Just 16 months after cutting the ribbon on its new Suffolk facility with only 10 employees, Friant & Associates is operating ahead of the production schedule company officials had set at the time.

The office furniture company now has about 110 employees on staff, and it’s ahead of pace to meet its eventual goal of 160 or so employees working in at least two shifts, Scott Bloyd, Friant’s vice president for East Coast operations, said during a tour for business leaders on Thursday.

The tour, sponsored by the Suffolk and Portsmouth divisions of the Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce, gave members a chance to see the work that is done at Friant and learn more about the company’s business model.

Friant supplies custom office furniture to a range of clients, fulfilling orders by the thousands or one at a time, Bloyd said.

With more than 12,500 product SKUs, as well as an unlimited number of customized options, Friant has a huge inventory to offer its clients.

The problem, prior to opening of the Suffolk facility in June 2015, was that products shipped from one of the company’s West Coast locations could take nine days to reach the customer.

The Suffolk facility slashes the turnaround time, Bloyd said.

“We have literally had vessels come in (to nearby ports) and had them unloaded, shipped to our facility, product assembled and shipped out the same day,” he said.

And “containers come in every day,” loaded with desk parts, partition assemblies, chairs and conference tables ready to be assembled, custom-cut, covered in fabrics and then repacked for shipping to clients.

Three different plants in Asia provide the company’s furniture parts, Bloyd said.

He noted that Suffolk had provided a great labor market.

“We’ve gone through about 1,000 people to select the 100 or so we have left,” he said, noting that different phases of the company’s startup have required different types of talents.

“We’re ahead of schedule,” he added. “We’re interviewing all the time. We’re hiring every week.”

The Friant facility is one of four warehousing and distribution centers that have opened or been announced in the CenterPoint development since the multimodal logistics park off Route 58 was approved by City Council in 2009.

Ace Hardware, Nexcom and Friant are currently operating facilities there, and Emser Tile has begun construction.

According to CenterPoint’s Tony Beck, his company has invested about $20 million in infrastructure on the approximately 900-acre site, including a three-lane road that connects Kenyon Road to Route 58 through the industrial development.

The draw factor for CenterPoint tenants, he said, has been “access to about 110 million people within a 10-hour drive” from the facility.

“Right now, activity continues to pick up,” he added.