As part of our company's wide assortment of furniture, providing office seating and other solutions for virtually every office need, it is our pleasure to hereby present our remanufactured Steelcase chairs collection.

Steelcase is the world's largest manufacturer and provider of office furniture, office furniture systems and related products and services, bringing human insight and innovation into business for over a century now. Steelcase Office Chairs today are the culmination of 105 years of focus and research on technology, materials, ergonomics and work processes, which keeps and enhances the company's share on the market in a broad platform of product styles – thanks to their price points and unsurpassed quality.

Steelcase is company that governs legacy and innovation with a past, present and future that hold the key to commitment and integrity that could make the world a better place – one innovation at a time, decade after decade. Founded in the distant 1912 as the Metal Office Furniture Company in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Steelcase is now over 105 years old. During its big rich history, the Steelcase company has helped some of the world's leading organizations, across different industries, to create and enhance their working experiences through their vast portfolio of furniture, technology products and services.

As the world's largest manufacturer and provider of office furniture and related products and services, Steelcase Inc. has led the US office furniture industry for 24 consecutive years. The company provides its vast range of products through an international network of independent dealers in nearly 680 locations. Architects, interior designers and corporate facility managers recognize the brand's strong reputation for quality, and have relied on both the local expertise of the dealers and the ongoing customer support services of the manufacturer, throughout any project, which has ensured customer satisfaction in virtually all furniture-related needs.

To get a grasp of just how comprehensive Steelcase's portfolio of products and services is, picture the whole process of initial workspace planning, delivery and installation, furniture asset management, ongoing support services, leasing and, in some instances, refurbishing and remanufacturing – which we will look into in more depth farther down in this article.

When speaking of seating, and especially when it comes to office furniture chairs, Steelcase believes it is the world's larger manufacturer and a proven market leader in seating innovation. And it's safe to say that there's a reason for that. The company was the first to introduce a double plastic shell in an office chair, a concept which is now utilized in most office chairs. Steelcase focuses greatly in research on materials, ergonomics, technology and manufacturing processes, which is maybe why the company was among the first to develop ergonomic office chairs, utilizing all that knowledge gained through research to enhance worker productivity. One of the company's best-selling office chairs – the Sensor, has sold more than 4 million units since its introduction, far more than any other office chair in the history of the office furniture industry. The Steelcase Criterion, which was introduced to the market in 1989 is currently the largest selling office chair in the world. Boasting the widest assortment of chair types in the industry, Steelcase believes it provides chairs and other types of seating for virtually every office need. Stacking chairs or lounge seating, high-performance or general use, guest or executive – there isn't anything that Steelcase hasn't covered. Any Steelcase desk chair will serve you with quality and comfort for many years.

Now, let's go a bit more in depth into the interesting topic of remanufacture and other forms of product recovery.

Remanufacturing is the process of rebuilding a product to its original specifications, using a combination of reused, repaired and new parts. Repairing or replacing worn out or obsolete components and modules can result in a level of quality required for the remanufactured item to be indistinguishable from new, and to carry the same warranty, but will cost significantly less. Compared to virgin products, remanufactured office furniture is more sustainable, and for grasping the economic and the environmental benefits of remanufacture, just imagine how much is 9 million tons of office furniture that goes to landfills every year, in the US alone! According to United States EPA estimates, up to 8.5 million tons, or 17 billion pounds, of office assets end up in US landfills annually. On the economic side, waste management represents up to 4% of a business or organization’s costs, and to put office furniture's market share into numbers, know that the total worth of commercial furniture and equipment that was produced, sold and used in 2015 in the U.S. alone was a staggering $10,2 billion.

Keeping office furniture away from landfill, by the means of remanufacture and reuse, protects the environment not just by diverting harmful materials from polluting the environment, but also by reducing the demand for timber, metals, plastics and fabrics, reducing carbon emissions produced during the manufacturing process and disposal. A typical office chair has dozens of different materials and chemicals, which makes reuse a really effective, sustainable and environmentally-friendly than recycling or landfill. And because remanufacturing is done locally, and it's more skill-demanding than manufacturing virgin products, this also creates local employment.

It's important to distinguish the process of remanufacture from the other forms of product recovery, so that you can't be misled or lose confidence in your supplier. We already established a definition of remanufacturing, but now let's define a few other terms:

Reuse – is the term that implies that items are being simply used by a second customer, in the way and condition in which the item is found during the change of ownership, without prior repairs.

Repair – it's pretty straightforward – the process of bringing damaged components back to a functional state.

Refurbishing / reconditioning – is the process in which components of the product are restored to the satisfactory condition to the original design and specification, using methods like resurfacing, repainting, etc.

Recycling – is the process of taking a component material and processing it to produce the same material or a useful degraded material.

So, to once again point out the difference between the other forms of product recovery, we just talked about, and remanufacture, we will quote the first published report on remanufacturing, by R. Lund (1984), who describes remanufacturing as:

“... an industrial process in which worn-out products are restored to like-new condition. Through a series of industrial processes in a factory environment, a discarded product is completely disassembled. Usable parts are cleaned, refurbished, and put into inventory. Then the product is reassembled from the old parts (and where necessary, new parts) to produce a unit fully equivalent and sometimes superior in performance and expected lifetime to the original new product".[1]

In conclusion, if you're refitting or moving an existing office, you can remanufacture your existing furniture, use some additional remanufactured pieces from another source, and combine these with new items to benefit from the trends or features that are so new that you can't find used and remanufactured yet, to achieve a welcome result – a lower costing, more sustainable office. And because remanufactured office furniture is still less-known, suppliers are always happy and eager to explain and demonstrate the quality and benefits of their products, oftentimes they will even visit your office with sample items, if you're a responsible and practical company which shows interest in this concept. So, we might say that now is the appropriate time to make inquiries and make some cost-saving, sustainable decisions for your business.