AIS Poised for the Future

The lobby of AIS’s Washington, D.C. showroom displays AIS’s wide range of furniture offerings.

In Leominster, Massachusetts, the contract furnishings company AIS is on a mission. From the time it was founded, in 1989 by Bruce Platzman and Arthur Maxwell, it’s grown from humble beginnings in remanufacturing to be an ambitious brand with steady, deliberate success that is now pushing them into a new phase of advancement.

AIS President and CEO Bruce Platzman

AIS recently announced 2018 sales of $200 million, a 16% increase from 2017 numbers. Profits also increased in 2018, by 14%. And sales numbers for the first quarter of 2019 indicate that similar growth can be expected for this year.

We recently visited AIS headquarters to experience all things AIS; to get a sense of the people, the product, the culture and the progress this brand is making.

In 2016, AIS launched a full rebrand effort – the unveiling of a new path forward for a mid-market brand that is making large leaps forward in its business, sustainability, and design. While AIS has nurtured a significant presence in the New England area, it’s primary goal with the rebrand is to move beyond that region to speak to a new, wider audience.

In launching its rebrand, AIS brought in several new hires, including Nick Haritos, Executive Vice President of Sales and Distribution; Tracy Reed, Vice President of Marketing; and Brianne Devine, Director of Seating and Tables. Those individuals, along with Messrs. Maxwell and Platzman; Steve Savage, COO; Bill Stewich, Executive VP of Product Development, and many others, have crafted a new AIS that is poised to capture more market share and provide more innovation in design to its customers.

“A lot of people outside of New England didn’t know who we were,” said Mr. Platzman. “We wanted to change our image from installations and re-manufacturing and cloning to a company that was creating its own designs.”

AIS headquarters in Leominster, Massachusetts
AIS Headquarters entrance

The company has recently expanded and renovated major showrooms, in Washington, D.C., Chicago and New York City, while snapping up more space adjacent to their existing showroom at theMART. And in 2016, it consolidated multiple headquarter offices and factories into one central 600,000 square foot headquarters location, housing both corporate offices and its manufacturing facility under one roof.

AIS now employs nearly 800 people, with more than 200 hired in 2018 alone. The growth in workforce numbers is impressive, but AIS leadership is determined to keep its rich company culture – one built by competitive, hardworking people – intact as they grow.

Flags from the 28 countries represented in AIS’s diverse workforce are proudly hung in the factory. Anytime a new team member from a new country joins AIS, their country’s flag is hung.

“We have a very competitive, underdog spirit, and I think a lot of that has to do with being in Boston,” said Mr. Platzman. “We’re the little brother to New York, and we have that hands-on, can-do mentality. We love when we beat the big guys; in everything we do, we love to compete, and we’ve been rewarded well for our efforts.”

Our visit to AIS provided a great snapshot of the community of people who work there – a rich, integrated texture of local and global. The company is fiercely loyal to its New England roots, providing jobs to the region and pouring resources back into its surrounding communities. At the same time, it’s immensely proud of its diverse workforce. In the factory, a large American flag hangs on the wall alongside the flags of every country that their employees come from – 28 to date.

Employees working together in AIS’s Leominster, Massachusetts headquarters facility.

AIS’ history is one full of self-starting ingenuity. The Dot-Com Bubble burst and recession of the 1990s opened a window for Messrs. Maxwell and Platzman to start a business in remanufacturing.

“I’m a Massachusetts boy through and through. I grew up here, went to college here, and have had my entire career here. The economy was especially bad here during the recession post-9/11, and we couldn’t sell new furniture. We thought, ‘Maybe we could sell used furniture,’ and it sold really easily, so we continued down that path.”

Natalia Oliver, Manufacturing Support, and Volker Braun, Casegoods Manager

A turning point in sales and growth was reached in 2001, when AIS was the only manufacturer able to fulfill an order from the Pentagon for new desks as part of its renovation of the Pentagon building post-9/11 attacks.

“It was a very special time at our company,” remembered Mr. Platzman. “The Navy asked us to ship 6×6 gray workstations to them until they told us to stop. We were able to send over 2000 workstations in 30 days, and we flew our own installers in to help with all of it. In a small way, we were able to help in getting the country back on its feet, and we’re very proud of that.”

Rooftop Solar Panels

Around that same time, the supply of furniture available for remanufacturing couldn’t quite keep up with AIS’ growth; it was time to evolve. 2002 saw the launch of the very first original AIS design, the Matrix line of panel-based systems.

AIS’ in-house design team is led by Mr. Stewich, who started at AIS in 1992 and has overseen product design, development and engineering since 1997.

“Bill is incredibly creative,” said Mr. Platzman. “I call him the mad scientist. In product design, I believe you have to be incredibly passionate about what you’re creating, and he’s very passionate. The company gave him the leeway to evolve and continue moving us in new directions in a way that made sense for us.”

Instead of continuously issuing more supplies and equipment to workers, the AIS factory has “vending machines” that workers can check out supplies and equipment from, allowing AIS to track down missing supplies and cutting down on lost equipment.

AIS’ design team takes a methodical, vigilant approach to product design.

“We’re experimenting on a cautious level, and we listen to our dealers’ needs and make decisions on what we’d like to do next based on those needs and wants,” said Mr. Stewich. “We want to fully analyze and understand what is happening in the market, and then figure out how we can add to or enhance that. Our biggest focus is creating more value for our customers.”

Mr. Haritos noted AIS unique distribution model as a differentiator.

“Most large manufacturers have one dealer per market. We have so many dealers – we work with a lot of unaligned smaller dealers as well as large dealers, and we work hard to prioritize our relationships with them. People are starting to pay attention to us because we listen to them – what they need, what they want.”

Equally important to AIS’ success is lean manufacturing. A tour through AIS’ factory communicates the company’s roots and universal dedication to all things lean.

“We viewed running lean as a big advantage for us post-Dot-Com Bubble burst and post-9/11,” said Mr. Haritos. “Lean manufacturing was catching hold in the U.S. at that time so that we would be able to keep up with Asia.”

All AIS factory employees take part in a Before-and-After program where every employee gets their chance to present to leadership their ideas for improving their work processes.

“Steve [Savage, COO of AIS] takes the mentality that if he can get every person on every level of AIS actively engaged in making lean manufacturing happen, then why wouldn’t we?” continued Mr. Haritos.

At work in AIS’s factory, Leominster, Massachusetts.

These incremental modifications toward leaner processes have made AIS incredibly nimble in offering exceptional customer service and accommodating specials. Lean manufacturing has also inspired the company to invest in sustainable design and sustainable factory policies – at AIS, running lean and being sustainable go hand-in-hand.

All AIS products contain at least 40% recycled materials, and are manufactured in a facility where more than 50% of the power used returns to the grid through rooftop solar panels.

Teams working on products in the factory can view their progress on status screens that indicate whether they are behind, ahead of, or on schedule.

“Investments in emerging manufacturing technologies, alternative energy, and carbon offsetting have helped bring our carbon footprint to almost zero,” notes the AIS website. “Our partnership with ANEW [a non-profit providing a take-back solution for surplus office furniture and materials] helps ensure our used furniture has new life at nonprofits and public agencies. And, since our products are designed for easy disassembly and recycling, they minimize environmental impact at the end of their useful lives. All AIS systems are SCS Indoor Advantage™ Gold certified for air quality, we hold BIFMA e3 level® certification on our products, and we can help customers gain points toward LEED® certification for new and renovated environments.”

Executive Vice President of Product Development Bill Stewich speaks with a group of Nashoba Regional High School students as part of a “Day in the Life” mentor program hosted by AIS last October.

New products to be introduced this year, and available to view at NeoCon in June, include:

>Calibrate Community: An expansion of the popular Calibrate laminate Series into the open plan. Community falls in the “Spine-Based Systems Product Category” as a “Spine-Based Benching” system.

Calibrate Community: Open plan workstations with Upton and Natick task seating and Volker impromptu seating

“Everybody’s trying to figure out what’s next with the open plan,” said Mr. Stewich. “Tablemakers found it easy to join the open plan market at the beginning – all they needed was beam electrical/power. With Community, we wanted to keep the storage element in the open plan. Community starts as a raceway spine, with flip-down doors, and it can be used in a very simple way as a raceway, or you can add stack-on storage to the raceway beam to make it much more modular. One of the things you can count on in an office is that users manage their power cords. We wanted to account for this eyesore within the open plan. But in order for it to really work, it has to be really easy, requiring almost no thought or action on the users’ part. It’s so flexible that you almost ask, ‘Is it casegoods or something else?’ People can specify the level of seated visual privacy they want to create.”

Calibrate Community: Open plan workstations with side-mount screens and Upton task seating

From the product description notes: Community’s sophisticated and scalable design combines the substance of a private office and the warmth of residential furniture with the convenience of the open plan. Whether used for small teams or large departments, Community can easily support a wide range of user needs and group requirements. With multiple height and width options, along with effortless integration with other AIS products, Community naturally defines user space, creates needed borders, and can punctuates a floorplate with a changing topography.

Detail: Calibrate Community power access with open door

Calibrate Community was engineered for user convenience. Seamlessly carrying and concealing power+ data at three different heights and two different widths, Calibrate Community was engineered to optimize the user experience. Plus, with the optional worksurface on a rolling track, even greater freedom and convenience is given to users through engineering.”

Day-to-Day PowerBeam

>Day-to-Day Power Beam: “An ultra-efficient, super simplified, spine-based system delivering power and data through a slim, agile beam to maximize floorplate flexibility and density. PowerBeam can be planned with 180, 90 and 120 degree stations, optimizing space and offering “off the grid” options for users. Day-To-Day PowerBeam was innovatively engineered for ease. While it was developed to bring power effortlessly to Day-to-Day Tables, the ease of perfect installations and reconfigurations come through via its innovative engineering.

Day-To-Day PowerBeam offers many design choices when planning workstations. PowerBeam easily integrates with the extensive line of Day-to-Day tables, ensuring just the right workstation can be created to meet user needs. From worksurface sizes, shapes, leg options — and height adjustability – the choices are vast.”

In its rebrand, AIS intends to preserve its company culture and advantages in being small, while pushing forward into a space that will help them grow and capture a wider customer base. Its rebrand efforts and available growth measures thus far indicate they are succeeding. We wish AIS the best of fortunes in continuing its strong growth, and in its development of new teams, new designs, and better work processes.

AIS’s 2018 Employee Appreciation Day in the Leominster facility last October.