Barker Street
Even though Barker Street, as a company, is the central sales arm for our three local group owned manufacturing facilities and our international brands, Barker Street as a product brand is typified by well-designed, thoughtfully engineered, high quality, corporate, hospitality and retail furniture.
Barker Street’s Origin Story
While today, Barker Street may form one of the largest corporate furniture groups in the country, but who would have believed that Barker Street’s origins lay in a small engineering business that produced popcorn machines.
KMC Engineering was originally founded in the early 1980’s by an engineer named Nils Van Zyl. What began as a small business with a staff complement of just 5 people manufacturing catering equipment and then steel office furniture components to the trade, was just the beginning of a journey that even today continues to evolve steadily, 5 decades later.
While today, Barker Street may form one of the largest corporate furniture groups. Together with the setting up of a woodworking factory in 1996, Barker Street Office Furniture was founded in order to supply a complete furniture offering directly to corporates and Government, ultimately to be acquired in 2017, while forming part of what is known today as the “BFS-Barker Furniture Group”.
Upon visiting Barker Street today, you may still catch a whiff of popcorn in the air, made in an original KMC Popcorn Machine.
CORPORATE
Executive areas, meeting & collaboration areas, open office work clusters & communal spaces.
RETAIL
Frontline client-centric spaces with integrated company CI branding – primarily in the banking and car dealership sectors.
HOSPITALITY
Soft seating & reception, conferencing & hotel furniture, restaurant, canteen & leisure spaces.
The Barker Street Advantage
Operating out of 13,500 m² of commercial/industrial space, Barker Street’s in-house diversified manufacture and specialisation, has been the secret to its success.
The three manufacturing facilities under management allow the company to be in full control of all processes and totally self-sufficient.
In turn, this speeds up production immensely, allowing it to be incredibly cost-effective, and enabling us to obtain the highest quality standards making Barker Street a highly competitive manufacturer.
Barker Street today is 60% black owned 30.7% black female owned). As a Level 2 “empowering supplier” we offer you 125% recognition for your business procurement.
Our Local Manufacturing Facilities
All three of our manufacturing facilities have experienced management teams, supported by skilled machinists a committed to manufacturing and supplying quality furniture and components – on time, first time. All critical departments have duplicate machinery in case of machine breakdowns and our facilities are backed up with full off-grid generators in case of load shedding or power failures to meet deadlines without interference.
The Steel Factory
The original steel factory still runs today, albeit with some technological improvements. This facility comprises sheet metal processing & fabrication, with programmable punching and forming machines producing power channels, modesty panels, bracketry, steel cabinetry together with the internal cabinet componentry, such as shelves, cradles, drawers etc…
The engineering department fabricates precision frameworks for our desking systems, as well as specialised bullet proof teller counters and cash drawers for the banking industry.
All steel components are precision TIG welded and then prepared for our in-house, automated powder coating plant with rust treatment and then the epoxy powder coating is applied and baked in our ovens creating a hard-wearing scratch-resistant finish.
The Woodworking Factory
The woodworking factory is fully equipped with high volume, computerised, CAD integrated precision machinery to optimise efficiency and ensure absolute accuracy. We work with all types of materials such as solid woods, veneers, melamine’s and compact laminates, these are edged with solids, laminated veneers, standard PVC edging or specialised Polyurethane moulded edging which offers superior quality guarantees.
The Upholstery Factory
The dedicated and specialised soft seating upholstery teams in this facility manufacture the frames, build up the foam, stitch the panels and upholster all soft furnishing items with the gentle care that is necessary to consistently produce the highest level of quality it has for four decades.
Imported Italian moulded foam shells and exclusively designed components provide the perfect finishing touch to create the superb and vast range of chairs, couches, modular pieces and collaboration furniture.
A Glimpse of The Future…
Barker Street is today the central sales arm for our three local group owned manufacturing facilities as well as the group’s international brands.
These International brands Include Herman Miller, Buzzispace, Framery, Infiniti, Lapalma, and Colebrook Bosson Saunders, and of course Comfort Creations, our local sister company’s brand of products.
With the main showroom in Johannesburg and offices in Pretoria and Cape Town, together with our manufacturing facilities and brands, Barker Street’s offering is more compelling and comprehensive than ever before, better positioning our project managers to more effectively service and support the ‘Interior Design & Architect’ Community and in turn the corporate office furniture sector; retail banking branches; motor dealerships; and the hospitality, hotels and conferencing market.
Through all this exciting change, the constant remains – energy, opportunity and dedication – to our clients…