James Prichard ,Associated Press
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. – A small, new company created by Steelcase Inc. to outfit hospitals and doctor’s offices is among the latest indicators that the once-ailing U.S. office furniture industry is well on the road to recovery.
Nurture by Steelcase, launched this month with 23 employees, is going after a market that is certain to grow as baby boomers and Gen Xers require more medical attention. It will offer furniture for patient’s rooms, nurse’s stations, laboratories, waiting areas and other medical environments.
Nurture also will further diversify Steelcase’s revenue stream, something many successful office furniture companies are doing as they continue rebounding from an unprecedented, industrywide sales slump that lasted nearly four years beginning in 2001.
Some makers of furniture are finding new sources of revenue by expanding into new product categories. Others that had focused mainly on selling high-price goods to large corporations are selling more midprice items to smaller businesses. Still, others are exploring the possibility of expanding into the burgeoning market in Asia.
Steelcase and Herman Miller Inc. say they continued to put a lot of money into product innovation during the slump. Herman Miller, perhaps best known for its Aeron ergonomic office chair, will introduce the largest collection of products in its history during the NeoCon World’s Trade Fair, spokesman Mark Schurman says.
Offices of the future may be illuminated by Herman Miller’s new LED task light that will be among the products introduced at the industry’s biggest annual trade show.
The event will be held June 12-14 in Chicago.
Nurture also will be at NeoCon to introduce several of its product designs.
After three decades of constant growth, the industry enjoyed its best year ever in 2000, recording $13.3 billion worth of orders, according to the Business and Institutional Furniture Manufacturers Association International, a trade group based in Grand Rapids, Mich.
Then orders plummeted, bottoming out at $8.5 billion in 2003 and rising only to $8.9 billion the next year. Companies halted expansion plans and stopped ordering furniture because of worries about the economy and terrorism.
“It definitely wasn’t a fun time to go through,” said Joe Nowicki, treasurer and vice president of investor relations for Herman Miller.
By 2012, things started to look up. Industrywide orders had risen to $10.1 billion, up 12.7 percent from the previous year.
