Houston, Texas
Mattress Firm, one of America’s largest mattress retail chains, relocated its corporate “Bed”quarters to a newly constructed Houston facility in early 2024. With hundreds of stores across the U.S., Mattress Firm needed a reliable, standardized conferencing infrastructure to support meetings between store managers, vendors, and the executive team.
The existing AV equipment from the previous headquarters needed to be incorporated into the new system designs. Mattress Firm turned to Ford AV to design, deploy, and move 35 integrated conference rooms, all operating on Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) systems, within a very tight window.
Tight Timeline and Complex Logistics
Ford installed the AV systems and decommissioned the existing conference room technology. Every display, camera, cable, and microphone array was carefully cataloged and packed. The project engineer coordinated nightly packing sessions, labeling each piece of equipment to ensure it could be reinstalled correctly.
“The biggest challenge on this project was the deadline and time restraints. Since the customer was told to vacate their old building, we needed to get a certain number of rooms up and running by a specified date.”
— Zain Cheema, Ford AV Project Engineer
Because the new headquarters was built on a single floor, all 35 conference rooms, ranging from small huddle spaces to large boardrooms, had to be operational within a few weeks of construction completion.
Designing and Standardizing Conference Rooms
The objective was to repurpose all existing equipment wherever possible, saving Mattress Firm significant capital expenditure. The custom-programmed touch panels offer one-touch meeting launch, camera control, source selection, and volume adjustment. This standardized interface ensured employees would encounter the same intuitive interface in every room.
Mattress Firm is not a technology company, and that’s where we can partner with them. We can install very technical rooms, but they’re not technical to the customer.”
— Jeff Brown, On-Site Support
Large and medium conference rooms were equipped with beam-forming ceiling microphone arrays. These mic arrays continuously detected who was speaking and adjusted automatically, ensuring clear audio without the need for table microphones.
In smaller huddle rooms, table-mounted microphones and PTZ cameras provide high-quality audio and automatically frame presenters for a seamless Teams experience. Each room’s display arrangement was carefully planned. Several mid-sized conference rooms featured a 3×3 video wall, nine 55″ bezelless displays tiled together, ideal for large-format presentations, while standard 75″ and 85″ single displays served smaller meeting spaces.
Executive Suite Customizations
Midway through the project, Mattress Firm’s executive leadership requested additional customization for two key rooms, the “King Room” (the main boardroom) and the “Queen Room” (a smaller executive conference room).
The King Room required two 100″ displays mounted on opposing end walls with a diamond-shaped conference table in between. The team sourced mounting hardware capable of supporting each massive 100″ display, recalibrated room acoustics to account for the new video surfaces, and reprogrammed the touch panels so both displays could be controlled seamlessly.
The Queen Room, while slightly smaller, still required a 100″ display and a custom table layout. Although the underlying AV technology remained similar to other conference rooms, the team had to adapt cable cubbies, floor boxes, and network drops to accommodate the diamond table configuration and executive-grade finishes.
On-Time Delivery and Scalable Collaboration
All 35 Microsoft Teams Rooms were fully operational within four weeks of move-in. Standardizing on Microsoft Teams Rooms and uniform touch-panel interfaces gave Mattress Firm a consistent, reliable meeting environment across every department.
Reuse of existing AV equipment resulted in substantial cost savings. Rather than purchasing new displays, cameras, and microphones, Mattress Firm avoided large capital expenditures while still benefiting from state-of-the-art collaboration tools. The beam-forming ceiling microphones and PTZ cameras ensure that every remote participant sees and hears meeting attendees clearly, significantly reducing miscommunications during vendor negotiations and executive briefings.
Ongoing Support
Ford provides ongoing, comprehensive technology support across the entire facility, maintaining the auditorium, cafe displays, and other equipment around the building. As Mattress Firm has questions or big meetings, our team is able to guide and take care of their needs.
“They do what they do best, and they understand that we do what we do best.”
— Jeff Brown, On-Site Support
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