Our Story
Learn our story, leadership, and mission shaping manufacturing in Mexico.
Furniture Manufacturing in Mexico, Simplified
Tetakawi’s Manufacturing Campus model lets furniture manufacturers operate their own plant in Mexico, with move-in-ready space, a workforce built for hand-intensive work, and trade programs already in place. Your plant, your people, and your designs stay yours. Tetakawi runs the operating platform around them.
The Problem
High Mix, Hand Work, Thin Margin
Furniture is hand work at volume. Cutting and sewing, frame build, finishing, assembly: the cost sits in labor hours, and the mix changes with the season. A line that cannot flex across SKUs, or cannot keep trained hands, loses the margin before it ships.
Mexico has the sewing and finishing hands at volume. But running a plant there takes more than industrial space. Whatever your plant runs, woodworking, metal fabrication, upholstery and sewing, finishing or assembly, it needs three things:
- A workforce recruited and trained for hand-intensive work
- Customs and trade filings that hold to a delivery date
- Material and origin records that hold up at the border
You can build all that from scratch, or you can operate inside a Tetakawi Campus.
| Traditional Site Selection | Tetakawi Campus Model |
|---|---|
| Find a building and fit it out yourself | Move-in-ready space on an established Campus |
| Build HR, payroll, and labor systems from scratch | Recruiting, payroll, and benefits administered for your plant |
| Staff a ramp with no local recruiting network | Recruiters already working the market before you arrive |
| Coordinate recruiters, customs brokers, and advisors on your own | One partner for recruiting, customs, and administration |
| Establish your own Mexican entity, IMMEX, and customs process | Import and export in Mexico under Tetakawi’s IMMEX authorization |
| Manage a patchwork of vendors and their contracts | One U.S.-based agreement, with the work run on site |
Our Approach
What Runs Around a Line That Changes
Every Campus sits in a region with an established manufacturing workforce. Three things run around your operation: the people, the building, and the movement of material across the border.
Staff Hand-Intensive Work
Tetakawi recruits sewers, upholsterers, finishers, and assemblers, and keeps hiring as your mix grows. Transport and on-site medical are part of keeping them. You set the requirements for every role.
Protect the Design That Is Yours
Your designs, your finish standards, your customer approvals. Tetakawi runs the facility around them: utilities brought to the building, secure grounds, and controlled material flow.
Move Material and Finished Goods
In Mexico, Tetakawi is the importer and exporter of record; entering the United States, your company is. Tetakawi keeps the customs and inventory record, and a licensed Mexican broker files each entry.
Statistics
Furniture in Mexico Today
32,575
Furniture workshops and plants in Mexico
247
Of those with more than 100 employees
98%
Of wooden furniture exports go to the U.S.
Our Model
A Campus Model That Supports Furniture Production
Furniture competes on cost, craftsmanship and delivery speed. The Campus model can lower overhead by up to about 30% against a standalone plant. You run the plant.
- Move-in-ready space for woodworking, upholstery, metal fabrication, and assembly
- Recruiting pipeline for sewers, finishers, technicians, and assemblers
- Material enters under Tetakawi’s IMMEX authorization, with Tetakawi as importer and exporter of record
- Payroll, social security contributions, permits and the Mexican entity’s tax filings handled by Tetakawi
Testimonials
What Manufacturers Say
Manufacturers who run their own plants on Tetakawi Campuses, in their own words.
“We produce sewn covers for the marine and power sport markets, protecting against dust, water and the sun. When we expanded into Mexico, what mattered most was finding a partner who could help us execute with speed and give us the confidence to grow. The workforce here is skilled, stable and motivated.”
Agustín Mendoza, Plant Manager, Commercial Sewing
“We are working three shifts, five days a week. The people are very important to keep our operations running, and the resources the Campus has in that area are very good. They have a strong team hiring and screening candidates: if we need ten people and request them with time, they have ten people when we need them.”
Mauricio García, Plant Manager, Gemini Group
“You get people, plants, and processes, with compliance and logistics handled, so you can focus on serving your customers and transferring your culture. I have done this with two public companies and a couple of private ones, and nearly every plant I’ve opened in Mexico has been with Tetakawi.”
Jon Jensen, Manufacturing CEO, repeat Tetakawi client since 2001
FAQs
Questions Furniture Manufacturers Ask
The questions we get most often from furniture manufacturers looking at Mexico.
Who owns the designs and IP if I manufacture in Mexico?
You do.
Your designs, your finish standards, your customer approvals and the IP behind what you build stay in your name, and the plant in Mexico runs under your quality system. Tetakawi is not a contract manufacturer.
How do tariffs affect furniture manufacturing in Mexico?
It depends on where your wood, metal, foam and fabric come from, and how the piece is classified.
USMCA is still in force, and furniture that qualifies as originating enters the United States without ordinary duty. The Section 232 timber and lumber action sits on top of that, regardless of preference, and it reaches upholstered wooden furniture and kitchen cabinets and vanities but not all wooden furniture. That is a bill-of-materials exercise, and as part of our due diligence, we help you work it out.
What furniture is manufactured in Mexico?
Four kinds of work, broadly.
Wood: case goods, bedroom and kitchen collections, and frames. Upholstery: cut and sew, foam, and covered seating. Metal: tube bending, welding, and powder coated frames. And assembly and packing, from flat pack through to finished units. The work spans residential, office and contract furniture, and much of it sits with suppliers and cut-and-sew operations rather than the brand owners.
Where is furniture manufacturing concentrated in Mexico?
Jalisco, with further capacity in Chihuahua, Nuevo León and the Bajío.
Jalisco is the country’s best known furniture cluster, in both wood and upholstered work. Tetakawi operates five Manufacturing Campuses, in Guaymas, Empalme, Hermosillo, Saltillo and Mazatlán, and which one fits depends on your labor profile, your material flow, and where your customers are.
Why should furniture manufacturers consider a Tetakawi Campus?
A Tetakawi Manufacturing Campus is a turnkey operating environment: you run your own factory, and Tetakawi runs everything around it.
You keep full control of production, quality and your IP. Tetakawi is not a contract manufacturer.
Tetakawi provides the building, the workforce, the import and export operation, and the Mexican entity with its permits and registrations.
For furniture work, that means the people for hand work are in place, and bulky material and finished goods move through our own cross-docks.
How can Tetakawi help us evaluate expanding into Mexico?
Four steps, in order.
1. Get in touch. A conversation about what you are hoping to achieve in Mexico, and why now.
2. Measure ROI. We build the business case with you: the full cost of running your operation on a Campus, the risks and the trade-offs, and which Campus fits. If more than one could work, we build both.
3. Site visit. Walk the Campus, meet the people who would run your account, and talk with manufacturers already operating there.
4. Launch and grow. When you give the green light, the same team that helped you build the case guides the launch.
Build a Predictable Path to Manufacturing in Mexico
Start with a conversation, not a commitment: tell us your goals, and we’ll help you decide whether a Campus fits.
