As the pandemic has gone on longer than most of us had predicted or prepared for, one issue has come to the forefront across industries: lead times. With every category affected, from custom furniture, surface materials, and kitchen and bath appliances, the A&D industry is realizing the benefits of working with Made-in-America companies more than ever.

The delays are affecting client to designer relationships, major hospitality and commercial projects, and more—from a shortage of containers, soaring freight costs, and a scarcity of raw materials—it pays to focus on companies that have the power and benefits of manufacturing in the U.S.A.  We and our parent company, True Manufacturing, have produced everything in-house in our Missouri facility since our respective beginnings—True Manufacturing in 1945 and True Residential in 2008. This allows us to easily pivot to meet market demands, and we can speak to the American-made model firsthand—it serves as not only a boon to our economy, but to all our customers large and small. From start to finish, we’ve been able to deftly deal with delivery logistics, quality control processes, efficiency, and price (without massive freight costs for material importation, our prices have, in most cases, not increased at all). This model has all the expected benefits of supporting our local community and American-made manufacturing in general, but it also improves relationships. One of the unexpected fall-outs from this whole process has been the domino effect. When designers are faced with expanding lead times, clients are upset, and that leads to disappointment with showrooms and sales reps, who then become frustrated with manufacturers. It’s a tricky situation that can be avoided when the focus turns to working with American-made companies. We’re all about our customers, and we’ve realized the extent to which our American-made way is more important than ever these days.