When you engage with LINAK® you are potentially in for a long relationship. In a variety of business areas – from agricultural machinery to industrial workstations, office desks and hospital equipment – you will find proof of this claim. Actuators – some more than 20 years old – are still going strong, delivering a push or pull to enhance comfort, ergonomics and efficiency – ultimately improving people’s lives.
25 years old and still going strong
This assembly desk from MSF-Vatheuer, with linear actuators from LINAK, is still in hard daily use.
The eye-catching assembly desk in the new production building of MSF-Vathauer Antriebstechnik in Detmold stands out clearly from the others. Its large "Modulus" logo and turquoise colour scheme remind you of the 90s - which is exactly when this table was built. In fact, it was one of the first electrically height-adjustable workstations to be launched in Germany. And it still works perfectly.
The dust and scratches on the two LINAK actuators in the table legs show their age and heavy use, but neither have been replaced. Even after 25 years' heavy lifting of this solidly built table, computer and toolbox attachment, they still whirr smoothly into action at the touch of the LINAK desk panel.
Choosing LA28 linear actuators for the design was, at the time, an unusual choice as they were more commonly used in areas such as industrial applications and agriculture. In the early 90s, the idea of creating an electrically adjustable table was a totally new concept. But the combination of accurate, German-made guides and LINAK system thinking, where the control box and controls enabled you to operate the two actuators in parallel, made it viable to create the world’s first electrically height-adjustable workstation.
For LINAK, this was the spark that started the development of specially designed lifting columns for office desks. In 1998, the DL1 was launched and changed the office world.
About MSF-Vathauer Antriebstechnik
For more than 40 years, MSF-Vathauer Antriebstechnik GmbH & Co. KG have distinguished themselves with their dedicated passion for technology and know-how on all levels of drive automation. Alongside decentralised drive technology and drive automation, the company also develops and produces individual solutions in Germany.
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A 20-year-old treatment couch
In year 2000, Britta Butteron, a veterinary surgeon in the town of Lich in Hessen, Germany, purchased an ‘adjustable’ treatment couch for her practice. This was by no means normal at that time – not even in offices or production areas. And certainly not in veterinary practices.
However, she decided to go with an electric solution with a LINAK® lifting column LP2. It allowed her to adjust the height of the couch with a foot switch to achieve optimal working height. Butteron’s treatment couch is still in daily use in her veterinary practice to this day.
A workstation 'born' in April 1999
One of our customers in the US told us that he could remember selling us some of their workstations many years ago. We went looking for them at our LINAK US production facility in Louisville, Kentucky, and we found a few really old workstations, all still working perfectly well. We looked up the actuators, moving the table top up and down. The oldest one is more than 20 years old.
It was 'born' in Denmark on 23 April, 1999. Shortly after, the LA31 actuator 'moved' to the US where it became a part of an ergonomic workstation designed and manufactured by BOSTONtec. This was a time when lifting columns were pretty new for desks and workstations. Sit-stand desks were barely used and nowhere near the global office standard they are now.
In fact, it was only a year earlier, in 1998, that LINAK had created and launched the first ever complete system for desks. It was originally designed to improve ergonomics and working comfort in niche areas such as workstations for architects, engineers, photographers, and special needs applications for kitchens and bathrooms. Before this, companies would use more industrial actuators like an LA31 to help power their height-adjustable workstations. This particular one, which has been running smoothly for over 21 years, was found on our own premises.
At the LINAK US production facility the workstation is currently being used as an actuator speed-testing station. But throughout its life in the facility, it has been used for many different tasks. Imagine how many people have used this workstation, or how many actuators it has been used to help build over the years. It is a perfect example of what LINAK quality is really all about.
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The carpenter’s early partnership
When Herwig Danzer, owner of the carpenter’s workshop ‘Die Möbelmacher’, works at his desk at the office, he likes to stand. That is why he has an electric sit-stand desk – a quite common thing these days. But in 1998, when he decided to build his own adjustable desk, it was brand new and considered ‘very modern’.
Owning and running ‘Die Möbelmacher’ near Nuremberg, Germany, with a dozen specialists on board, Danzer knows one or two things about furniture. And when it comes to his desk, one thing in particular impresses him.
“It is actually amazing how long this table lasts,” he says and points at the lifting column DL1 under the tabletop. This particular column made up the backbone of the very first desk system launched by LINAK® in the late 1990s. It launched the partnership between ‘Die Möbelmacher’ and LINAK – a collaboration that, like Danzer’s desk, is still going today.
