Self Assembly Furniture
Over half of the adults in the UK have assembled self-assembly furniture in the last 2 years and of these it is estimated that 1.8 million received a minor injury. More seriously, a potential 100, 000 people required medical attention for injuries sustained during assembly.
Summary
Self-assembly furniture products have become increasingly common as they offer the consumer good value by reducing transport and labour costs. Until now there has only been anecdotal evidence that people often find assembling self-assembly furniture difficult. However a survey developed by Dr Miles Richardson from the University of Derby and conducted independently by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has revealed that a proportion of the 2.7 million accidents that occur in the home each year in the UK are related to the assembly of furniture in the home. However, because these accidents happen behind closed doors they rarely attract attention and the level of accidents has been unknown. If the problems are unknown it is impossible to address them fully or justify action.
The ONS Omnibus Survey commissioned by Dr Richardson involved 1295 face-to-face interviews and results revealed that 52% of adults (approximately 23 to 24 million) in the UK report that they have assembled self-assembly furniture in the last 2 years. Of these people 41% admitted to getting frustrated or angry during assembly and 67% had got into some form of difficulty. These problems ranged from mis-understanding the instructions (33%) to more annoying issues such as damaging the item being assembled (13%). More seriously 8% admitted to injuring themselves during assembly, with a small percentage requiring medical attention. Given the large proportion of adults undertaking self-assembly tasks these percentages mean that approximately 1.8 million UK adults have received a minor injury treated at home in the last two years. More seriously, the results suggest that tens of thousands of people are estimated to have required medical attention for injuries sustained during assembly in the home (home accident statistics don't include self-assembly as an activity).
It is clear from the survey that consumers do have problems assembling self-assembly furniture, resulting in accidents such as damage to the item or personal injury – but it doesn’t have to be this way. There is a solution offered by Dr Richardson’s research which provides a method to predict or quantify the likely assembly difficulty. This could be used by the companies to predict the difficulty of products or as the basis for standards to regulate the industry and protect consumers.
Dr Miles Richardson
University of Derby
Email: m.richardson@derby.ac.uk
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