If you are planning to furnish a new office or renovate an old one, enlisting the assistance of a professional office furniture consultant can be a wise move – especially when you can receive a free consultation. Although picking out desks, chairs, and cubicles may seem fairly straightforward, there are actually a number of problems you can run into. Having an advisor to walk you through the planning, selection, and installation process can be very helpful for the following reasons:
Efficient Space Usage
If you do all the calculations for office furniture placement yourself, it’s easy to miss out on making the most of your square footage. Simply calculating the footprint of each workstation and leaving room for pathways isn’t the best way to do space planning. There are dozens of tips and tricks that professionals know that increase the number of employees who can comfortably fit in your office environment. A consultant can also offer advice on how to save money on cable and electrical installations by arranging modular furniture in a spine based layout.
Brand Selection
A professional office furniture advisor (who isn’t an exclusive dealer for one manufacturer) can give you objective information about the best brands and models for your workspace. Without a consultant, you would have nothing to go on but customer reviews and the advertising provided by the manufacturers of each brand. Digging through the web to compile enough information to make a good decision takes up a great deal of time. It makes sense to ask for a consultant’s top 3 or 4 recommendations that fit your price range so you can narrow down the field and just research those few choices.
Acoustics, Ergonomics, and Aesthetics
Some of the most frequent complaints employees have about office furniture is the noise level of the cubicle environment and the discomfort caused by inadequate chairs and workstations. A consultant can help you select the items that will maximize worker satisfaction and create a pleasant office environment. In addition, you can bounce ideas for different color schemes off an experienced designer and end up with a look that fits your branding and doesn’t clash with the rest of the décor.
LEED Certification
If you are trying to earn LEED points, it’s an especially good idea to consult a professional. Office furniture selections that are sustainable and that don’t negatively impact IAQ (indoor air quality) can help you achieve certification. Again, this is an area you could research yourself, but it makes more sense to make use of the knowledge already accumulated by a specialist.
Alexander Kjerulf, the Chief Happiness Officer over at the Positive Sharing website, has put together a terrific 
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Overview of HON’s Tips
Notes on Panel Systems
The trend toward miniaturization hasn’t just impacted the computer chip industry over the last 20 years. Modern cubicles have also shrunk as employers seek to make the most out of their office real estate. According to a report from 
Canada’s National Research Council has done quite a bit of experimentation on this topic. Here are some of their findings for ways to increase employee satisfaction in a cubicle-based work environment:
Squeezing as many workers into a space as possible may seem like the best way to make use of expensive office real estate. However, there are other considerations besides square footage that make proper space planning essential from a budgeting and productivity standpoint. For one thing, the way you arrange a cubicle system affects the amount of wiring/cabling required. The orientation of the workstations within the office can increase or decrease the effectiveness of natural lighting and the flow of air. The direction an employee faces inside the cube also impacts the perceived size and privacy of the space provided.
In this example from the Compose line by Haworth, all employees are facing in one direction. Ventilation can be provided from a single angle (say, above and behind) to serve the entire group. Four workstations are combined to create a very stable structure.
These two U-shaped York workstations from Knoll share a central seating area to save space. Since the workers are facing away from each other, there is a greater sense of privacy. Storage can be shared or separate depending on the needs of the employees.
One of the most popular cubicle configurations for efficient electrical and data wiring is the 
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Are you going through a period of downsizing that involves moving to a smaller office space? You may need to put some of your office furniture in storage. Cubicles are often relatively simple to break down and take up much less space when they are stored as separate components instead of full workstations. Here are a few tips for making sure they remain in good condition and are easy to reassemble when you need them again:
Software developer 
While human cloning is still the stuff of science fiction, office furniture cloning has been taking place for quite some time. Cloning companies mimic an OEM office cubicle’s design to create knock-offs of the original product for business owners who want to save some cash. It’s kind of like buying a faux Coach bag – only with cubicles.
