Workstations, seating and storage in stock. How Commercial Office Interiors (COI) uses HON on open-line projects across New Hampshire and Greater Boston, and which brands it is bid against on the same brief.
HON is the largest contract furniture brand in the United States by volume and the one most office managers already know. Ignition is its workhorse task chair, Voi and 10500 Series cover desking and private offices, Accelerate is the workstation system, and the storage line is the lateral file most buildings already have in them. HON products are warrantied for life and the core line ships from stock.
COI specifies HON when a project needs the furniture on site soon and the budget is functional-tier. A company that signs a lease in June and moves in August cannot wait for a 14-week systems order, and HON's in-stock program is how that floor gets furnished with a real commercial product rather than a stopgap. The warranty is the other argument: a lifetime warranty on a desk at a functional price is hard to beat on a 10-year total cost.
On an open-line bid HON usually appears next to Global and Artopex on the workstation typical and next to SitOnIt and Global on the task chair. It rarely wins a design-led brief, and COI does not pretend otherwise. It often wins the back-of-house, the training room, the file room and the satellite office, where the money should be functional and the standard should be one that is still in production in five years.
HON also holds broad cooperative and government contracts, and its storage line is the reference point for a lot of national facilities standards. COI confirms the exact contract and product eligibility before describing anything as available on contract.
Same specification, several manufacturers, one line-itemed proposal. The brief decides.
COI carries the project, not one manufacturer. Every workstation, private-office and task-chair typical goes to several brands and comes back on one proposal with prices, lead times, warranties and finishes side by side. Across five New England projects in 2026 the gap between a single-brand bid and the COI open-line bid on the same scope averaged 32 percent.
2D layout and 3D render of every room before anything is ordered. No charge.
HON next to its alternatives, with the lead time for each configuration.
Every piece recorded at install so it can be moved, repaired or resold through RESEAT.
COI is an open-line dealer and specifies from 100+ manufacturers. Authorization, territory, warranty routing and the quotation path are confirmed in writing for the exact brand and product on each project, and nothing on these pages should be read as a standing authorization claim for a given line. COI is the Artopex dealer for New Hampshire and one of 10 RESEAT dealers in the U.S.
By bidding the same specification across several of them. A workstation typical, a private-office typical and a task-chair standard each go out to three or more manufacturers, and the proposal shows the prices, lead times, warranties and finishes side by side. The brief decides, not a dealer contract.
Yes, and most COI projects do. A typical floor pairs one manufacturer for workstations, another for private offices, a third for task seating and a fourth for the lounge, each chosen on merit for that room type. COI coordinates the finish palette, the schedule and the installation so the floor reads as one project.
Those brands sell through contracted major-line dealers, so COI does not carry them. When a client has a quote from one of them, COI prices an equivalent open-line specification against it line by line. Across five New England projects in 2026 the average gap was 32 percent on the same scope.