Lab chairs are now as easy to configure as laptops, thanks to an online tool offered by a leading chair manufacturer. "What we saw as lacking in the field was the ability for the user to build a chair exactly to their specifications, as opposed to going to a store and buying what's on the shelf," says Ed Metzger of BioFit Engineered Products in Waterville, Ohio. The company, which sells more than 40,000 laboratory chairs and stools each year, offers an online solution. Its Build Your Own Chair tool - available at www.biofit.com/ship_now/byoc.html - allows buyers to configure the base, backrest, upholstery, and other parts of their chair, and interactively displays a picture of it with the selected components.
Prices range from $150 for a basic unit to around $1,000 for a "performance package" with static control and clean room compatibility. "The response to the program has been very encouraging," ...
