Systems Furniture
CSI Division 12, Furnishings
Modular office furniture, workstations, and panel systems, along with their integrated power and data infrastructure, that ties directly into a building's raised floor or overhead power and data distribution, specified and purchased separately from the base building construction and coordinated for installation timing against the base building's electrical rough-in.
Why it matters
The furniture's power and data whips have to plug into a distribution system, a raised floor, a poke-through, or an overhead grid, that the electrician has to rough in to match the furniture layout, and a layout finalized after that rough-in is complete means relocating outlets rather than simply plugging in.
On a real project
An office tenant finalizes its systems furniture layout and works with the electrician to place floor poke-throughs at each workstation cluster before the raised access floor panels go in over them.
Who this matters most to
An Electrician roughs in the power and data distribution the furniture plugs into. A Project Manager coordinates the furniture vendor's install schedule against the general contractor's.
Where this goes wrong
A tenant reuses furniture inventory from a previous office at a higher workstation density than the electrician's rough-in was designed for. Several poke-through circuits end up carrying more workstations than they're rated for, and the tenant discovers the overload only when breakers start tripping during the first full week of occupancy.