Roy Dittmann says persistence has been the key to Three H Furniture’s success.
The president of the New Liskeard furniture manufacturer has seen the company weather a few storms in its 50-plus years of operation, most notably a roof collapse following a winter snowfall in 2014 that knocked the factory’s field of manufacturing equipment out of commission, hampering operations for a few weeks.
Then came the global COVID-19 pandemic of 2019-20, which turned the workforce on its head, forcing employees into work-from-home environments and transforming the landscape for most in-office companies.
As head of a company that built its reputation on supplying furniture to those now-vacant office buildings, the future looked bleak. A person less optimistic may have given up.
But Roy Dittmann just doesn't quit.
“There's always obstacles in business, and we press on,” Dittmann told Northern Ontario Business.
“The more roadblocks in front of you, probably the better the outcome. You don't give up, you just come up with a better solution.”
That persistence could be inherited from his father, Heinz Dittmann, who emigrated to Canada from Germany following the Second World War.
A furniture builder by trade, Dittmann’s father partnered up with Helmer Pedersen and Helmut Moeltner, the three craftsmen who founded Three H Furniture in 1973.
Originally, Heinz brought his skills to the market crafting European-style residential furniture, but eventually tastes — and the market — began to change.
Three H pivoted in the '80s, focusing on meeting an increased demand for personal office furniture.
“My father was definitely a leader as far as the staff in the plant are concerned,” Dittmann said.
“Even after he retired, he would come back here and people were just thrilled to see him again. He was just a very wonderful person and had a lot of respect from our employees.”
For those who knew the elder Dittmann, one of the words often used to describe him is kind. He went about his business ensuring that employees felt heard, and he treated them with respect.
“He came from Germany, fought in World War II, saw a lot of horrific things,” Dittmann said. “I think that probably taught him a lot. Like the things we can get upset about are really insignificant compared to what he had seen. People get all excited and riled up over things that are really non-issues.
“He always spoke very calmly and stuck to the facts of the story, not hearsay or rumours,” Dittmann said. “He did it calmly and without heavy emotion.”
Lessons, Dittmann said, he’s learned and become better at emulating over the years.
“You don't raise your voice or yell at people. It's not constructive. It just doesn't do anything.”
His father would certainly be proud, Dittmann said, seeing the new Three H products roll out into high-profile offices and workspaces. The company counts L’Oréal, Google, the University of Alabama and Lululemon among its current clients.
More than 60 per cent of their products head to the U.S., mostly in the educational and office markets, a growing field, despite changes to office spaces across the continent.
“My father would be proud of what we're doing, carrying on his legacy and his dream for what the company could be.” Dittmann said.
Three H has branded itself as a manufacturer that puts design at the forefront of its building process. The phrase “design with intent” is not only a catchy tagline, but an approach that informs the teams right from the idea stage.
“We put a lot of thought into the product — from an environmental point of view, from a usability point of view, from the sustainability point of view,” Dittmann said. “We think the product through, and we spend a lot of time, care and attention to detail.
“It's not just let's make a desk and not worry about how someone's going to use it. We also look at asking if we can make that product better? Can we make it more functional?”
It’s an approach that so far has paid dividends.
In June, Three H’s new Hudson line was selected by Interior Design as a winner in its annual HiP Awards for Workplace Furniture Systems, which celebrates the most innovative products and people in the commercial design industry.
Chris Binnendyk, who in 2021 took over as Three H’s CEO after two decades leading Allseating Corporation, said the international award is a “huge achievement” for the little Northern Ontario company.
SEE: Three H Furniture expanding, hiring
SEE: New Liskeard furniture maker sets the stage to grow again
“We've competed on the world stage and won an award, which feeds the ego, for sure,” Binnendyk said, “but we’re really proud of the teamwork. Lee Fletcher is our design director; he designed it himself in collaboration with our team.”
That team includes 100 employees at the New Liskeard factory, some who have been with the company over 40 years.
“We think it's a testament to the strength of our collaborative design process,” Binnendyk said. “It's just another element to support our overall design with intent proposition.”
But to stand apart from the global competition, Binnendyk said the company has to do things a little differently.
“If we can build a really innovative, well-built, aesthetically pleasing product at a great price, and back it up by a really strong service offering … that really gives us the opportunity to have a winning formula.”
The winning formula, as Binnendyk calls it, includes the family-like atmosphere that permeates Three H, and helps them connect with customers on a personal level.
“We stand out by our humanity,” he said. “We're responsive, we're reliable, with that core value of thoughtfulness.
“People in Northern Ontario may take all these wonderful qualities for granted, that people are kind to each other generally, and just their humanness — it really comes through in our interactions with our customers, and they enjoy that about us.”
Dittmann’s persistence, and the company’s knack for getting through some tough spells, will be put to the test in the coming years.
Like other companies, finding enough staff to operate the manufacturing facility is a constant challenge. Dittmann said they’ve been adopting high-tech methods to get ahead, including rolling out a plan to utilize cobots — or collaborative robots — machines intended for direct interaction with humans in a shared space.
The models they’ve been considering, Dittmann said, are designed by U.S.-based Universal Robotics.
“Those are the ones that we're going to be looking at, models that can work with a human person but do more of the mundane, lifting-type work that the person doesn't have to do,” Dittmann said.
“That way the person is spending more time thinking and organizing and the robots are doing the heavy work.”
Three H has also been one of the early adopters of artificial intelligence (AI) in their processes.
“Our product design system has been using AI for years. We've actually built software that's been exploiting that technology for quite some time,” Dittmann said. “So it's not new to us.”
Now, in addition to contributing on the design side, Dittmann said AI will provide some help in the decision-making process behind the scenes.
“We're looking at applying AI to more decision-making processes we go along, complex decisions that you may not iterate through enough cycles to get an accurate value. Because of the time it takes with AI, you can run through thousands of cycles in seconds and make better decisions. So we're looking at places where we can apply it.”
Those are adaptations Dittmann hopes can carry the company through another 50 years.
“In 50 years, I hope we're still based in Northern Ontario,” Dittmann said.
“We’ve already had discussions whether at some point we may have to open up another branch further south where there's a bigger labour pool, but I would hope that the head office and its presence would stay here.
“That was always our intent, that Three H is Northern Ontario-based.”