How Demountable Wall Systems Meet the Challenges of Today’s Offices

The contemporary office space utilizes modular wall systems to foster productive relationships, maintain a safe and healthy environment and effectively accommodate, filter and direct the flow of people and information in order to provide your company with the competitive edge it needs to succeed in 2015.

Today it is imperative that you are able to repurpose space effectively, accommodate the technological infrastructure that the 21st century office demands, provide adequate facilities for your staff to regenerate themselves and have fully-functioning conferencing capabilities on-site. Without these things your company will flounder quickly in the stormy environment of the global marketplace.

That is why you need demountable wall systems. As beautiful to look at as they are effective, they are quickly becoming the one indispensable component of 21st century office design and management because…

• There is no more affordable or effective way to accommodate data and environmental raceways and other infrastructure than demountable wall systems.
• Modular wall systems give you the ability to reorganize workspace on the fly to improve interdisciplinary cross-pollination and effectively manage changes to the size and composition of your staff.
• Demountable wall systems can be repurposed by regular maintenance staff often in only a matter of hours allowing your company the flexibility to respond quickly to changing circumstances.
• Demountable walls systems provide an aesthetically pleasing environment for your staff while allowing you to manage air flow, traffic flow and the flow of information.
• Not only does the ability of a demountable wall system to be repurposed many times over make them it an exceptional value proposition by itself, it is also possible you may qualify for accelerated depreciation and other tax incentives (ask your accountant) that help keep your bottom line in the black.
• Many of these same wall system components are designed to integrate with existing cubicle components giving you extra layout flexibility and also providing a way to repurpose those old cubicles you may have thought were destined for the dumpster.

Demountable Wall Systems – Identifying Need, Driving Solutions

To understand the pivotal role architectural walls have played in the business revolution of the past 20 years it’s helpful to remember where we came from.
Point A: Lots of people can still remember a time when you showed up at the office, took up a seat behind your desk and went to work on the mounds of paperwork that required your attention. If you had a private office you often stayed firmly ensconced behind the frosted glass on your door until it was time to emerge for lunch. If you were an engineer you spent much of the day at a drafting table staring at your slide ruler trying to figure out how to generate a better world using straight lines and some basic math. The support staff of the day showed up and, using pens, typewriters, hard line telephones and legwork, kept things running. Life was simple, your sphere of influence was limited and your office exuded a sense of permanence and continuity with your desk, hard line phone and rolodex representing fixtures as unmovable as the slat and plaster walls that enveloped you.

Point B: In contrast, the workplace of today is a beehive of activity. Every hour terabytes of Information stream into and out of banks of servers, smartphones and tablet computers. One enclosure might be hosting a video conference with a potential client halfway around the world, another might be the setting up for a lesson in how to integrate a new app into the company workflow and in yet another an engineer might be using 3D computer software to demonstrate a new product that will change the direction of the entire company overnight. Out in the common area you might have several people walking a designated ‘track’ around the office periphery in order to stay sharp, several more brainstorming a new idea by the cappuccino machine and members of the maintenance staff taking measurements to determine exactly where your modular wall system components will come to rest during the office realignment due to happen over the weekend.

So what were the forces driving the change that led us from point A to point B; from rigidity to flexibility, continuity to innovation and from local concerns to the doorstep of the world? There are a lot of them to be sure, but some can be singled out as more important than others.

1. Computers – The digital revolution changed the business world like nothing since the invention of the ocean going ship more than 500 years ago. They began by taking over the most mundane calculating tasks and have evolved to be essential to every area of business except the handshake. The ascendance of the computer has affected both the number and type of staff required to run a modern company and database integration has put previously unfathomable amounts of information right at your fingertips.
2. Employee Health – The explosion in the life-sciences has led to innumerable advances in workspace design and the integration of health and wellness concepts that have changed the way we look at the workspace and ultimately made for happier, more productive employees.
3. Advances in Communication – With instantaneous communication to any part of the globe now a reality, widescreen HDTVs hardwired to broadband fiber optic cables for video conferencing are as ubiquitous today as push button intercom jacks were 50 years ago.
4. Mergers and Acquisitions – Companies swallowing each other up is a given in the 21st century business environment and, as such, the sparsely populated office of today may be expected to accommodate a 100% increase in staff tomorrow as merging companies consolidate operations.

Underlying all this change is the way the office itself has evolved and absorbed the new attitudes and technologies. And underlying the evolution of the office from staid, capitalist mausoleum to dynamic engine for profit, social change and more is the demountable wall system. Without the organizational flexibility and increases in productivity these systems empower many companies would meet their end in the arena of global competition.

IMT Modular Partitions is considered to be one of the leaders in demountable wall systems, supplying superior products to clients throughout Canada and US.

Call us today and ask us about our demountable wall systems!