August 23, 2007
Outreach for Participants in ANSI Canvass of BIFMA's standard for Small Office Home Office Products
BIFMA will soon be conducting a ANSI canvass of a revised edition of the Small Office Home Office standard SOHO S6.5 (present edition 2001).
In many areas, the SOHO S6.5 standard’s requirements for small office/home office furniture closely harmonize with the BIFMA standards for commercial office furniture products. However, based upon differences in anticipated life, patterns of use and product user expectations, there are also differences.
In general, the differences between ANSI/SOHO S6.5 and the BIFMA standards for commercial office furniture can be summarized as follows:
- Safety Requirements: When first developed, the ANSI/SOHO standard paid particular attention to consumer related issues such as stability and child safety. The BIFMA commercial office standards have subsequently incorporated these requirements and the standards are now equivalent in this area. ANSI/SOHO will continue to lead the way in addressing this issue.
- Requirements related to loading capability: The standards treat this identically. For example, a file drawer of given dimensions has the capability of holding the same amount of file material regardless of whether it is used in a residence or a commercial office.
- Requirements related to durability: BIFMA member experience has found that durability requirements need to be more robust for furniture intended for use in commercial environments. Durability related test procedures in ANSI/SOHO are the same as those found in the BIFMA commercial office standards. However, the durability performance acceptance levels set in the BIFMA commercial standards are generally higher than those found in SOHO.
- Product diversity. The SOHO standard incorporates requirements for the vast majority of products focused on the small office/ home office market. However, the range of product offerings for commercial office applications is far greater and as a result, the range of product testing covered in the BIFMA commercial office furniture standards is also greater. BIFMA commercial office furniture standards should be used for testing of products that may not be specifically addressed in SOHO.
BIFMA usually has a sufficient level of participation in the Manufcturer and Engineering Testing Concern category. If you know of a person who would be described by the categories below, please either let them know of the upcoming ANSI Canvass of the proposed new edition of S6.5 Small Office Home Office Products or pass information along to us as to how to contact them.
Under Represented Interest Categories: Users, Specifiers, Distributor/Retailer, Professional Society, Trade Association, Government Agency, General Interest and Consultants.
Contact Dick Driscoll at rdriscol@bifma.org or (616) 285-3963 for further information:
Revised 8/23/07
