Furniture & Equipment Purchasing Guidelines

Furniture and equipment purchases and installations have the potential to impact Fire Life Safety paths of travel and impact ADA access. In order to ensure occupant safety and mobility, a review of certain furniture and equipment requests must be made by Facilities Services and Project Management for approval prior to procurement and installation.

Non-Partition/Standalone Furniture (Task chairs, desks, couches etc.) and Plug and Play Equipment (Equipment that does not require anchoring or bracing, is listed and labeled by a Nationally Recognized Testing Laboratory (NRTL) such as UL, CSA etc., does not require upgraded or added utilities).

For Non-Partition/Stand-Alone Furniture (task chairs, desks, couches etc.), and Plug-and-Play Equipment (equipment that does not require anchoring or bracing, is listed and labeled by a Nationally Recognized Testing Laboratory (NRTL), such as Underwriters Laboratories (UL), Canadian Standards Association (CSA), or similar (for clarification contact PCE Lead Inspector Steven Owston at [email protected]), and does not require upgraded or added utilities:

Unless the department is requesting that Facilities Services install the furniture or equipment, standalone furniture and plug and play equipment should not be submitted for review and approval to Facilities Services.

In order to accomplish this, the following needs to be completed by the requesting department before submitting your requisition request to the Procure-To-Pay (P2P) Department:

Sign the Considerations for ADA and Fire Life Safety Compliance form and submit it with your requisition request.

Partition or Cubicle Furniture & Non Plug and Play Equipment

The following steps need to be completed before submitting your request to the Procure-To-Pay (P2P) Department: 

1. Obtain a room layout that shows the location(s) of the new furniture. This layout can be obtained either from the vendor, or from the Facilities Information System (FIS). If the room layout comes from FIS, the layout will need to be edited to show the new furniture location(s) and dimensions.
2. Submit a work order to Facilities Services using the Department Contract or Purchasing Approval option and attach the furniture/equipment room layout. The work order should include details on the quantity of each item being purchased and state whether or not there is a change of space use or occupancy.
3. Receive approval of the furniture/equipment room layout from Facilities Services via email. This approval is required to be attached to the requisition request that is submitted to the Procure-To-Pay (P2P) Department.