RDM Industrial Products

Industrial & Laboratory Furniture Supplier & Manufacturer

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lab tables

RDM Laboratory Casework Featuring Lab Tables

Laboratories must be equipped with cabinets that store the various supplies and equipment used. When choosing cabinets, customers often select both over and under-counter styles. With an under-counter storage area, a table surface must be selected. Similar to cabinets, lab tables are made using different surfaces and are offered with various features.

Standard steel cabinets are made from 16-gauge steel that is finished with powder coat paint. This paint is baked on and resistant to both chemicals and corrosion. Various style combinations, lab tables, and drawer pulls are available. Flame-resistant cabinets also feature a 16-gauge steel superstructure. Doors are self-closing and self-latching to meet code requirements and to protect contents. A flammable label is applied to the cabinet front, alerting workers to keep fire away from the area.

Chemical-resistant cabinets and science lab tables are designed for an environment where acids or corrosive chemicals are frequently used. These two-door cabinets feature a 16-gauge steel superstructure, chemical resistant interior lining, aluminum door pulls, and labeling describing whether acids or corrosive chemicals are stored in the unit. Available accessories include fume hoods, which are
often necessary in most laboratory and forensic science environments.

Standalone science tables are designed for light, standard, or heavy duty use and support the corresponding type of equipment. These laboratory tables feature a metal or wood frame and may be stationary or have casters. Solid surface, laminated, and chemical resistant surface options make the tabletop compatible with specific uses. Lighting and ventilation options suitable for different laboratory
environments are also available.

Lab table feautures installed on laboratory casework may include service fixtures like hot, cold, and deionized water, an eyewash station, or unit that dispenses air or gas. When requesting a quote for customized laboratory cabinet units, customers should specify the type of cabinet, laboratory tables, and included service fixtures they need. When providing complete details, price estimates can be best
prepared to meet your exact needs.

Add-On Shelves And Overhead Frames For Your Flat Work Tables

Basic lab tables are not sufficient for some laboratory environments. Shelving may be required to store reference materials and in inspection areas, an overhead light boom may be necessary to provide the work surface with sufficient lighting. High quality industrial furniture manufacturers like RDM Industrial Products offer these components in configurations that are customizable to meet user needs.

Shelving options vary depending on the type of work table selected. If fixed height versions are not adequate, adjustable height is offered for various one and multi-shelf model table risers. Ergonomic lab tables have a lift feature and are ADA accessible. Corner tables may be ordered with corner shelves designed to hold books and light equipment. Special use tables include a tech station that features multiple split upper shelves and a printer workstation with paper storage decks.

Lab tables are available with different frame and top compositions. Frames are usually made from metal or wood and are stationary or include casters. Tops include standard, static control, or chemical resistant versions made from laminate, solid surface, wood, or stainless steel. If non-ferrous construction is selected, these tables may be used for optical or MRI purposes.

When full coverage illuminated overhead frames are combined with flat work tables, workers can conduct quality control inspections without needing additional light. The frame can be ordered with five fluorescent lamp fixtures, each containing two bulbs. This provides the work surface with approximately 100fc of lighting. An eight-outlet power strip with a 15-foot cord is just one of the other optional features that may add convenience to the job.

Add-on Shelving (Table Risers) and overhead frames enable a basic work table to be more functional. Lab tables are available in custom sizes and styles, with various optional features. By being able to include every option needed, a lab customer maximizes worker productivity. Money and time are saved because this furniture is pre-assembled so it can begin being used immediately following delivery.

Vibration Control Tables Are Lab Tables Suitable For Vibration-Sensitive Equipment!

Vibration control lab tables are lab furniture designed for use with vibration-sensitive lab equipment like microscopes. This type of equipment features mounts made from material such as shock and vibration absorbing elastomer. The table itself includes vibration dampening feet designed to prevent any interference with operation of the equipment being used.

Lab tables designed for use with laboratory equipment or instruments often feature wood or metal frames. They may have a shelf designed to store lab supplies that do not require special containment. Some models feature fixed feet, while others have vibration dampening levelers or casters that can be locked in place when necessary. Tops are usually made from solid surfaces like epoxy resin or plastic laminated surfaces that are resistant to chemicals.

When the most sensitive anti-vibration lab furniture is required, a product like an active vibration isolation table can be found. Included in this table is innovative vibration reduction technology. The table reduces both horizontal and vertical vibration and contributes to proper use of the most sensitive equipment or applications in environments characterized by severe vibration.

Equipment commonly used with such tables includes scanning probe and atomic force microscopes. Other industries use them to support interferometers, semiconductor inspection equipment, and electro-physiology recording equipment. Sizes vary and top surfaces include solid wood, static control, stainless steel or frame-only models. Some of these isolation tables are compatible with clean room environments, making them ideal for a hospital or laboratory.

When looking for lab tables designed to dampen vibration, dealing with RDM Industrial Products often enables the customer to specify dimensions and select from several top surfaces, including static control. RDM offers an online quote request or order form, allowing customers who know what they need to place their lab furniture order without visiting a store. Live help is also available to provide answers to customer questions.

Five Reasons Why RDM Industrial Products is Your Choice for Industrial Workbenches, Lab Tables and More

As we enter our 34th year of business we look forward to further expansion, the ability to apply lessons learned, and of course an economic climate that’s better for all of us than it was in 2009. Fortunately, we come into this year with new variety and skill that we’ve refined over the past several decades. At RDM, we work hard to continually improve upon products and services. We have an ever-growing base of client’s who return for more of the Top Quality Products, Excellent Service & Punctual Timing we provide. Here are a few other reasons why we think we should be your first choice for industrial workbenches, lab tables and other furnishings for your professional spaces.

The Cost Effective Option: At RDM we handle all aspects of the manufacturing process, controlling the schedule and cutting out any additional costs you might incur when paying for products that are designed by one firm, manufactured by a second, and assembled by a third. At RDM, we handle our workbench manufacturing all under one umbrella. It’s hard to find a more economical option that could provide you with the top quality products we offer.

Customization: We’re the manufacturer, and we have a process in place that allows us to rapidly customize any of our basic designs. This capability is what has allowed us to place our industrial workstations and other furniture in government facilities, corporations and public spaces of all shapes and sizes. Beyond variations of our basic workbench and table models, we can also provide you with complete custom prototyping and finished products made to your specifications.

Experience: As we mentioned in the beginning of this article, we’ve been at this for 33 years. We take note to change and adapt as needed. We’ve had plenty of time to learn and master our craft skills over the decades. Furthermore, our headquarters in Milpitas, CA is close to the heart of Silicon Valley where we have learned to cater to the extreme demands of California’s high tech industries.

Quality: With our experience and close supervision over the entire design and manufacturing process, you will see that our products possess the highest level of quality in their class. Also, our business-oriented, practical focus means that we give you exactly what you need in a lab table or industrial workbench – no more, no less – with none of the process diverted toward branding or other extraneous concerns.

Unparalleled Variety: Even when you discount customization we have dozens of core workbench models to choose from, ranging from basic, sturdy table designs to complex adjustable industrial furniture with static control, ball transfer surfaces and other specialized features. We are usually the final solution for people who cannot seem to locate that “just-right” industrial furniture solution.

That’s what we can offer you. Find out how it can work for your business. Contact RDM, tell us what you need to succeed, and we’ll provide the best products possible to meet your needs.

Do Your Industrial Workbenches Need ESD?

ESD, or Electrostatic Discharge, can be a serious problem in several industries. Static electricity is a hazard to both people and electronics, and any working environment where it might be a hazard needs to look into ESD control for their industrial workbenches, lab tables and other equipment.

The most obvious industry to consider for ESD protection is electronics. As a long time business operating near Silicon Valley, RDM has extensive experience meeting the needs of electronics shipping, manufacturing and repair facilities. On the other hand, it’s a mistake to think that electronics is the only industry that needs to worry about ESD. If you work around volatile or flammable materials, an electrostatic discharge can be extremely dangerous, to the point of starting fires, explosions and other catastrophic reactions. Even something as simple as sawdust can be ignited by a strong discharge.

ESD control is especially necessary in busy work areas. Working at a slow pace, a worker can take some simple manual precautions to avoid static build up by wearing a strap or occasionally touching a grounded object, but once the work pace increases it’s easy to forget these basic precautions. This is not so say that workers should ignore personal precautions, but they should have industrial furniture that also ensures both their safety and the integrity of anything they’re working on.

RDM offers a complete selection of ESD solutions, including:

When it comes to industrial workbenches in particular, we have static control tables to suit virtually any function. We apply ESD control modifications to most standard workbench models, so that almost any workbench can serve as an ESD bench. Contact RDM to find out more.

Cleanroom Basics for Lab Furniture and More

f you’re managing a formal cleanroom you’ll be conforming to ISO 14644-1 and any other applicable local, federal and international standards that regulate everything from air filtration to your choice of lab furniture. Increasingly, cleanroom standards are used by companies that do not require them, but still use them to ensure consistent manufacturing and research procedures are used in conjunction with these standards in order to provide the best possible quality and yields. A workspace free of excessive air particles makes virtually any manufacturing process more consistent. That is why, even if you don’t operate a full-blown cleanroom, you can make use of the following principles to improve air quality.

Laminar Airflow: There are several laboratory furniture products that can improve airflow and prevent dust, smoke and other particles from spreading through an area. Laminar Flow Lab Benches use the principle of laminar flow to direct airflow into isolated streams. Particles released in one stream are isolated from the others.

Positive Air Pressure: Positive air pressure is a simple, effective concept that prevents outside particulate matter from floating into your lab or other workspace. Whenever there’s a breach in the space due to a door or window opening, a break in floor or wall material, or any accident, positive air pressure pushes outside air away.

HEPA Filtering: A HEPA (High Efficiency Particulate Air) filter is essential in formal cleanrooms and useful in other contexts where manufacturing or research creates volatile or otherwise hazardous air particles. If you want clean air, your airflow control system should include a HEPA filter. The Laminar Flow Bench includes a HEPA filter. Remember, though that workspace filtering doesn’t affect direct contact, so remember to take normal safety precautions with hazardous materials.

Cleanroom Workbench Surfaces: A cleanroom laboratory table that meets moderate cleanroom standards can prevent problems in almost any manufacturing environment by keeping contamination to a minimum. For instance, if you can easily wipe a table clean, without worrying that particles will adhere, you can prevent contamination from the build-up of particles such as metal, plastic, and other materials. This may increase the duty cycle of your manufacturing machines by ensuring that it’s only processing raw materials, and none of the ambient grit in the workspace.

At RDM Industrial Products we can provide complete cleanroom furniture solutions for everything from workshops that you want to make just a little cleaner, to full standards-compliant cleanrooms. Contact RDM and a representative will match your needs with the exact solution you require.

Picking the Right Industrial Workbench Top

Your work surface is the most important part of your industrial workbench. If you pick the wrong surface it may stain or wear prematurely. The wrong work surface may even lead to an accident. At RDM Industrial Products, we offer top quality work surfaces for all of our industrial workbenches with a variety of surfacing options. If needed, our sales team can help guide you through the process of selecting the right surface. Below are four quick examples of the workbench surfaces that fit various workplace demands.

Cleanroom: Stainless steel is not always the go-to material for the surface of a cleanroom workbench. The exact requirements are based on particular cleanroom standards. Stainless steel surfaces don’t scratch easily or accumulate foreign matter. They can also be quickly and easily cleaned. Electropolished stainless steel can be very pricey, but is necessary for clean rooms of class 10 or above. For cleanrooms of class 100 or less, there are many other more cost-effective options available, such as our standard plastic laminated top with added phenolic backing sheet. The laminated surface does not particulate, and the underside of the wood substrate is sealed with the phenolic backing sheet.

ESD Static Control: If you are working with static sensitive materials or equipment the top choice is clear: You need a static control table with an ESD protective laminated work surface. These surfaces work in concert with our properly grounded steel table frames, providing a dissipative path that leads harmful static away from your products or equipment. They also help to reduce electrical charge buildup.

Heavy Duty Manufacturing: Stainless steel tables provide a durable work surface for manufacturing, though an additional layer of rough material may be warranted for traction. Keep in mind that in these cases, you will need a table frame that will support your specific load / activity. We also offer solid plate steel tops for heavy-duty applications.

Semi-Service: In this case, the workbench actually serves as front of house furnishing where it’s not only visible to the public, but may even be used by customers. There are a number of “Do it yourself” businesses that need a proper mix of beauty and utility. In this case, the right material is really based on a combination of use and image. Stainless steel is great for kitchens, for instance, while wood (see our wood industrial workbenches) is a great all around material. Also, our plastic laminated tops are available in hundreds of standard colors and patterns.

Whatever your choice for a work surface, we have the industrial table solution you need, or we can manufacture one with the dimensions and materials you specify. Contact RDM to find out how we can make tables / workbenches that are a precise fit for your needs.

Lab Furniture Surfacing: More Than Superficial

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

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

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.