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In an industry plagued by supply chain delays and operational interruptions, Stance Healthcare’s Stratford, ON furniture manufacturing center has a formula for smooth sailing. We spoke with Shane Castle, Stance’s Director of Supply Chain Management, about what makes the Stratford factory’s 10-person team so special — and how they work together to deliver our premium quality products on time.

While navigating COVID-related supply issues, Stance acquired the Stratford facility in February 2021 to help support the company’s primary manufacturing operations in Kitchener, ON. At the time, the location was solely equipped for producing casegoods; today, Stance’s small-but-mighty Stratford team of 10 has evolved the location’s capabilities to cover virtually every aspect of manufacturing Stance’s expansive product pipeline. From the award-winning Resilia drum table, to customer favorites Kindred, Gibraltar, and Liberty lines — it’s all made here and delivered quickly, with our casegoods arriving in an impressive average of 6 weeks’ turnaround time.

“We’re nimble because our entire team is cross-trained, so everything we do really is a true team effort,” said Castle. He noted that the team has “perfected” wrapping the Resilia table and has worked to clean up and greatly improve the facility itself through new lighting and all-around better operational efficiency. 

The team’s ability to scale and perform quickly is the result of both the talent of the highly-skilled staff and the environment they initially started out working in: peak COVID, with all of its workforce and supply chain issues. At a time when healthcare facilities were at capacity, Stratford answered calls to quickly produce and deliver Stance’s products, including bedside tables and beds, for pop-up facilities designed to accommodate more sick patients. 

The experience of performing during COVID well prepared the healthcare furniture team at Stratford to continue thriving amid supply chain issues today. Castle credits the team’s success to their focus on true collaboration and teamwork, communication, and a fierce commitment to quality. 

“Our competitors right now are generally delivering product in around 12 weeks’ time — but we’re able to stay nimble and deliver [our casegoods] in nearly half that time.”

When they’re not working together to bring award-winning products to market, the Stratford team dedicates time to giving back to its tight-knit community. Since their inception in 2021, the group has proudly supported Rotary Hospice Stratford Perth and Make-a-Wish Canada through sponsorships that support palliative-care patients and their loved ones, and grant “wishes” to terminally ill children, respectively.

“This is such a great team, Castle said. Everyone works together — and the advantage of our lean team is that we are all cross-trained and most importantly, willing to help each other. We are truly a small team that’s doing big things.”

With such a successful track record, the Stratford healthcare furniture team and Stance leadership are exploring ways to continue expanding the operation through more investment and growth. Stay tuned to the Stance blog for future news and insights about the Stratford team, and many ways it supports our company’s commitment to Improving Lives by Design. 

Dear Stance partners,

During the holiday season, I took time to reflect back on all that we have achieved over the past few years, despite the tremendous odds presented by the pandemic and subsequent supply-chain challenges. I am grateful to say that Stance has emerged from this adversity stronger than ever before.

While our sales flat-lined in 2020, they grew quickly in the two subsequent years, and we are projecting a continued strong trajectory of growth in 2023. This is a result of many individual achievements by the entire Stance team and our network of Independent Reps. These achievements include a complete rebrand, a full-service showroom in North Carolina, several award-winning new products, a #1 ranked Behavioral Health CEU and a next-level appearance at HCD 2022 in San Antonio. To all these individuals, I wish to extend a big Thank You! Your effort and contribution to our ongoing success is much appreciated.

It is our commitment to continue to introduce innovative new products that enhance the healing experience of patients, while providing comfort for caregivers and family members. This is part of Stance’s mission of Improving Lives by Design, a mission that also extends to all members of the Stance family, and the wider community around us. Last year, we were able to support more causes than ever before, from providing clean water to a community in Africa to donating furniture to a new mental health clinic and several other impactful initiatives. We are pleased to be able to give back in this way.

Speaking of new products, 2023 is going to be another busy year for our Engineering team. With a very full pipeline of products in development, our team is working hard to bring these to fruition and we are excited about what we will be bringing to market this year for General and Behavioral Health applications.

We will also continue to strive to provide the same level of customer service that we have become known for. Our Customer Service team is passionate about setting Stance apart by offering a level of support that is second to none in our industry. Stance would not be where we are today without this stellar team.

Again, thank you all for your support. I wish you all the very best in 2023!

Sincerely,

Carl Kennedy

Founder & CEO

How the Stance Engineering Team Improves Lives by Design

As industry leaders in healthcare furniture, Stance Healthcare and Stance Behavioral Health continuously strive to improve lives by design every day. That starts with having the right people in place at every stage of the design process. The talented, experienced members of the Engineering Team at Stance are the people who bring the design to life, creating hardworking, comfortable, and inviting furniture for every type of healthcare space.

From 3D CAD drawings and CNC programming to research and product testing, the multidisciplinary team works together across a number of categories to produce industry-leading healthcare furniture day in and day out. Each team member brings specialized expertise that makes this possible. 

It all starts with Cesar Fernandes, the Design and Development Manager. Cesar has over 24 years of awarded experience in the industry, with his last three years spent at Stance leading the Engineering Team. He works with all departments at Stance to make sure product design and development are a success. With a background in furniture design, Cesar finds beauty in simplicity and helps bring a clean, modern look to Stance products. But it’s his ability to get the most out of his talented team that really makes a difference.

Ioan Popa, the Engineering Manager at Stance, is the team member who brings the most industry experience to the table, with over 29 years in the mechanical engineering field. As a manager, Ioan leads with his ingenuity and instills efficiency and integrity in his team.

Matthew Caskanette helps bring the Design Team’s ideas to life. His strengths in 3D modeling and CNC programming ensure the most efficient and cost-effective production solutions are implemented. He’s only been with Stance for 5 months, but he brings 14 years of furniture engineering experience and a great attitude to the team.

The Product Realization Specialist at Stance, Colin Cook, has over 20 years of product engineering experience specializing in the casegoods side of the brand. He works across multiple teams to develop, program, and test new and updated products, and he ensures that current products move seamlessly through the facility.

Adriana Achimescu, a Mechanical Design Engineer, has been developing furniture for Stance Healthcare for two years and brings over 25 years of experience to the team. She has applied her technical and structural skills to a wide array of products from tables to modular seating.

The final member of the team, Crawford Melvin, has been helping Stance bring concepts to reality since 2017. His experience is diverse and spans product engineering to product configuration. He has also been a primary specialist in providing customer service engineering support.

Every member of the team performs a key role and works together for a final outcome that benefits everyone in the healthcare space. With these experienced, collaborative, and highly talented people on board, the Engineering Team at Stance Healthcare will continue producing industry-leading furniture for years to come.

It’s been a busy few months at Stance, as our team prepares new product lines for release and gears up for a successful exhibit at this October’s HCD Conference + Expo. But as we continue the important work to champion our exceptional products to customers in the healthcare world, we are also equally invested in Improving Lives by Design from within — and today, I’m pleased to share some of the work we’ve done together to make our team even stronger from the inside.

First and foremost, we’ve spent time examining what our mission statement, Improving Lives by Design, means for us all as equally valuable team members sharing a common vision and goal. When we launched the new brand last year, we focused the mission statement externally around how our products support patients, care providers, and visitors toward a positive, healing healthcare experience. Today, that’s still our guiding compass. But recently, we’ve reflected more inwardly on this, and considered how each Stance team member contributes to this higher purpose by showing up with this mission in mind each day.

A result of these conversations that I’m excited to share is our new core values, which empower our every team member with a collective ethos that upholds this mission. At Stance, we provide industry-leading products and unmatched quality that Improves Lives by following these STEPS together:
 

Small things are the big things. We take care of the small things, in order to get the big things right. Our attention to detail is how we exceed expectations.

Teamwork over ego. Every one of us plays a role in our success. Our team is humble, collaborative, and mutually supportive: We give credit where it’s due and own up to our mistakes.
 

Excellence is a moving target. We strive to continuously improve ourselves so that we can be better, healthier, and more knowledgeable tomorrow than we are today.

Powered by positive energy. We rely on intentional positivity to energize and bring out the best in each other, and embrace opportunities to celebrate our individual and collective successes.

Simply get it done. Our team does what it takes to overcome obstacles, find innovative solutions, and deliver results.

As a team, it was important to us that we chose values that go beyond lip service to authentically describe who we are as a company — and would serve as guidelines to remind us to stay true to who we are as we continue to scale the business. I am proud of the way these values reinforce that goal, and even prouder of the team who works together to implement them.

As your leadership team, we take this commitment seriously. In the spirit of our third core value, “Excellence is a moving target,” we have been deeply considering the organization, its growth, and how we can best work to lead the company toward continued momentum and progress. After some reflection on the best paths to get there, we have decided to update some of our roles and responsibilities. Effective immediately, my role will change from President to CEO, with Brian Kennedy stepping into the newly created role of Chief Operating Officer.

As COO, Brian will become even more integrated into the day-to-day business activities, and provide more structure and support for our organization’s many different teams. Brian and I will work closely together, and we will be interchangeably available to our colleagues at any time. Our hope is that the increased support from Brian’s new role will provide even more fuel to continue powering our team forward as we pursue the many exciting new paths toward growth and success – paths that always lead, most importantly, to Improving Lives by Design.

Carl

Our Cutting and Sewing Department Has The Experience To Excel

At Stance Healthcare and Stance Behavioral Health, we’re leveraging years of industry experience to cut, sew and craft high-quality furniture that works hard and looks great in any setting. We source the best materials and hire expert cutters and sewers to ensure our products exceed expectations from start to finish.  

All of our upholstered furniture starts with our cutting department, which sets the pace for the rest of the manufacturing process. The cutting team’s job starts by ensuring we are getting the best yield of material possible. By being efficient and using the least amount of material, we cut down on costs and are able to pass those savings on to our customers. Our experienced cutting team makes sure the quality of fabric meets our strenuous standards, and then cuts the materials to match the style and patterns of the seating. This ensures the lines are horizontal and clean – helping the seams match up so our sewing department can effectively continue the manufacturing process.

The sewing team takes over once the cutting team has done its job. Sewing team members have a wealth of product knowledge since they sew for all different patterns and styles of products. The “tight-knit”, collaborative team works together to ensure every product is up to standard every time. Our sewing team is also incredibly welcoming and inclusive, with a diverse range of cultures, languages and ages being represented in the department. We work hard to maintain a welcoming environment where everyone feels encouraged to participate and perform their duties for the good of everyone involved. 

Our cutting department consists of three highly skilled and experienced cutters. In fact, we have 64 years of total industry experience on our cutting team. Two of our team members, Bryan and Denise, have been in the cutting department with us since 2016. The other member of our cutting team, Arlene, has been here helping set the pace for the manufacturing process since 2015. Our sewing department has seven dedicated experts with over 206 total years of industry sewing experience. Our newest members, Sheila, Megan, Lana and Mayda, started in 2022, 2020 and 2019 respectively. But the majority of our team has been with us for several years. Polly has been on our team since 2016 and Patricia is our longest-tenured sewer, having been with us since 2010. The sewer with the next most experience with us, Hector, has been on our sewing team since 2012, and Van started on our team back in 2016.

Both teams work in a fast-paced environment with no downtime, helping set the tone for the rest of the manufacturing process along the way. With our experienced cutting and sewing departments, we’ve got the right people, processes and materials in place to continue producing top-of-the-line healthcare furniture that’s also affordable, versatile and durable. Learn more about our products and the attention to detail that goes into every one of them at StanceHealthcare.com and stancebh.com. 

Stance Healthcare Has The People In Place To Provide Unmatched Customer Service

The manufacturing industry is experiencing a lot of issues in Customer Service departments right now. Customers everywhere have been dealing with long wait times, frustration over talking to bots instead of real human beings, inexperienced service providers and poor after-sales service. But Stance Healthcare has the right people in place to mitigate those issues and provide unmatched customer service.  

Stance Healthcare’s Customer Service team has been able to experience so much success thanks to their years of experience and expertise in the industry. The Customer Service team is all women, with tenure ranging from 6 months to 8 years at Stance Healthcare. The team has been built and grown with purpose, and Stance Healthcare has brought in new talent and retained its valuable employees to ensure it continues providing the best customer service possible.

The feedback for our team has been positive, even through all the challenges. Customers have repeatedly expressed their gratitude and praised our dedicated team. What sets our team apart is their camaraderie, sense of urgency and fast response time, solution-driven approach, clear and constant communication with customers, attention to detail and a good understanding of each other and the customer. Plus, their sense of humor and easygoing nature makes interacting with them a pleasure instead of a pain. Simply put, they really care and it shows.

The tight-knit team works hard to meet demands on time by combining their experience and expertise to find unique solutions to challenges. But that experience really allows them to navigate the current landscape and still provide the service our customers deserve. Our longest- tenured team member is Tracey, with 8 years at Stance Healthcare and 24 years overall in the Contract Furniture Industry. The employee who has been with us the next longest is Jen. She’s been here 5 years and has more than 8 years total in the industry. Next is Darshita, who has been with us 3 years and has more than 4 years of industry experience. April has also been here 3 years, but she has been in the industry for 15 years. And our newest member, Cher, has only been here at Stance Healthcare for 6 months, but adds a wealth of experience in many facets of the industry with 23 years and counting. 

Overall, the team offers more than 75 years of cumulative experience at your service. That kind of experience and industry knowledge uniquely prepares our team to tackle whatever challenges arise. It’s easy to see why Stance Healthcare continues to set the gold standard in customer service in the Contract Furniture Industry and beyond. To contact our Customer Service Team, visit StanceHealthcare.com/contact.   

[CHARLOTTE, N.C.]—Suzanne Phillips Fawley, an interior designer representing Stance Healthcare, based in Kitchener, Ontario with product showrooms and healthcare contract facilities in the U.S., recently passed the American Academy of Healthcare Interior Designers (AAHID) examination and earned the prestigious CHID Certified Healthcare Interior Designer ® certificate.

Passage of the examination and earning the CHID credential signifies that Suzanne has met the standards for education, experience and examination and is a certified healthcare interior designer. The CHID examination requires examinees to demonstrate knowledge and experience in a variety of aspects that affect the acute care, ambulatory care and residential healthcare interior environments.

AAHID is the standard to identify those interior designers who are uniquely qualified to meet the needs and challenges of the healthcare interior design industry. The CHID certificate is the highest appellation available for a healthcare interior design professional, and this credential is what every healthcare facility should look for when choosing an interior designer.

With over 25 years of contract and Healthcare Interior Design experience, Suzanne specializes in Healthcare and Behavioral Health Interior Design, product application, and furniture product design. In her current position with Stance Healthcare, Suzanne is responsible for Behavioral Health initiatives including Behavioral Health Interior Design consulting, education efforts through CEU development, product development and Brand experience. Suzanne’s collaborations with Stance Healthcare have contributed to three HCD Nightingale Gold award wins since 2017: the Resilia Table Collection for Behavioral Health; the Frontier Collection in 2019; and most recently, in 2021 for the Flo Dining Collection for Behavioral Health. In 2021, Suzanne's CEU course, "Behavioral Health Design: Learning from the Past to Design for the Future" was ranked #1 on the IDCEC website for several weeks.

“The CHID credential only solidifies the knowledge and talent we already knew Suzanne had,” said Carl Kennedy, Stance Healthcare’s president. “Her passion and industry experience resonates in the delivery of the Stance-sponsored Behavioral Health CEU and in the product designs she so thoughtfully helps create with us.”

CHID Certified Healthcare Interior Designers ® are distinguished and qualified by education, examination, and work experience to practice healthcare interior design. The CHID appellation recognizes excellence, commitment and knowledge. It further distinguishes preeminent healthcare interior designers from other architects, designers, decorators, and interior designers.  More information about the organization may be found at www.aahid.org.

New virtual design platform will enhance space planning capabilities for users specifying Stance products in healthcare facilities

Stance Healthcare, award-winning manufacturer of general healthcare and Behavioral Health furniture, announces the launch of their CET Commercial Interiors extension from Configura. Used by thousands of people globally, the popular space planning software will now be available for the growing number of interior designers, architects and furniture dealers looking to specify Stance products in healthcare environments. 

Offering the full product selection journey within one application, the CET extension leads users through the design, specification, presentation, and purchasing phases of the space planning experience. The program allows users to apply standard finishes and materials, and see 2D and 3D renderings and pricing, among other features.

“Launching the CET extension means more designers and facility planners now have the opportunity to envision Stance’s versatile product selections in various healthcare settings,” said Carl Kennedy, Stance Healthcare’s president. “Demand continues to grow for this service within the healthcare design industry. Offering the CET extension elevates our position in the market, while more importantly increasing value and efficiency for our customers. Adding CET supports our commitment to Improving Lives by Design, as we strive to be a true partner and support for all of our customers in every phase of their product selection experience.”

Users of Stance’s CET extension will enjoy access to both a Stance Healthcare and Stance Behavioral Health catalog, with the company’s entire seating and table product portfolio now available and casegoods to follow later in 2022. 

To learn more about Configura’s CET software for commercial interiors, visit https://www.configura.com/industries/commercial-interiors. Follow the latest insights and product releases from Stance Healthcare and Stance Behavioral Health on LinkedIn and on their websites, here and here. 

Happy New Year! Today, I am reflecting on a remarkable past year for Stance Healthcare, feeling grateful for the effort, passion, and talent fueling our growing brand into 2022. As we hit the ground running on many initiatives for the New Year, I want to pause and recognize the momentum that’s carrying us – and what has made this past 12 months so exceptional. 

Highlights from an incredible 2021 include: 

• Record-setting new product releases: 2021 was truly a year for the books. We celebrated our 15th year in business with a record number of new products for general healthcare and Behavioral Health settings – introducing 14 all-new products and four line extensions, to be exact. While the new product numbers alone are impressive, our fast-paced product development pipeline is a testament to what I’m most proud of: Our commitment to Improving Lives by Design is not only working, it’s needed more than ever in this industry. 

• A new brand mission: We kicked off the busy year by introducing our Improving Lives by Design brand – a mission that we’ve lived by for quite some time, but found the perfect words for in 2021. Along with our new brand mission statement, we revealed two new Stance websites and refreshed marketing materials to better provide our customers and partners with rich product information, case studies, and beautiful visuals that better reflect our new look, feel and tone. We also continued to give back financially to several organizations that reflect this mission, including: The United Way, Salvation Army, Make-A-Wish Canada, Hockey Helps the Homeless, and The Food Bank of Waterloo Region.
   
• #1 ranked IDCEC Behavioral Health education: In 2021, Stance sponsored an IDCEC CEU course created and presented by our Behavioral Health Interior Designer, Suzanne Fawley. The course, entitled “Behavioral Health Design: Learning from the Past to Design for the Future”, quickly gained popularity among those looking to deepen their understanding of Behavioral Health design. Over the course of the year, Suzanne presented 17 CEUs to over 500 interior designers and architects – and the course was ranked #1 on the IDCEC website for several weeks!
   
• Another HCD award win: In 2021, we maintained our commitment to excellence in every product we introduced. We’re grateful when that commitment is recognized by our industry peers – and in October, we were thrilled to take home our third Nightingale Award win at the Healthcare Design (HCD) Expo + Conference. The Flo Dining Collection for Behavioral Health, one of our 2021 new releases, won the Nightingale GOLD Award! 
   
• Opening the Charlotte Showroom: While COVID persisted, we took steps to safely welcome visitors to our showroom in Charlotte, N.C. The space is an ideal setting for designers, facility managers, architects, and many others in the healthcare industry to explore our products, learn best practices and ways to modify for different settings, and collaborate on new ideas that support healing healthcare environments. 
   

All of this passion and great work in 2021 has prepared the way for another defining year for our Stance team and the products we thoughtfully bring to the healthcare marketplace. In 2022, look for several new products for Behavioral Health and general healthcare, new education (hopefully, in-person as well as virtual!) and networking opportunities, and more resources than ever before to support the development of more healing healthcare environments. 

From all of us at Stance Healthcare, stay well and thank you for all of your support! 

Warm regards,

Carl Kennedy

In over a decade since our founding, Stance Healthcare has evolved from a metal chair manufacturer into a company on a mission to change the healthcare experience for patients, visitors, and care providers. This week, we’re introducing a new brand mission that is both a realization about who we’ve become, and a stake in the ground for our future: Improving Lives by Design. I couldn’t be more proud to introduce you to this refreshed brand and the new resources it has inspired.

Our renewed mission reflects the intention behind the products we make. For Stance, we aren’t just designing a chair, for example – our design process envisions the place where many minutes, sometimes hours are spent awaiting treatment or visiting a loved one. Even our side tables and accessories aim to serve a higher purpose of adding comfort, dignity, and beauty to every environment we contribute to. 

It’s a mission that has evolved organically, through years of listening to end-users about their needs and pain points with the typical ‘doctor’s office visit’. At Stance, we believe that patient care and patient outcomes are influenced by the environment in which care is delivered. Our innovative designs are purpose and patient-driven to create warm, supportive, enabling, durable, and dignifying spaces that motivate caregivers and reassure patients that they will get the best possible care. In doing so, we build caregiver morale, advance the healing environment, and improve lives. 

Improving Lives all started with a new logo. Last year, as we worked to create new brand imagery that reflected the modern, warm aesthetics our designs deliver, we uncovered much more to our brand story that needed to be shared. So, in addition to our new logo, we rolled our sleeves up and dug deeper to also deliver:

New websites that better showcase the difference in our products and design services, including an all-new website wholly dedicated to Stance Behavioral Health;

More robust social and email communications that offer insight into the work we put our hearts into;

An aggressive product development strategy that introduces new releases every month of the year; and finally,

A mission statement that encompasses our ‘why’: Improving Lives by Design.

Because we expect more from the healthcare environments we contribute to, you can expect more from us, starting today – and we look forward to delivering on that commitment. And while many of these resources are new, you can still rely on the exceptional customer service and custom design services that we’re already known for. Whether it’s a highly-cleanable, yet comfortable waiting area, or a new-construction ‘boutique’ Behavioral Health facility, Stance is here to support better healthcare environments for any specialty, size, or stage in the process. 

- Carl Kennedy, President, Stance Healthcare