The Senator Group Site Visit

As part of our contract management procedures all contract managers are encouraged to undertake supplier site visits. I recently had the opportunity to visit The Senator Group showroom and manufacturing plants in Lancashire. The Senator Group are one of five suppliers on the Office Furniture Framework. The framework was awarded on 1 January 2015 and will run until 31 December 2016, with a possible extension until 2018. The framework can be utilised for day to day servicing with low value orders as well as small, medium and high value project work. Under this framework agreement Senator use Southerns Office Interiors as their distribution partner, all other suppliers on the framework use their own in-house distribution team.

As an example of one of our suppliers on this framework, Senator produce over 300,000 pieces of furniture a year in their desking plant including desking, tables, storage and screens. Their factory has the capacity to store over £1m worth of popular items which can be ordered and delivered to the end user within seven days, if they have been selected through a further competition or similar through the framework. Bespoke orders can be delivered within 6 weeks of the order being placed. The seating plant produces over 350,000 seats per year. At the request of The Senator Group some local colleges have run courses to help them recruit staff skilled appropriately in order to hand finish each and every chair. From my visit it was clear that sustainability plays a huge part of Senator’s operation and in the last couple of years they have opened their own recycling business named Sustain which has two dedicated recycling centres. Through Sustain members can access a number of services including the collection and recycling of their waste packaging and recycle or remanufacture of their old furniture.

To find out more about The Senator Group and the other suppliers on the Office Furniture framework, please visit: ../suppliers/categories/framework.php?categoryID=4&frameworkID=157