engineered to achieve higher throughput without sacrificing flexibility.
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