IKEA's products often look so simple, you sometimes left wondering just why couldn't you have thought of that. The Wall Street Journal reveals that the process of doing that at the world's largest furniture retailer is actually very tough.

The publication got an in-depth look at the business of redesigning IKEA's kitchen for the first time in decades. It is one heck of a complex process. IKEA's kitchens are a 1,100-component system that is tailor-fit to each customer’s home, costing around $3,000. IKEA sells about a million of them a year.

The process of designing a system that will be sold to millions as you can imagine, would take a very long time to do. IKEA's team spent five years on design alone, and tailoring each element of the system to fit their manufacturing and shipping requirements.



Before the design enters into production, strategists study what contemporary life looks like in 38 countries, which results in hope visits, trips and case studies from how families store their knives to how they arrange their kitchen appliances and more.




While there's a ton of thought put into this, it's odd that IKEA isn't determining what the "future of the home" should look like since its got the market share to do so anyway. Still, a very fascinating story. Check it out here: [Wall Street Journal]