Ideas Flock together with new Flock line from Hon and Workspace Solutions

The current trend in office design encourages people to get up from their desks occasionally, to spend some time together collaborating and creating new concepts.  To make this work w need inviting spaces that welcome employees to work together away from their desks or workstations.  This fall, Hon Office Furniture and Workspace Solutions, your Hon dealer for Fort Wayne, and northern Indiana introduce Flock.  Flock supports collaboration and creates an environment of how people want to work and where they want to work.   Instead of making team members “make do” for group activities, Flock lets you dedicate zones where teamwork comes naturally.  As with all office furniture at Workspace Solutions, Flock from Hon is made for work.  It’s tough, hardworking, yet great loopking office furniture designed to last a long time and get the job done.    Flock by Hon becomes available this fall at Workspace Solutions in Fort Wayne, IN.

Google’s new London Office Offers us a Sneak Peak at the Future

Google has been  a trend setter in style and management over the past several years. So, when Google builds a new office (this time in London), the rest of us check it out to see if there’s any great new ideas we need to borrow, or at least to see what our office might look like in another ten years or so.  If Google’s London office is any clue, we’ll be seeing more padding on the walls, and a continuation of the trend to encourage employees to collaborate and work from many different parts of the office, technology freeing us from being tethered to our desks.

For fun, anyway, take a look at Google’s new London office in this web article by the website, digital trends.  Click here

What Google ideas would you like to see in your office?

 

How Cloud Computing will affect Office Furniture Design

The cloud is simply a digital file storage system you access through the internet rather than through your network.  Your documents and spread sheets are stored in buildings thousands of miles away from the office and are accessible to you, and other employees, no matter where you are.  So, if you don’t need company servers anymore, maybe it’s time to think about converting the server room to another conference room.  With wireless cloud technology, you can plop down on any computer anywhere in the office, or on the road for that matter, so why do you need your own cubicle?  Work more comfortabley from a large work table, or sit and collaborate with fellow employees and still easily work on or share documents from your laptop to theirs through the cloud.  You don’t need as many non-assigned desks as you do private workstations.  Half you staff may be on the road at any given time anyway, especially your sales staff.  This means using limited space in a more efficient manner, even reducing square footage and high rents with come with that.  This cloud may not bring rain, but it does bring new ways to designe and utilize work space, and Workspace Solutions designers all over it.

If you’re still a bit cloudy on what cloud computing is, here’s a video that can shed some light on the subject.

RFIDs help hosptals find equipment, files, and improve health care for patients

During the summer of 2007, Capital Health System, an acute-care and teaching hospital located inTrenton,New Jersey, began tracking every medical file using RFID technology.  What is RFID?  It stands for Radio Frequency Identification.  Every file has a small RFID circuit chip attached to it.  This chip broadcasts an ID signal that can be picked up by special RFID receiving devices.  In other words, if someone take a patient file, and leaves it in another part of the hospital, the RFID receiver can locate it quickly.

 

Capital Health System manages 5,000 patient files. Each file is tagged with an RFID tag allowing it to be tracked from the moment it is created for a new patient all the way until the file is retained in storage.  The RFID readers can be positioned at various locations around the hospital to report in real time the locations for every file. Effieicieny improves, and liability is reduced.

 

Hopsitlas are also using RFID technology to:

  • Continuously track each patient’s location
  • Track the location of doctors and nurses in the hospital
  • Track the location of expensive and critical instruments and equipment
  • Restrict access to drugs, pediatrics, and other high-threat areas to authorized staff
  • Monitor and track unauthorized persons who are loitering around high-threat areas
  • Facilitate triage processes by restricting access to authorized staff and “approved” patients during medical emergencies, epidemics, terrorist threats, and other times when demands could threaten the hospital’s ability to effectively deliver services
  • Use the patient’s RFID tag to access patient information for review and update through a hand-held computer

 

 

The problem at Christiana Hospital in Newark,Del., where the emergency department has 76 treatment rooms that handle more than 100,000 patients yearly, was that triage nurses were losing track of where patients were in the treatment process as they were moved among diagnostic and treatment facilities. The result: The overall length of a patient’s stay was spiking above normal levels, and about 4% to 5% were leaving without any treatment at all.  An RFID system combined with computer software that associates patients with equipment and treatments solved this problem.

 

Recent surveys show RFID based solutions are really starting to take off in hospitals around the country.  Many hospitals see RFID solutions as part of taking the step into digital record keeping.

 

Workspace Solutions is teaming with Spacefile, a storage solution company that offers both RFID technology, and innovative physical storage solutions that allow you to store more in less space.

The Decline of the Cubicle

(Fourth of a four part series on Office Furniture Trends for 2012)

During 2012, we’ll be designing more open offices than ever before, with fewer cubicles, and more common work areas.

Cubicles sales peaked in 2000, when they accounted for nearly 37 percent of all office furniture sales. That’s fallen to about 26 percent. Companies now prefer more open spaces that make it easier for employees to work together.

Workers used to spend most of their day at a desk or cubicle, report to a conference room for meetings, then tread a familiar path back to their workstation. Now, companies are setting up more gathering areas in “in between” spaces, where workers can hold informal conferences, chat with colleagues, or plop down with a laptop. Workers like the flexibility, and companies encourage the collaboration.

More and more employees aren’t even in the office most of the time.  They may be outside sales people or they could be working from home.  Why waste precious office space on people who are rarely actually in the office.  Common work areas and tables provide these workers with what they need to be productive during those rare times they are physically in the building.

The equipment we use and the way we work keep evolving, and so must our office designs.  2012 promises to be a year when we will see many of these changes take place.

As usual, we here at Workspace Solutions will keep you up to date on our “What’s New” blog.

Saving Green on Going Green

(Third of a four part series on Office Furniture Trends for 2012)

Most of us like the idea of saving the world’s resources for future generations, but it hasn’t always been easy to put our money where our heart is.  Happily, this is changing.

Office furniture stores like Workspace Solutions are now awash in green goods. Furniture made from recycled content, low VOC (volatile organic compound) paints that emit fewer greenhouse gases, organic fabrics and Energy Star business equipment that uses less electricity have become commonplace. The best news, they are price competitive with ordinary, non-green counterparts. Our top office furniture suppliers all feature green lines and products, and are introducing more every day.

Oh Boy! Here Comes Voi, Laminate Desking from Hon

We used to design every work station the same way, and each worker just had to adapt. Today, we design work stations for the task that person will actually be performing, thereby increasing their efficiency and productivity. The downside to doing this in the past was having to mix and match furniture from different manufacturers or style lines. With the new Voi line from Hon, we can now make all of your office furniture look the same from the boardroom to the reception area. Voi gives us the ability to create incredibly flexible offices with a common look. Every desk and work station can be different, yet colors and surfaces all match.

Check out the Voi Video, or contact Workspace Solutions to learn more about Voi from Hon.

Collaborate with Allsteel’s new Involve

Cubicles divide office space into private spaces all with the same function.  That’s great as long as everyone performs the same tasks and you never have the need for collaboration.

Involve, from Allsteel, was developed to support collaboration spontaneously at each individual workstation.  This makes work areas far more productive and efficient.   The collection incorporates soft seating to encourage spontaneous interaction, laminate storage options that support active work, and screens that define space and create varied separation. One unique solution supports all the ways work happens.

You can download the brochure by clicking here.

Workspace Solutions is your AllSteel dealer for Fort Wayne, South Bend and Indianapolis, providing you with 21st Century ideas for designing your office for maximum efficiency.  To find out how you can use new ideas in office design, contact us today at Workspace Solutions.

The New Look of Office Design

It’s the new look of office design, with storage built across one side, and plenty of desk or table room on the other. It’s more efficient, ergonomic and works better with technology. Workspace Solutions has just added the new Keel line from Abco that is designed to fit today’s office styles. Check out Abco on our website here. Check out the Keel video:

Keel NeoCon 2011 from izzy+ on Vimeo.