SIC 2273 Carpets and Rugs
SIC 2273
This industry includes establishments primarily engaged in manufacturing woven, tufted, and other carpets and rugs such as art squares, floor mattings, needle punch carpeting, and doormats and mattings from textile materials or from twisted paper, grasses, reeds, coir, sisal, jute, or rags. Coverage includes aircraft and automobile floor coverings, except rubber or plastics; bathmats and sets; dyeing and finishing of rugs and carpets; and Wilton carpets.
314110
Carpet and Rug Mills
In 2003, 80 percent of the world's carpet was manufactured within 50 miles of Dalton, Georgia. Carpet mills specialize in producing carpet backing, as well as carpets and rugs. The value of shipments produced by about 400 establishments totaled $13.4 billion. The industry posted gains each year since 1991 and has been dominated by sales of tufted rugs and carpets, which accounted for 92 percent of the industry's revenues. Woven carpet and rugs totaled just 4 percent. All other varieties (primarily needle punch) totaled 6 percent.
During the early 2000s the industry's growth slowed due to weak economic conditions. Confidence in the future of the economy ran low, causing consumers to put off nonessential purchases, including new rugs and carpets. However, low interest rates created a robust new housing market, which sustained demand in the otherwise sluggish economic environment.
The majority of America's manufacturing plants were located in the state of Georgia. Carpet mills specialize in producing carpet backing, as well as carpets and rugs. Intense competition in the 1980s led forward-looking companies to acquire both manufacturing and retailing operations in an effort to cut costs.
Tradition, profits, and consumer preferences, more than a specific management approach, have historically dictated the organization of the carpet industry. The product flows to residential and contract clients primarily via the following two methods: directly from mill to client or from mill to dealer or wholesale distributor, then to a retailer who sells to a client. If manufacturers in the industry continue to follow the lead of Shaw Industries Inc., the contemporary industry leader, the industry's organizational mode may be revamped. According to analysts, Shaw's acquisition-based growth coincided with the company's novel management approach. First the company hired aggressive, no commission, straight salary sales representatives. Next, in another cost savings move, Shaw signed shorter, more flexible agreements with retailers and in the process eliminated distributors, a long-standing entity in carpet promotion. Whether this strategy is adaptable industry wide remains to be seen; however, carpet manufacturers foresee several outcomes. For example, retailers are expected to begin buying most carpet directly from the mills. Secondly, total industry recovery will require the development of strategies to create more unified partnerships between manufacturers, retailers, and cleaners that would allow them to serve and sustain customer confidence.
The first carpet mill opened in Philadelphia in 1791. Until the mid-1800s, carpet manufacturing in the United States was a tedious process using hand-operated machines. High quality, artful appeal, and high cost described the carpets of this period. However, during this period and continuing over the next century, several events changed the manufacturing and utility of rugs and carpets. Much of the impetus for industrialization of the carpet industry began when Erastus B. Bigelow, known as the "Father of the Modern Carpet Industry," obtained a patent for his invention of a power driven loom. As power looms became more refined and functional, carpet manufacturing became a profitable venture.
The next milestone in the carpet industry came with changes in the composition of carpet. Originally, all carpets were made entirely of wool because it insulated against cold and repelled water. Because of these characteristics, wool was declared an essential commodity during World War II and, consequently, carpet production was severely curtailed in favor of war goods production. This setback served as an incentive for researching wool substitutes, which in turn led to the development and upgrade of new natural and synthetic carpet fabrics. By the 1960s, E.I. Du Pont de Nemours and Co.'s man-made continuous filament carpet nylon and Chemstrand's acrylic fibers were supplying most of the fibers for broadloom carpets in the industry. Today, nylon accounts for 67.8 percent of the fibers used in carpet manufacturing, followed by 22.2 percent polypropylene, and 9.4 percent polyester, with wool constituting a little more than 0.6 percent of the total.
Weaving, needle-punch, and bonding and tufting are the principle carpet manufacturing processes, with the tufting method accounting for 95 percent of all carpets currently produced and sold in the United States. Tufting differs from weaving and other processes in that yarn is pushed through a previously manufactured backing material, while weaving produces the carpet backing simultaneously as the carpet is being manufactured. As tufting became popularized as a faster and more economical alternative to the traditional weaving process, carpet...
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