When a floor gets crowded, or the panels start looking tired, the reflex is to price out all-new cubicles. For a lot of offices, that is money spent solving a problem you could solve for less, and with better furniture.
Let's talk about the word “Re-manufactured“, because it is not always used properly. Used Furniture is someone else’s old stock, sold as-is, in whatever condition it happened to arrive. Re-manufactured is a different thing.
Here is what it means in our shop. A cubicle system comes in and gets stripped to its steel frame. The frame is inspected for integrity. Then the surfaces are sanded, the steel is repainted, and new textile or laminate covering goes on. It is rebuilt one hundred percent inside our own facility, by our own people, and it goes back out with the appearance and the function of a new system.
Re-manufacturing is not always the right call. Sometimes the layout needs to change, sometimes the old system is not worth rebuilding, and sometimes new is simply the better buy. We are a factory-direct cubicle manufacturer and we re-manufacture in the same shop, so we are not steering you toward whichever one we happen to have. We do both, which means the honest answer is whichever one fits your floor and your budget.
When it is the right call, here is what it saves you: 30 to 50 percent off the list price of new.
That number is worth holding next to a brand name, because the systems we specialize in re-manufacturing are Herman Miller. Most facilities managers know exactly what a floor of new Herman Miller costs, and it is the reason the conversation usually stops before it starts. Re-manufacturing is how that frame ends up under your team at a number that clears budget.
The economics are not complicated. Steel outlasts fabric, paint, and work surfaces by a very wide margin. The frame is the part of a cubicle that has not failed, and rebuilding one that is already made, already square, and already proven costs less than producing another.
Two things people do not expect.
You pick the finish. Because the covering goes on during the rebuild, it is yours to choose. Laminate, fabric, and paint are all specified at rebuild time, so the station matches your floor and your brand, not the last owner’s. Nobody walks in and sees hand-me-downs.
It can be faster. If what you want is in stock, new furniture ships quickly. If it is not, a special order can run three months or more, which matters a great deal when you are trying to seat people you have already hired. A re-manufactured floor is not waiting on a production slot.
There is one more advantage that is easy to miss. If you already run a panel system and just need to add stations, re-manufacturing lets us match what you have, so the new seats do not look bolted on next to the old ones.
And a cubicle frame is a lot of steel. Rebuilding it keeps that steel out of a landfill and off a new production line, and it keeps the work here in Houston. If your company reports on anything environmental, this is one of the easier wins to point at.
We have done this at scale. Revention, an online ordering company, came to us about replacing their existing workstations. We proposed a reconfiguration and installation of thirty re-manufactured Herman Miller cubicles. Their words afterward:
“Cubiture played an integral role in helping us expand our facility to create additional office space to accommodate our new furniture and cubicles. Their support team was always on time and made sure the new furniture and cubicle systems were carefully & safely transported and installed so that our employees can communicate and collaborate more effectively.”
Not sure which side of that line your office is on? Send us photos of what you have, and we will tell you straight.
