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BIFMA Creates New Standard for Textiles

A colored cord on fabric edge should help reduce confusion during furniture manufacture.

Dave Platter -- Interior Design, 5/18/2004 12:00:00 AM

The Business and Institutional Furniture Manufacturer's Association (BIFMA) has recently released a new standard for woven textiles, which the organization believes will significantly reduce production errors in the manufacture of fabric-covered office furniture. The voluntary standards take effect immediately, though no one can predict how quickly they will be adopted, according to the association, a non-profit that addresses the concerns of furniture manufacturerers and suppliers.

The most common--and costly--error in production occurs when factory workers cannot identify the intended direction of a pattern and henceforth install fabric sideways, backwards or upside-down.

"If it's a geometric design, the factory worker who is applying the product might not know which end is up," explains Tom Reardon, BIFMA's executive director.

The most important provision of the new standard, which will hopefully provide a solution to the error, calls for mills to weave a colored cord down one edge of the fabric that they supply to furniture manufacturers.

"With the cord, we have a standardized way to identify which is the front of the pattern versus which is the back, and which is the top of the pattern versus which is the bottom," says Reardon.

The largest mills, which provide the standard fabrics used by furniture manufacturers, are already using cords in their textiles. However, smaller mills, whose fabrics are custom-specified by furniture purchasers about 15-40 percent of the time, are being asked to change their practices.

"There is a tremendous variation in the way the furniture manufacturers get the textiles from the smaller mills,"explains Reardon. "This is an attempt to standardize the way the fabric will be accepted."

According to the association, fabric-covered seating, systems furniture and other related products account for roughly 40 percent, or $3.5 billion, of all office furniture that is manufactured in the United States each year.

For more information, and to download a copy of the new standard, visit www.bifma.org.