A world-leading furniture technology centre is urging designers, architects and specifiers to use their expertise to assist in their design process. Services include a guide to help specify furniture and industry specific training on new legislation.
FIRA International’s Head of Marketing, Inga Wells, explains: “FIRA is the one-stop shop for all things furniture – we offer easy to use, cost effective – and even free solutions – to aid the design and specification of furniture that is fit for purpose for its intended use and environment.
“Our aim is to help you raise quality, maintain standards and have peace of mind that you are specifying the right product to your suppliers.”
Below are a few of FIRA’s key services that may help your business – the free, online Specifiers’ Guide to aid your understanding of furniture standards & due diligence, and training to help to understand EU Timber Regulations.
Help with specifying furniture
Specifying furniture for a non-domestic setting, such as an office, hospital waiting area, hotel or a restaurant, can be a deceptively complicated business.
There is much to consider, from the suitability of the supplier to the performance of the product. This is why FIRA’s experts put their heads together and came up with the Specifiers’ Guide to help make specifying easier.
FIRA’s free, online Specifiers’ Guide aims to make specifying easy by producing clear, concise and accurate information for those specifying, developing or reviewing tenders for non-domestic and contract furniture.
The Specifiers’ Guide is updated with the current British, European and International Standards to provide you with the peace of mind that you are specifying products that are fully fit for purpose and certificated or tested by a third party as appropriate.
The tool generates a PDF, which provides details of all of the information required for each product. It can even be customised to include your logo and contact details.
Mark Hayter, Senior Procurement Manager for North Eastern Universities Purchasing Consortium, said: “The FIRA Specifiers’ Guide is an essential reference point for procurement professionals at all levels to assure quality and value for money are delivered through their contracts.”
To access the Specifiers’ Guide, please visit www.specifierservices.co.uk
How do the EU Timber Regulations affect your business?
As of March 2013, the new EU Timber Regulation (EUTR) prohibits placing illegally harvested timber and timber products onto the EU market. Our training course and CPD seminar can help you understand how your work may be affected.
The new Regulation, which affects the entire furniture supply chain, is still a source of concern for many businesses.
In response FIRA has developed a popular, one day course- EU Timber Regulations Awareness Training – which aims to assist the industry in understanding and meeting their legal obligations when importing, selling and trading timber and timber products in the European Union. The next course date is 15 October 2013.
A new addition to FIRA’s training programme is a RIBA-approved CPD seminar, designed to enable architects and designers to understand the implications of the EUTR and assess their legal obligations when importing, specifying and trading timber and timber products in the EU.
Both the seminar and the training course aim to provide full support to help businesses avoid the penalties that could be imposed if they are found to be non-compliant. Due to the complexity of the Regulation, FIRA is also offering ongoing support to delegates through its EU Timber Regulation Mailing list, which provides key updates as they occur.
Grant Hilliker, Purchasing Manager for Burbidge and Son Ltd., who attended the course, said: “I attended the course as it provided an opportunity to gain an objective view of what is expected of us (as both an ‘Operator’ and a ‘Trader’) under the new Regulation and to interact with others in a similar position. There are a lot of factors to consider and every company affected by this new regulation needs to understand the significance and importance of ‘due diligence’. The course was a very good presentation of very difficult subject matter”
For more information about FIRA International’s range of services, please visit www.fira.co.uk, email info@fira.co.uk, or call +44 (0) 1438 777 700.
