Aldous Huxley’s prescient essay from 1946 and Susan Cain’s current day TED talk shed light on the bombardment of noise and distraction we are increasingly subjected to.

“The twentieth century is, among other things, the Age of Noise. Physical noise, mental noise and noise of desire — we hold history’s record for all of them. And no wonder; for all the resources of our almost miraculous technology have been thrown into the current assault against silence.” Aldous Huxley from his essay Science, Liberty and Peace

Read more of Mark Eltringham’s blog and see Susan Cain’s TED talk at: https://workplaceinsight.net/what-aldous-huxley-can-teach-us-about-acoustics-at-work/

 

Take a look at a project we completed in Geneva, Switzerland consisting of trading desks manufactured by LaCour in the US, and exported on behalf of Insidesource, a major contract furniture dealer.

Product was loaded in a container in NJ, shipped to Rotterdam and trucked to Geneva where we cleared customs, delivered and installed by our local logistics partner.

The same process was duplicated globally for this trading company’s worldwide offices.

We provide global logistics solutions for the contract furniture industry

Here’s just one example: A 600 desk project we handed in Montreal for a top tier global financial services firm. These are height adjustable desks, made in the US by Innovant, a leading manufacturer of trading desks, benching, private offices and conference room furniture.

An experimental aircraft, shrouded in secrecy, has been seen flying near Victorville, CA. Word is that it’s a prototype of the Otto Aviation Celera 500L which according to patents filed, would cruise around 500 mph up to 65,000 feet. The plane is purported to be 10 times more fuel efficient than other jets with similar cruise speeds and much lower operating ceilings.

Read more at:

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/30948/potentially-the-most-revolutionary-aircraft-you-have-never-heard-of-has-flown

(Photo Credit: SoCal Airshow Review)  

According to KI, a manufacturer of office furniture, the modern workplace must address the needs of the 4 generations currently active in the workplace. While baby boomers are accustomed to private offices and personal workstations, the dawn of the digital age has been adopted by Gen X, Millenial and Gen Z employees to varying degrees, resulting in the need for more flexible workspaces.

Read more about how KI addresses the adaptability that must be incorporated into the modern workspace at:

https://blog.ki.com/designing-a-flexible-workplace-for-all-generations

(Photo from: blog.ki.com)

LaCour, a US based manufacturer of high-end, custom-designed trading desks, contracted Overseas Brokers for a series of turnkey international furniture projects. The flagship project in London entailed international shipment from the factory in NJ, customs brokerage, delivery, installation and day 2 support for 155 trading desks in London’s most iconic office building, affectionately known as the “Walkie Talkie building”. These high visibility projects were all completed on schedule for a top-tier global trading firm, on behalf of Insidesource, a leading office furniture dealer based in the US.

 

The office design most suited to the mobility of the digital age must incorporate several elements, according to associate designer Stephanie Allen at Cooper Carry:

• Quiet spaces for focusing on detail-oriented work
• Spaces that encourage creativity and collaboration with surfaces to post conceptual materials
• Casual  lounge areas
• Private rooms for confidential  discussions
• Wi-Fi everywhere

Read more about the hottest trend in office space on Forbes.

(Photo Credit: Mindspace on Forbes)

Environmental sustainability in the context of the workplace involves such measures as using sustainably sourced paper, as well as recycling paper and even selecting sustainable furniture for long term use. To minimize the impact on the environment, and attract socially conscious workers,  the office of the future will not include inexpensive, low-quality furniture that won’t last and cannot be easily refurbished. Investing in high quality product makes the furniture last longer and reduces waste. If the product outlives the business, it still retains some resale value and is more likely to be repaired and reused than scrapped. Rather than disposing of outdated IT equipment, hard dives can be wiped clean and reprogrammed for reuse. Using sustainable resources to create adaptable, modular workspaces which can be reconfigured for future growth and changing needs is a strategy that will be cost-effective while meeting the standards of a new generation of environmentally conscious workers.     Read more about the circular future of the workplace here.

Given the increased efficiencies achieved through digital freight platforms, dynamic pricing in the spot rate market often yields lower rates than service contracts. Contract rates are agreements between a shipper and a carrier in which a shipper commits to a large annual volume of containers in order to benefit from a lower rate than that offered to the general public.

Read more on JOC.

Dealers no longer have to share profits and lose control to a foreign dealer. The entire supply chain can be managed from factory through installation by a US based logistics provider.

The functions of international shipping, customs brokerage, delivery & installation are managed through a single point of contact, under dealer/manufacturer control. Overseas Brokers handles the full turnkey process from the bidding stage, through site meetings, execution of shipment, import formalities, installation and day 2 work.

For instance, we exported these Kimball Xsede workstations, Villa lounge seats and training tables from the US to the UK and installed in Cambridge, England on behalf of Strategic Spaces, a Kimball Select dealer based in Boston.