Archive for April, 2011

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The Great Divide - Commercial vs. Residential Furniture

Friday, April 29th, 2011

Earlier this year, a major case goods importer in California merged its commercial and residential furniture lines. This means office pieces like desking units and conferences tables are now available in the same catalog as coffee tables and corner hutches. Coaster originally had its office furniture line more clearly delineated as contract furniture. Since 6 out of 10 distributors of Coaster’s imports carry a blend of commercial and residential furnishings, keeping them separate in terms of marketing made less and less sense. Streamlining both marketing and administration processes with a merged system was simply more resource effective

The Divide is Shrinking across the Industry

Increasingly, the line between commercial and residential furniture seems to be blurring. Commercial pieces are likely to end up in a home office if they meet consumer needs. Someone working at home is just as likely to want a high quality Steelcase or Herman Miller chair as an office furniture buyer in a corporate environment. And they may actually be more inclined to pay for it since they get the direct benefit of sitting in it every day instead of buying it for an employee. The web has made it simple for residential consumers to browse contract furniture online from all the top manufacturers. So, some companies are deciding to tap that market by selling select items from seating to casegoods via chain retailers. Most will also sell directly B2C online as well.

Differences Remain

There are many types of office furniture that are simply not suited to residential use. Components such as reception desks, conference tables, cubicles, and architectural walls are still the province of commercial office customers. Companies that focus mainly on providing panel systems and other high volume contract pieces will probably not spend a significant amount of their marketing budget on reaching residential customers. However, even the largest companies are making an effort to connect with the general public and residential customers through a strong web presence. It never hurts to be a “household” name. After all, the purchasing agent signing a bulk buying contract wants to make a deal with a company that comes across as caring about each and every customer.

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The Green Packaging Trend

Wednesday, April 27th, 2011

Reducing packaging waste is a strong trend among cubicle manufacturers. Reusing shipping pallets is a long standing practice. So is incorporating pre and post-consumer recycled materials into packing components. Unloading products at their destination and reclaiming the boxes is a somewhat newer concept. However, Steelcase has recently taken the game to a whole new level with a biodegradable packaging material. The manufacturer is now using a Styrofoam substitute comprised of cottonseed and buckwheat hulls held together in a mushroom root matrix.

These “peanuts” were developed by a company called Ecovative Design. Not only do these packing peanuts degrade within 4-6 weeks when placed in the soil, they require 85% less energy to produce since the ingredients are natural agriculture byproducts. These organic packing materials are sterilized to make sure they don’t ‘mushroom’ out of control once they are put to use.

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Home Office Furniture is Shrinking

Monday, April 25th, 2011

According to analysis published by Furniture Today, home office furniture is getting more compact. Even executive style desks – long noted for their imposing size – are being scaled back to a modest 54 inches. Retailers are dedicating less space to this category of furnishings on their floors, and so are end users. Suppliers are responding by offering designs that deliver more function while taking up less room. Computer desks intended to accommodate a laptop and/or a traditional PC are a top selling item. Metal and glass are popular materials for these sleek, contemporary pieces.

Desks of all types are more likely to provide features like wire management and power strips. Storage is at a premium as well. Models with built in shelving to house printers and space for a laptop to be tucked away when it’s not in use are hot right now. However, old fashioned styles like trestle and writing desks are also making a comeback since a flat surface is all wireless laptop users may require. As more people start working from home in their own businesses and e-commuting for regular employers, the market for home office furniture that’s reasonably sized and reasonably priced is likely to evolve further.

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Like Your Humor Cheap? Cubicles Of Fire Fits The Bill

Friday, April 22nd, 2011

If you’re looking for a cheap cubicles-related laugh, don’t miss this chuckle worthy video montage on YouTube. It features some of the most athletic clips from The Office set to one of the greatest (and most recognizable) musical scores of all time. Cubicles of Fire will inspire you to strap boxes of paper to your feet and keep pressing on until you cross that finish line:

Cubicles of Fire

If you’ve never used cubicles as a platform to actually build a fire, you can see how to do that in the next clip. It’s the modern day version of Bob Cratchit warming himself over a candle stub. Of course, your Accounting department would never be so cruel as to turn off the heat, would they?

Office Survival Tips: Fire

Finally, enjoy 60 seconds of some of the oldest cubicle pranks in the book. Actually, there are a couple of pretty innovative ideas in this video, too. Vote in the comments on which one you like best.

Office Humor- Best Office Cubicle Pranks Ever!!

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Office Furniture Liquidation…and Demolition?

Wednesday, April 20th, 2011

Have you ever wondered what the office furniture liquidation process looks like? Liquis actually goes further than just removing furniture and actually demolishes a data center in the short video here. Besides moving out the filing cabinets and other furnishings (90,000 square feet of office furniture), they take out 25 truckloads of other equipment and materials. Even the raised flooring isn’t safe. It’s all stripped out and hauled off.

What Happens To All This Stuff?

A liquidator inventories every asset down to the value of the scrap metal. For IT equipment, they may do all the data destruction - although it is smarter to take care of that step yourself for optimal data security. Then, the liquidator sells the items. Whether they keep a commission on the sales or buy the items directly from the customer to resell is determined by the details of the contract. Either way, the customer gets a full accounting of everything that was removed along with a valuation.

Why Liquidate?

Liquidation isn’t just something that occurs during a bankruptcy. Getting cash in hand is one reason to offload assets you aren’t using. Donating them to a charity means a tax write-off, but you don’t experience the benefits of that until later. When you need an infusion of money right now and don’t have the time or the manpower to strip down and sell each item yourself, liquidation is an option.

If your organization went through a merger, acquisition, or restructuring and left you with a building or office space that’s not being used, you’re probably still paying rent on it. Liquidation is one option for clearing an unused space fast so you can end a lease. It’s an alternative to moving all your assets to long term storage if you know that you’re probably never going to use them again.

Office Furniture Liquidation

Although any liquidation company can haul away your used office furniture, a company that specializes in refurbishing office furniture is likely to give you the fairest price. That’s because they cut out the middle man. They will be reselling the furniture themselves. The process of getting a quote is straightforward (it helps if you have an accurate inventory of all components you want to sell). Once you’ve settled on a price, you can sit back and enjoy your check while the office furniture liquidator packs up everything and moves it out for you.

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Office Furniture Center Closings

Monday, April 18th, 2011

Well, it’s certainly been an interesting few years in the office furniture industry. There have been a number of widely publicized office furniture center shutdowns. These include the impending closure of several Steelcase plants. Production is shifting to other facilities to reduce overall costs and ensure continued profitability. Haworth took a similar step a couple of years ago after acquiring the Smed movable wall and wood furniture plant in Canada. The company decided that moving production to its Michigan plants made more sense than keeping the Calgary factory running. Hon also divested excess capacity in 2009 with the closure of its Louisburg, NC plant.

Individual dealerships and national distributors are also affected. In 2009, one of Virginia’s largest office furniture dealerships (Chasen’s Business Interiors) closed. Aaron’s Inc. began shutting down its office furniture division in 2010 and is finishing up liquidating outstanding inventory now out of 2 remaining stores. They are focusing on their leasing model which is thriving in the current economy as some businesses are still putting off making purchasing decisions. However, the used and refurbished office furniture business is going strong and new furniture sales are expected to pick up significantly over the next 24 months.

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Used Office Cubicles - San Diego Steelcase Bargain

Friday, April 15th, 2011

If you’re looking for a steal on Steelcase used office cubicles, San Diego Cubicles Office Environments is the place to look. Steelcase is one of the brands we liquidate and resell frequently since these products are well made and tend to last through several owners. Sometimes, we can furnish 70 or 80 workstations at a time – like with our recent batch of Answer workstations. These panel systems are known for their flexibility including easy reconfiguration, stacked tiles, and off module connections. You can leave workstations partially open or build panels up to 90” high for complete privacy.

The pricing for our used office cubicles is up to 75% off new. When you combine a used furniture purchase with a free space planning consultation, you can save thousands of dollars. Not only will you be obtaining some of the highest quality pre-owned furniture, you’ll also be getting the most out of your office space.

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Buy Cubicles Designed With Your Fabric

Wednesday, April 13th, 2011

Fabric customization is a perk that you might think is out of reach for something like office cubicles, but it’s really a service that’s offered by most of the name brand manufacturers. When you buy cubicles, you can do more than just specify fabrics from the collections provided by the seller. You can also choose your own materials from any textile supplier. The industry term for this is COM (Customer’s Own Material). Each manufacturer has its own program, but they try to make it as easy as possible for you to figure out what types of textile are suitable. For example, something that would work fine for seating might not be right for a cubicle panel – and vice versa.

Teknion

When you fill out a COM form with Teknion, they will look at the supplier’s name, color name, and pattern name. Based on this information, they let you know if the fabric is already approved for a specific application. If it needs to be tested, they will ask for a few yards of the fabric and some sample swatches. Once the textile is approved, your Teknion dealer will order the appropriate amount for you and send it to the manufacturer.

Steelcase

This company has thousands of fabrics on its approved COM list. They also provide testing services for new fabrics as needed. Steelcase recommends that customers take into consideration whether the textile will be applied horizontally or vertically – some fabrics can only be applied in one direction and this can impact the yardage you need.

Haworth

With the Haworth COM program, fabric testing for systems furniture is free (you just pay to send them the samples). After approval, Haworth handles ordering your fabric so that it goes to the right production plant and there aren’t any unnecessary delays. The company is careful to point out that even if a fabric passes testing this doesn’t mean they warrant it beyond normal quality standards. So, would you need to determine for yourself if a fabric is resistant to wear, staining, or fire if those characteristics are important to you.

Refurbished cubicles can also be fitted with your own fabric at our shop. This means you can get customization at an even better price.

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An Indestructible Call Center Cubicle?

Monday, April 11th, 2011

We all know that the average call center cubicle gets a lot of use. In many companies, sixteen or even full twenty four hour usage per day isn’t uncommon. EQA (Easy, Quick, Affordable) Office Furniture is marketing a new series of telemarketing cubicles as practically “indestructible”. They’ve designed the panels and workstations with metal and wood laminate tiles. This eliminates the issue of fabric wear and staining that can make high-use cubicles look old before their time.

Apparently, people don’t stop writing on their desks when they graduate from grade school. One of the benefits touted by EQA is that the hard surfaces featured in the Segment line are ink resistant. This limits the damage from employee graffiti. The fact that no fabric is used does make it simpler to wipe down and disinfect surfaces. However, this systems furniture has only a 5 year warranty. That’s not the longest or most comprehensive warranty by a long shot. So, time will tell how indestructible these cubicles really are.

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Another Reason To Lease Office Furniture

Friday, April 8th, 2011

Mike over at cubicles.com has a really eye opening white paper about space planning for optimum workflow. It tells a story about an executive who decided to jump on the anti-cubicle bandwagon and do away with assigned workstations altogether. The problem is that he didn’t figure out if this was the right solution for how employees performed their work within his organization.

Plus, he didn’t fund the initiative properly. He figured since some people would be telecommuting he could skimp on the number of computers he made available on-site. This led to the predictable hoarding and conflict among coworkers fighting to get the basic tools they needed to do their jobs. That’s not even the worst part. With no fixed work places, people couldn’t collaborate on company projects – because they couldn’t find each other. What a nightmare! To discover how the whole debacle turned out, go check out the free white paper.

What’s The Moral of This Story?

One takeaway point might be to ‘try before you buy’. If you want to completely redesign your office layout based on the latest trends, consider leasing the furniture you think you will need. You can use it to test out your idea and see if it helps or hinders workflow in your particular company. (Hint: figure out in advance how you will measure the results or you could still make the wrong decision).

When your desk or cubicle lease is up, you can trade the furniture in for something different. With a month to month lease, you’re not stuck with anything you don’t want. It’s a good idea to limit the major changes you make in the office environment to keep disruption to a minimum. But it’s much cheaper to find out that your cool new office layout isn’t going to work when you can easily return the furniture. Don’t forget to get a no-charge space planning consultation too. At Cubicles Office Environments, we can help you avoid common mistakes and make the right leasing and purchasing decisions.

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