Looking for mission-critical furniture? Start here

Looking for reliable mission critical furniture? Make sure your control consoles are designed for reliability and operator comfort. Trust us, we have been doing this for more than 30 years now. We design and manufacture specialized furniture for mission critical environments and we understand what makes a control console reliable.

If you are looking for mission critical consoles make sure they incorporate these 3 mayor factors:

1. Excellent build quality: Using heavy duty materials.

2. Ergonomic features: Technology to adapt to many users’ needs.

3. Customization options: Wide range of shapes and sizes.

Specialized furniture for mission-critical environments like this one integrate cable management into its design.

Keep in mind that what separates ordinary office furniture from control consoles specialized furniture) is that the latter uses smart technology integrations and is designed for durability and reliability. Let’s start with the type of materials each of them are made out of.

Look for excellent build quality in control consoles

Unlike ordinary desks, a control console is built using heavy duty materials like steel and high-pressure laminate. These heavy duty materials ensures its durability and reliability for years to come.

911 dispatch console with steel substructure

For example, using a steel frame will prevent the worksurface to bend overtime since this substructure is made from high grade steel.

Also, unlike ordinary office furniture, the worksurfaces of mission critical furniture are made up of high-pressure laminate instead of being made from cheaper wood composites.

These two components add up to create specialized furniture that is both durable and reliable in the long run. The steel substructure (frame) makes it a robust and strong enough to support the weight of many monitor rows and to keep IT equipment safe and secure. While the HPL worksurface is scratch and stain resistant, and its anti-static properties make it dust repellant, which means it is also considered as a hypoallergenic material.

In short, mission critical furniture are built with heavy-duty materials because they are built to last.

The worksurface shown above is made from high-pressure laminate to create a durable and reliable workstation.

Integrate ergonomic features into your control console

Mission-critical furniture that adapts to the different heights of operators helps them stay focused throughout the day.

For example, if an operator wishes to switch from a sitting position and continue their work while standing for the next hour or so, the console should adapt to the user's needs efficiently. Below is a video showcasing the different types of keypads available for height adjustable control consoles (sit/stand).

With height adjustable control consoles, operators can maintain their laser-focus concentration while working, thanks to the ease of use of the keypads, and the strength and speed of the actuators used.

Another major aspect that makes for a reliable control console is the cable management situation.

CPU enclosures like this one are secured with a lock.

With all of the computers housed inside the console’s CPU enclosures, and the multiple monitors mounted on top of the work surface, all of these cables need to be properly routed to ensure the flow of critical data.

Also, they should allow for enough travel when adjusting heights, and be easily accessible for maintenance and support.

For example, our consoles are designed for heavy duty workflows following ergonomic principles provided by the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society. Every action like adjusting the height of the work surface or performing maintenance for cable management is designed to be as unintrusive as possible.

Look for control consoles that include customization options

Beyond color options, a control console is designed to optimize the available floor space with a wide range of shapes and sizes. Meaning that a control console is designed to adapt to heavy duty workflows with cable management solutions, lighting, storage options, etc.

This 911 dispatch console has two worksurfaces.

Building a control console means designing it not only to withstand heavy duty workflows, but also a wide range of user sizes. For this, we don't mean using averages. Instead, our consoles are designed using anthropometric data expressed in percentiles.

This is helpful because it allows our designers to take into account the full range of body sizes when designing specialized furniture for control rooms.

For example, one might think that the reasons we design our consoles with dual height adjustable work surfaces is to achieve a clutter free work surface. That is correct, but it is not the only reason to use dual worksurfaces.

The main reason to include dual work surfaces is to accommodate for the 95th percentile male for the maximum height of a keyboard work surface, or the 5th percentile female measurement. More of that here.

Having dual work surfaces means that the monitor work surface can be adjusted for the eye-height sitting measurements of both, the 5th and the 95th, female and male percentiles respectively.

In other words, the surface heights should be adjustable from 27 to 53 inches. When designing for 24/7 reliability in the control room, control consoles must allow users to adapt their space to them and not the other way around.

A note on accessories for mission-critical furniture

A reliable control console helps to maintain a pleasant and professional workspace.

If the operators have to constantly perform workarounds to complete basic daily tasks these inconveniences will build up and contribute towards increased burnout and turnover.

Not only should all aspects of the consoles always work as intended but they should never interfere with critical tasks! This is something to look out for when thinking about integrating accessories to your mission-critical furniture. Below are some of the must-have accessories for 911 dispatch consoles and mission-critical furniture including:

• Task lights

• CPU enclosures

• Power and Data outlets

• Monitor arms

• And many more

Are you renovating your mission-critical environment? We can help with that.

As mentioned previously, we have more than 30 years of experience designing and building specialized furniture for mission-critical environments like 911 dispatch centers, air traffic control centers, process control rooms, broadcasting control rooms, trading floors and many more. Fill out this contact form and leave us a message so that we can get back to you.