More in store: Dieffebi

Global management consultants McKinsey are at it again.

Their latest report, “Delivering through Diversity”, builds on previous research findings that demonstrate how difference within the workplace – be it along gender, ethnicity, sexuality or generational lines – is good for business. Both performance and the bottom line are positively impacted when a variety of perspectives have a stake at the table and group-think is avoided.

Premium Italian manufacturer Dieffebi, in business for over 40 years, knows a thing or two about diversity, having identified early on in the game that, while the office might be a shared, common space, its users are individuals. Specialists in the production of quality-first, resolutely architectural storage systems in metal, the company has carved out an enviable position in the market as go-to provider of modular, customisable solutions that help workers work the way they want.

As companies grow, people grow, and the office landscape, as Dieffebi proves, can – and should – grow with them. “Making the most of individuals, creating networks, optimising processes” is how Marketing Director Alessandra Fardin describes the company’s real stock-in-trade. “If the work changes, the office environment adapts. We provide ergonomic solutions able to create an environment that is favourable to collaboration and sharing resources for a better quality of work and life. We centre on the person.”

The company may have a presence in 50 countries, with 400 sales outlets worldwide, but there’s only one Dieffebi factory, where quality is strictly controlled from start to finish. Indisputably Italian-made, over 100,000 drawer units are manufactured a year at the San Vendemiano production site, which lies about 50 kilometres outside Venice, in a region renowned for its industrial dynamism.

The quality of the products is mirrored by the quality of Dieffebi’s management systems, as testified to by its ISO 9001 certification. A further ISO 14001 certificate underscores the company’s environmental-management credentials, which are earned via its designs, its choice of materials and its approach to packaging.

Recycled and 100%-recyclable steel is deployed along with zero-emission, non-toxic powders and coatings to create furniture that’s specifically developed with a view to being recycled at a later point in its life cycle. The products’ ability to be dismantled, and their constituent materials separated, is built into their very design.

As well as meeting industry-recognised standards, Dieffebi helps architects meet standards too, such as LEED and WELL, via their projects. Specifying Dieffebi furniture forms an integral part of creating spaces that are sustainable and which support the well-being of their users. What’s more, the company works directly with architects and interior architects from the project outset, helping them define the work environment.

That said, as Dieffebi CEO Alberto De Zan is keen to emphasise, it’s the individual user that comes first, not the product. The latter is there to serve the needs of the former.

With the smart office of today possessing a kinetic, agile quality, where teams form and dissolve depending on the project at hand, the material landscape within that office needs both to facilitate and to drive this. At times it’s all about intense collaboration. At others, retreat, concentration and relaxation. Flexibility and reconfigurability are engineered, therefore, into every Dieffebi product thanks to its modularity, meaning users become in effect co-authors of how the space reads and is experienced.

Architects and other specifiers, moreover, can customise the various units in terms of colour and opt for sound-absorbing panels to help create positive environments where functionality goes hand in hand with feeling good. Healthy workers, after all, make for healthy businesses.

This October’s edition of Orgatec – the big-top, international design fair in Cologne that reflects in products the ever-evolving world of work culture – will see Dieffebi exhibit the definitive version of its new Echo Locker container system. Strong on utility, strong on aesthetics, it displaces the monotonous design language of the insipid filing cabinet in favour of a range of chromatic, material and textural options.

The result is a smart – in all senses – piece of furniture that’s at home in a variety of contract settings – from coworking spaces, through hotels, to libraries and gyms. “It’s a versatile tool for containing, furnishing and organising space, in an ideal synthesis of privacy, sharing and security,” explains De Zan.

Never was storage so sexy.

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Visit Dieffebi at Orgatec 2018
Hall 7.1, Stand C40

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