Archives for January 2009

Lab Furniture Surfacing: More Than Superficial

January 27, 2009

One of the most common mistakes people make when they’re outfitting a lab for private development and manufacturing is to ignore the type of lab surfaces they need in order to perform safe, productive work. Lab tables and other laboratory or industrial furnishings that look the same side by side can actually have vastly different uses, depending on the type of work surfaces they use. Here at RDM we can manufacture furnishing solutions to meet and exceed your needs; the dimensions and surface materials are separate concerns, but both are important. Your table or bench needs to fit its area — but it also needs to survive actual use, too. Below are some basic guiding principles when it’s time to place your order:

Know the Standard: Always be aware of your local city, state and federal laws, as well as professional advisories for the material you expect to be handling. For example, if you’re handling live specimens you probably should peruse the CDC’s Biosafety Level Criteria. Private companies will not typically work with infectious agents, so in all likelihood you’ll look to Biosafety Level-1 criteria, which specify a water-impervious surface with the ability to handle moderately high temperatures. Other fields will have specific requirements in for heat, chemical reaction and conductivity.

Don’t Skimp on Surface Integrity for the Sake of Price: It’s never worth it to save money by skirting regulations and advisories. Aside from the safety and liability issues the fact is that you won’t really save money. You’ll just make the demand for a replacement come that much sooner. If you purchase a bench that allows water to penetrate any cracks or crevices on the surface coating, you’ll end up with enough rot or corrosion to rapidly render it useless. Besides, lab surface technology has advanced to the point where it’s economical to make choices that exceed the requirements. Trespa’s TopLab Plus is one example of an excellent all-around solid surface material that suits many laboratory and industrial area applications.

When in Doubt, Ask: With over three decades in the industrial furniture business, RDM has plenty of experience outfitting research and manufacturing facilities with lab furniture of all kinds. If you’re not sure how to outfit a space within your budget, talk to us. We’ll draw on what we know to help you find the best possible solution. Contact RDM for your lab furniture solution. We’ll strive to exceed your expectations.

Ergonomic Products Make Your Industrial Workbench or Lab Table More Efficient

January 11, 2009

RDM Industrial Products features a wide range of ergonomic products. In many cases, ergonomics is used as a buzzword to describe any comfortable piece of furniture or equipment, but there’s much more to it than that. Ergonomic adjustments make work environments more efficient and easier to use productively. Here are five ways proper ergonomic products do that for a lab table, industrial workbench or other professional workstation.

Body Alignment

The reason “ergonomic” is used as a synonym for “comfortable” is because of this benefit. If your monitor is in the right position you can see it without straining your neck. You can type with less chance of suffering a repetitive strain injury. This is the most commonly known benefit of ergonomic products.

Cognitive Ease

Less well known is how ergonomic products help you think better. This is because proper equipment allows you to adjust your workspace into a more intuitive configuration. For example, if you need to enter data after inspecting a sample in a lab, the ergonomic solution is to put the monitor at or near the same sight line. This means the worker doesn’t have a gap where the sample is out of sight, where he might forget and have to check again, slowing his progress.

Injury Reduction

As everyone knows, less comfortable workspaces can cause injury due to repetitive strain, but the fact is that poor ergonomics cause injury by promoting inattention or leaving hazards in a worker’s path.

Time Motion Efficiency

Correct ergonomics lets people work faster, by positioning workstation elements in such a way as to reduce the number of motions required to complete a task. Many companies hire professionals to perform time motion studies in their workplace, but any perceptive manager can improve efficiency just by looking at how a workstation forces someone to take certain steps, and then modifying that space to eliminate those steps.

The manifold benefits of ergonomic equipment will multiply your workstation’s output. Contact RDM for product ideas that can do this for you.

RDM Industrial Products’ Custom Industrial and Lab Furnishings

January 6, 2009

One of the advantages of buying from RDM is that as a manufacturer, we are able to make custom orders to fit your industry, workspace and safety requirements. While we offer a tremendous selection of industrial workbenches and lab tables, these can be seen as starting points to help you order a custom product in addition to being standard products themselves. Our industrial furniture gallery is also an excellent way to help you define exactly what you need.

You can help make the ordering process as smooth as possible by following a few simple steps. First of all, make sure you’re familiar with all applicable, state, local and federal regulations that might apply to installing the new furnishings. For many businesses this is as simple as checking the local fire code, but if you work with hazardous materials or perform research your requirements can be much stricter.

Another thing that you can do to ensure an easy ordering process is to accurately measure the space your furniture is going to occupy. This is a simple task that can save time and pain. By avoiding inaccurate, out of date floor plans, you can avoid major estimating and install catastrophies. Please make sure you have reliable, current measurements.

Talk to us to see what we can build for you (the answer is: almost anything). We can recommend materials, offer initial quotes and answer questions about the item’s characteristics and life cycle.

Schedule work around the installation. If you’re moving a wheeled workbench in this may take no time at all, but if it’s time to install permanent counter space or complex lab furnishings you will need to figure out how installation will affect your work. Pay special attention to time sensitive activities such as industrial curing and similar manufacturing processes.

Contact RDM Industrial Products to start the process or ask for more detailed guidelines. We’re ready to provide the perfect custom industrial furniture solution for you.