The U.S. furniture industry is facing intense foreign competition due to globalization. U.S. Competitiveness Survey identified responsiveness and on-time delivery as the major strategic areas to improve competitive advantage. To enable the U.S. furniture industry to become more responsive to customers and simultaneously ensure on-time delivery, an order promising framework was proposed for a make-to-order environment. The proposed order promising strategy was to implement advanced scheduling based on a drum-rope-buffer control system. A study was conducted on an upholstery manufacturing industry to demonstrate the potential lead-time improvement that may arise from implementing the proposed strategy. To carry out the study, a prototype database application was developed based on the operational policy of the example company to support order promising. The study results showed a possible improvement of 67% in the current lead-time performance of the company. Finally, a set of recommendations was made to develop an order promising system for the furniture industry.