Posted on Dec. 17: Furniture standardization program a first in Ontario

McMaster has once again assumed the role pioneer'.

The University is the first in Ontario to administer a furniture standardization program, where all furniture purchased for McMaster will be dealt with through one central dealer.

All furniture – such as seating, lab items, desks, but excluding classroom seating  will be purchased through Lordly Jones, a local dealer that will purchase furniture from manufacturers in Canada and deliver items to McMaster at a reduced cost.

“The University has grown significantly over the past number of years and will continue to grow,” says Terry Galan, director of Purchasing Resources. One of the new buildings that will require furniture is the Centre for Learning and Discovery.

While a year ago McMaster spent between $500,000 and $900,000 on furniture, they currently spend approximately $4.5 million. The increase, says Galan, is due to heightened construction and renovation on campus. “We thought this is too big of an expenditure to not have a standard contract in place,” he said.

Savings on furniture will be a minimum of five per cent on seating to as high as 25 per cent on desks and systems furniture, he adds. “Because the University was spending more money on furniture, the committee sent out a request for proposal for the standardization of furniture, so that McMaster would seamlessly deal with only one supplier,” he said.

The five-year contract has an option of adding two to three additional years. “The intent is for everyone to use Lordly Jones because we have pre-qualified them and have established contract pricing,” Galan says. Lordly Jones will also provide all design services and servicing of items and will warehouse most of the commonly used furniture, such as chairs and files. Deliveries of stocked items will be less than a week and service calls will be responded to within a 24- to 48-hour period.

Lordly Jones represents several manufacturers, including Teknion, Global Seating, Lacasse Manufacturing, Krug Seating, Allseating and Roy and Breton.

The Furniture Standardization Committee, charged with setting up the program, hosted a display of about 25 manufacturers last June, in an effort to solicit campus community feedback about the suppliers.

The committee and Lordly Jones are currently developing a Web site that will let people view the furniture and select colour schemes. The Web site also will contain firm quotations on items. They expect to launch the Web site at the beginning of February 2004.

For further information about the program, e-mail mcmaster@lordlyjones.com or phone 905-528-8537.