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SPOTLIGHT/SMART WORKSPACE

SMART FURNITURE

NOW A PART OF THE CONNECTED

BUILDING DISCUSSION

RYAN ANDERSON floorplate, provides access to power, and is designed
Connected Solutions to support specific work activities. Furniture is the ideal
Herman Miller mechanism for understanding how people are using a
workplace; it allows us to go beyond simply gathering
THE ECOSYSTEM OF SMART BUILDINGS continues space utilization data and to begin shaping powerful
to evolve at a rapid pace. In this new and challenging workplace strategies. As an added benefit, smart furniture
landscape, a key to your success may be right in front can catalyze new and improved experiences for people,
of you – you might even be sitting on it. Furniture has helping them work more comfortably and effectively.
great potential to be a smart solution that improves
people’s experiences and provides useful data analytics to
Facilities and Real Estate leaders.

Consider, as an example, the challenge that many
organizations have obtaining real-time utilization data to
inform their real estate strategy and workplace design.
In the past, occupancy – the number of people assigned
to a space – and actual utilization were essentially the
same because people were bound to their desks through
desktop technology. Work wasn’t mobile, so use patterns
were predictable.

Today, work and the tools people use to do that work are
mobile. People can work anywhere – from individual and
social points across the office to cafes, airplanes, and
kitchen tables. The way people go about their daily work
activities has shifted too, with new patterns of behavior
evolving every day. Work today is anything but typical In 2017, Herman Miller introduced Live OS, the first
and predictable. This means that the assumptions we’ve human-centered, enterprise-ready system of connected
traditionally made and ratios we’ve always used will no furnishings to enable the workplace to more deeply
longer lead to predictable or desirable outcomes. engage with people. With this system of cloud-connected
furnishings, app, and dashboard, organizations can
To address the challenges of the continuously changing respond to people’s changing needs, empower them to
work environment, organizations are looking for ways to work better, and activate their workplace strategies.
measure how hard their workplaces are working, both for
people and the business. In this new era, desks and chairs Sensors on connected work surfaces capture space
– not people – consistently occupy space. It’s reasonable utilization data and transfer it to the cloud through a
to expect furniture to provide real-time insight into how secure cellular gateway that works independently from
real estate is being used. the corporate network. The data is then synthesized by
a dashboard that provides insights for improving space
When it comes to being ‘smart’, furniture has some optimization, controlling occupancy costs, and enhancing
inherent advantages. It’s distributed throughout a employee well-being.

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