It's the economy of scale; complexity is mostly a one time upfront cost. Once you've figured out how to efficiently make a hundred TVs at a time, you know how to make a million.
For a TV most of the materials and components are either plastic (and thus light and cheap) or generic silica based stuff that is produced in batches of millions at a time (electronic components) in the blink of an eye. The most expensive parts of a TV are probably its screen (complexity) and the copper wiring (cost of material).
With a wood table the production of all parts takes much more labour, and high quality wood furniture is usually made of parts that have exact measurements and specifications for that particular model of table. Wood is also a live material; no two pieces are alike (this holds true from the unprocessed logs to the finished table legs). Lumber also needs time to acclimatize, so the whole resources to product cycle takes a lot longer (increasing storage costs).
Also, unless you are Ikea, a globally operating corporation can sell a lot more TVs than dining tables.
"With a wood table the production of all parts takes much more labour"
No, they don't.
Really.
This is a pretty trivial application of CNC.
I CNC table legs on my simple one, and have designed much larger CNC automations for local shops that CNC them.
The people who are doing it at factory scale would find this utterly trivial.
" and high quality wood furniture is usually made of parts that have exact measurements and specifications for that particular model of table."
This doesn't mean anything to the robots.
Really.
They just don't care.
They are already automatically referencing and aligning things to get them square.
They use lasers or other sensors plus vacuum to automatically align it to alignment pins within 0.001".
Just not a big deal.
"Wood is also a live material; no two pieces are alike (this holds true from the unprocessed logs to the finished table legs)."
Again, sorry. I pay my supplier for 90% red cherry. I could pay him for 100% red cherry.
If you think i can't make a computer grain match stuff, etc, i don't know what to tell you. more automated cnc cabinet shops do it all day long.
" Lumber also needs time to acclimatize, so the whole resources to product cycle takes a lot longer (increasing storage costs)."
No, it doesn't, it's kiln dried, and the only thing that matters is the climate it's going to.
For what is being done to it (making a table), it doesn't matter since the top will be floating anyway.
"Also, unless you are Ikea, a globally operating corporation can sell a lot more TVs than dining tables.
"
This is literally the only reason: People don't want it compared to the ikea furniture. They don't care, and aren't or can't pay a premium.
Lots of global companies make TVs (LG, Samsung, Philips, Toshiba, Panasonic, Sharp, Sony, ...) but it seems that "there are no real Ikea competitors in the world, period."[1]
So why aren't there more globally operating corporations selling furniture?
Could there be an opportunity for a higher-end (better than Ikea) highly-automated global furniture maker to take away market from thousands of small local furniture makers all over the world?
Perhaps a combination of much more variation in both models and regional tastes. TVs get replaced a lot faster than good quality dining tables too. Come to think of it, there really isn't that much of a variety in choice of TVs (a few sizes, perhaps a curved screen or not) compared to dining tables — the latter are much more personal in taste.
hell the manual production requirements are pretty much shown to be a non issue in the linked article. making a book shelf is little different from a table and a set of machines could just churn them out.
the difference is variety. variety means no single product is a very large seller which can defeat economies of scale. the bookshelf in the article is generic and can be done on the cheap. Other furniture items tend to have more variety
For a TV most of the materials and components are either plastic (and thus light and cheap) or generic silica based stuff that is produced in batches of millions at a time (electronic components) in the blink of an eye. The most expensive parts of a TV are probably its screen (complexity) and the copper wiring (cost of material).
With a wood table the production of all parts takes much more labour, and high quality wood furniture is usually made of parts that have exact measurements and specifications for that particular model of table. Wood is also a live material; no two pieces are alike (this holds true from the unprocessed logs to the finished table legs). Lumber also needs time to acclimatize, so the whole resources to product cycle takes a lot longer (increasing storage costs).
Also, unless you are Ikea, a globally operating corporation can sell a lot more TVs than dining tables.