Software Developer, John Schmier, filed this report. John was part of the DWF team at its inception where he served in a variety of QA roles with his focus on automation. For Autodesk Labs, John has a development position which leverages his programming past.

Autodesk is building a new office space in San Rafael to host a few hundred employees, and part of Autodesk Labs is moving into the new space. As facilities is also looking at new ways for employees to work collaboratively, the Labs team volunteered to be the experimental group to try flexible work spaces. On Wednesday, November 17, the Labs team from San Rafael (John Schmier, Rosella Conanan, Frederic Loranger, Keshav Sahoo, Ben Cochran) and Vice President, Brian Mathews, visited Swerve. Swerve designs unique office furniture that is very flexible and configurable.

Swerve machines all of their components in-house and can build stations on demand based on needs and desires. Parts are interchangeable, so if someone needs to move an office or wants a different configuration, it's as easy as using an Allen wrench and a few other tools to change it up.

What was very cool in this visit was seeing all the designs and how they are made. Swerve has a fully automated CNC machine with a robotic arm that mills many of the connector components.

They have a very large milling machine in the back that can accommodate material that is 3 feet thick, 10+ feet wide, and 8 to 10 feet deep.

The Labs team, an adventurous group of people, will configure its own workspace with movable furniture and walls. The team will be given kits of parts of fully configurable furniture and be able to setup their workspace to fit their needs -& including how much or how little privacy they need from each other and the rest of the floor. I work in our San Francisco office but will experience it when I visit San Rafael.

Thanks John.

Flexibility is alive in the lab (in more ways than one).