CoreNet Global Presents Award To Herman Miller

The real estate organization presented an Industry Excellence Award to Herman Miller, Inc. earlier this month for the company's Space Utilization Service. This inaugural award highlights corporate real estate industry performance and innovation. It also qualifies Herman Miller for the distinguished H. Bruce Russell Global Innovator's Award, which will be announced by CoreNet Global in November.

The Space Utilization Service is based on a patent pending, wireless technology developed by Herman Miller to measure space occupancy in building environments. Sensors temporarily attach to the underside of chairs or work surfaces and continuously collect movement data to provide results that may be studied to improve workflow and space usage.

"This information typically is collected through manual methods called 'bed checks,'" said Len Pilon, director of Workplace Strategy and Facilities at Herman Miller. "By implementing new technology that monitors workspace usage on a continual basis, we're able to collect reliable data to make informed, strategic decisions about the need to reconfigure or shed real estate."

Space Utilization Service studies are led by the Herman Miller Workplace Services team and typically last three weeks. Study costs are comparable to traditional data collection methods and calculated according to the size and scope of a project.

Tips For Space Planning

SmartDraw.com, maker of SmartDraw, a program to automate the process of creating business graphics has compiled a list of tips for space planning. These tips can apply to both non-residential and residential settings.

Have you employed any of the tips listed here? Have you had success or challenges with any of the strategies below? What space planning tips strategies have you learned on the job?

SmartDraw, which offers a free trial on its Web site, contains hundreds floor plan templates that users can modify to create the graphic they need. This includes floor plans for corporate and office layouts, emergency evacuation and planning, home floor plans and room layouts, hotel floor plans, restaurant floor plans, landscape design, retail plans and planograms, and store layouts and facility designs.

The "Top Tips for Effective Space Planning" are as follows:
1. You can save yourself a lot of time and trouble by taking careful measurements and thinking through the following issues before you start drawing. When measuring existing spaces, lay your measuring tape flat on the floor and measure room dimensions in several places, especially where furniture will be a tight fit. Don't assume your walls are parallel.

2. Before laying out furniture, look for projecting windowsills, and note the location of electrical receptacles, light switches, vents, and thermostats.

3. When placing a desk, ask yourself, "What do I want to be looking at when I sit there?"

4. When planning an office, first determine whether the occupant's back will be toward the door. Some people feel very strongly about this. Other design decisions will flow from this basic choice.

5. To reduce glare, try to avoid having computer monitors directly facing windows.

6. Leave enough empty space in front of filing cabinets to fully extend the drawer, plus at least 18 additional inches if the drawers will be accessed by a person standing in front of them.

7. Allow adequate working space at desks or cubicles. The distance from the working side of a desk to the nearest wall or furniture should be at least 42" (and most people find 54" or 60" to be more comfortable).

8. The walkway between a piece of furniture and a wall should be at least 30" in a residential space (36" is preferred). In a public space it should be at least 36" (42" is preferred).

9. To get a feel for the width of a walkway before placing furniture, put a tape line on the floor to see how different dimensions would feel.

10. When placing furniture on a residential plan, remember that most furniture will actually sit 2" or 3" from the wall.

11. Don't line all the furniture up along the walls. Break up spaces by placing pieces out in the room. Setting rugs, sofas, or other furniture at angles can help avoid an overly rigid feel.

The SmartDraw features built-in-themes with professionally designed colors, schemes, and effects for polished results, as well as one-click copy to MS® documents such as Word® and PowerPoint®, as well as PDF.

About SmartDraw.com
SmartDraw.com is the creator of SmartDraw, a business graphics software and the first program that makes it possible for ordinary computer users to create presentation-quality business graphics. Each year more than two million people install and use SmartDraw and the company counts more than half of the members of the Fortune 500 as customers.

Founded in 1994, SmartDraw.com is privately-held and based in San Diego, CA. In addition to SmartDraw 2008 for general business and home use, the company also offers SmartDraw Healthcare and SmartDraw Legal editions which include graphics and applications for those respective fields.