an e-chair is born
Let's get philosophical for a moment. Imagine you've got an e-chair at your desk right now. While you're enjoying the effortless comfort and admiring the tasteful styling of the e-chair, it may not occur to you to ask where it came from. When was that chair born? How did this mass of metal, plastic and fabric become a beautiful and useful object that you can sit on? As the e-chair traveled the long road from our drawing board to your desk, at what moment did the theory of an e-chair become the reality?
from idea to reality
Like all great ideas, the e-chair is an attempt to answer a puzzling question. We wondered why the proven benefits of ergonomic chair design were confined to the elite who could afford it. Those who stood to gain the most from the ergonomic revolution - employers burdened by the low productivity and workers' comp costs associated with repetitive motion injuries - were shut out of the market. Certainly, in an era of economic uncertainty and slimmer corporate budgets, there was a need for a high-quality ergonomic chair with a reasonable price tag. We decided to find a way to meet that need.
If we look back far enough into the e-chair's family tree, we see miners pulling iron and aluminum from a hillside, and huge furnaces forging iron into steel. We see liquid plastic pouring into molds, and polyester threads weaving into mesh. We see an idea taking shape.
putting it all together
We don't see an actual chair taking shape until we look at the international network of suppliers that construct and assemble the e-chair's many components. We've scoured the globe to find the parts that offer higher quality at lower prices, from experienced companies with a successful track record of providing precision components. While the mesh fabric is stretched over the skeletal structure of the chair back, aluminum is shaped into a five-pointed star for the base, and covered in a powder coating. Fire retardant foam is molded into a seat shape covered in fabric. As these parts are assembled from sources around the world we see the first glimmer of recognition, the first glimpse of the full-function office chair to come.
Then, as trucks and planes bring the components to our facility in St. Louis, our assembly team unites them with American-made controls that are tailored to our exact specifications. The reclining back sliding seat pan mechanism is bolted to the chair body, and the armrests are attached, along with their width and height controls. Our unique, custom-designed lumbar support is added to the mix. As a last step in the process, the e-chair is put through a battery of testing performed by independent laboratories to ensure structural integrity and safety. The end result is not just a chair anymore; it's the fully-formed e-chair, in the shape you will come to know and love.
the final ingredient: you
But if a chair is defined as a piece of furniture that people sit on, one could say that the e-chair isn't really finished until somebody uses it. Open the crate, unwrap the e-chair, have a seat and let the e-chair spring into life at long last in its new home. Pop the instructional CD into your computer and the e-chair will introduce itself to you as you learn how to set the armrests for your height and width, slide the seat pan into just the right position and perform other adjustments to make the e-chair your very own. For all the work that goes into the e-chair, for all the moments that add up to a living, breathing work of ergonomic art, this is the moment that matters: when you climb aboard at the last stop on its journey. Your new e-chair will help support your body, and your bottom line, for years to come. If you'd like to join the adventure, contact us about bringing the e-chair to your home or office.
