POWERGRAMS

27 1960. A plant tour necessitates driving a golf cart, the same mode of transport many of the supervisors use to quickly get from one area to another. Some employees ride bicycles or one of more than 130 forklis on the plant floor. Clint Perez came to Standard 20 years ago from Louisiana. Now 42 and having lost his Cajun accent, he marvels at the impossibility of quickly explaining everything it takes to put together all of the furniture sold by Standard. He steadily beeps his golf cart horn passing from one section of the plant to the next, each area filled with large equipment manned by multiple employees. "We have a very good maintenance crew," he says. "It's a big job keeping our machines running. Anything mechanical, at some point in time, it's going to break down. Our crew has the know-how to get just about anything fixed." One large section of the plant contains industrial saws to cut wide wood panels to specific sizes for each piece of furniture; another area is for laminate applications to board edges; another area is just for top-side lamination; computerized saws in a nearby section cut out oddly shaped parts; more than 20 machines in the next area drill holes; another entire room is for making nothing but grooves for drawers and holes for hardware. Perez notes that all of the huge sections he has raced through in the past 5 minutes are "shop" areas, and that everything ahead is solely "assembly." He says there are four large assembly lines devoted to beds, where pieces are joined using hydraulic screwdrivers. Some employees connect headboards to footboards. Finally, workers pack and load onto trailers the finished products that are moved to warehouses. Perez says that the monstrous warehouse he is driving through is Standard's "small" one, which makes sense when Still drives a couple of blocks to the distribution center built in 2002. That warehouse is reminiscent of the ending scene in "Raiders of the Lost Ark," when the crated ark is taken down a seemingly endless row of huge crates stacked from floor to ceiling. Still says "we ran out of room here," forcing Standard to open yet another warehouse in Frisco City. "Once a year, we count all of this, which is fun," she remarks, joking about a necessary accounting aspect of the job she's had for 18 years. Standard Furniture showroom includes popular bedroom and dining room furniture. Dick Owen III, owner of city's oldest business, Builder's Hardware & Supply Co.; right, employee Paul Przyborski helps customer.

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