Behind an unmarked storefront in a strip mall along an industrial stretch of Plainfield Pike in Cranston, the future of office furniture can be found. There a line of futuristic-looking computer workstations sit bathed in a gentle light and humming softly.
The circular workstations are the latest in ergonomic office furniture. They are fully adjustable “self-contained work environments,” as the manufacturer calls them, complete with indirect ambient lighting and electronically filtered air circulation.
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But the computer programmers and graphic artists that use the workstations at Prism Technologies Inc. in Cranston have dubbed them the “pods,” which presumably makes them pod people. And they are the first of their kind in Rhode Island.
Prism Technologies is the first local company to install the Aura workstations, which are manufactured by Poetic Technologies in Montreal. And it’s a rare occasion that a visitor to the custom software and Web site development company doesn’t crack a Starship Enterprise joke, said the company president, Brian Kennedy.
But the Aura workstations are serious business at more than $7,000 each.
Everything from the lighting surface that mushrooms overhead to the footrest below is adjustable and programmable from a circular key pad on the left side of the desk.
Leather seat sections can be inflated to provide more lumbar or dorsal support. Or you can raise the desk or lower the seat. The entire workstation even rotates in place if you need a change of scenery or just want to escape the glare from a window at sunset.
In its original North Providence location, Prism Technologies’ office furniture consisted of a handful of standard computer desks from Staples. But, in planning for the move to the Cranston location last year, Kennedy came across the Aura workstations on the Internet.
“When we first started looking at them, it was kind of a joke,” he said. “But for the amount of hours we spend here working, we thought it would be worth it.”
Kennedy spends at least 60 hours in front of his office computer in a typical workweek, and his employees sometimes pull 12-hour days when working on a big project for a client, noted the sales and marketing director, Kevin Aglione.
Software developers banging out computer code for hours and hours tend to slump down in their chairs until they’re almost horizontal, Kennedy said. “Now when you go home you’re not tired and aching. It’s a night-and-day difference. My posture is much better now.”
And if an employee has to move to another workstation, he or she can just pop out a shiny metal computer chip, which looks like a large calculator battery, and transfer the ergonomic and environmental settings to any other Aura workstation.
Although the Aura workstations may not make Kennedy’s employees more productive, he says he’s convinced they do make them happier–a benefit that can’t be discounted in today’s cut-throat market for computer professionals.
Prism Technologies actually ordered its eight Aura workstations before the production line had even been set up, said Poetic Technologies President William Collier.
Collier began researching the problems that beset office workers such as poor indoor air quality, eye strain and joint and muscle pain in 1989. He found lots of university and government studies attesting to the problems but no integrated solution. Thus the idea for Aura was born.
The company began building Aura workstations in July, and now sells them to high-tech companies around the world, Collier said.
Here in the United States, businesses and their trade associations last year let out a collective groan at the prospect of government ergonomic standards that one day might be enforced like any other workplace requirements by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration in Washington, D.C.
Kennedy isn’t losing any sleep.
“If that comes to be, we definitely won’t have an issue with it,” he said.
