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Anonymous
 
Posted on Saturday, January 31, 2004 - 09:26 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post

Any of you specify office furniture ? I'm in the contract office furniture business and am curious how an Architect/Designer determines what products to put on the specs. I also have come across situations where a certain brand has been specified with finishes chosen allready and than it will say "or approved substitute". If a substitute is actually approved.....you'd have to go through the whole finish selection process again. So I usually take that as a sign a substitute wont be selected. Any thoughts on the furniture aspect of the business ?
Bonnie Baffer (Unregistered Guest)
Unregistered guest
Posted on Wednesday, February 04, 2004 - 08:49 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post

I purchase office furniture for a government facility. Unfortunately we have not been able to stick with one brand of systems furniture, and now we have spare parts in various colors from three manufacturers. What a waste of storage space and money! My sugestion would be to stay with one product and color. (Hopefully you select a panel fabric that won't be discontinued soon!)
D. Marshall Fryer
Senior Member
Username: dmfryer

Post Number: 24
Registered: 09-2003
Posted on Thursday, February 05, 2004 - 08:35 am:   Edit PostDelete PostPrint Post

I had a very hands-on client for a high-tech office facility. I selected appropriate furniture systems and products, and developed a design. He then decided he wanted competitive bids for the project. I had to substantially dummy down the design so that it could be achieved by a number of different manufacturers.

When the bids all came in within 5% (as I expected they would), the client finally realized I knew what I was doing and that the incremental cost didn't really matter.

We then interviewed the vendors, inspected other installations, and picked the one the client liked best, which incidentally was the one I had in mind for him initially. However, I never got the chance to smarten back up the furniture.

Now with most clients, I push very hard to skip the competitive bidding step, and go directly to the vendor interviews.

As Anon suggests, it can be quite difficult to substitute one system for another, some use a 6" dimensional increment, others use 5", so sizes often don't match, and an elegant solution for a tight space in one system may not work at all in another system.

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