Many design trends have changed the office environment over the years, but few have positively affected the individual user in a workspace quite like the electric sit-stand desk. Although standing desks have been around for centuries, the technology behind the electric sit-stand desk has only been around for a little over two decades. Other types of manual height-adjustable options like pin, crank, gas and pneumatic have existed for decades, but nothing compares to the convenience of pushing a button to achieve better ergonomics, health, and well-being while working at your desk.
So where did the technology inside these desks start? In the early 1990s, LINAK® was a growing electric linear actuator company and while expanding globally, we were also growing business areas outside of medical applications. Entrepreneurs at the time came to us looking for better ways to improve ergonomics and working comfort in niche areas such as workstations for architects, engineers, photographers, and special needs applications for kitchens and bathrooms.
“The development of a complete height-adjustable desk system didn’t come from this vision of a big opportunity for LINAK, it came from us wanting to have a solution that made it easier for our customers to build workstations,” says John Frost, Division President & Executive Vice President at LINAK. “There were two needs we wanted to address: Make it easier and make it more affordable.”
To do this, we would need to develop a new product specifically for desks, and utilise our experience, technology, and capabilities from existing product lines. With actuators running in parallel for hospital beds, numerous types of glide pads for medical applications, and a history of innovating first, LINAK was up for the challenge.
“We gave the task to six engineers, three mechanical and three electrical, and before you knew it, we were presented with a promising concept of a two-leg electrically height-adjustable system,” says Frost. “The real innovation in this new product would be in the relationship between the motor, spindle, and guidance systems to control the near perfect frictional tolerances throughout the leg movement. While the design aesthetic was very important, the technology inside the leg was what truly mattered.”
Catching the industry by surprise
In late 1998, LINAK caught the industry by surprise and launched our first ever complete electrically height-adjustable system for desks. The system included a desk panel switch to easily adjust height, an advanced control box for smooth desk movement, and a revolutionary “electric leg” for desks called DESKLIFT™ 1 (DL1).
Everything we take for granted today in a height-adjustable desk was totally ground-breaking in 1998: Building lifting systems with motors and spindles into desk columns; achieving smooth, quiet vertical lifting - and then putting all this into a simple streamlined package were genuinely innovative breakthroughs.
After the launch, the focus was to help customers make the transition to the new solution.
LINAK did not anticipate how successfully this technology would be adopted, especially in Northern Europe. The demand grew rapidly as electrically height-adjustable desk systems spread outside of industrial workstations to office desks.
Our first ever complete electrically height-adjustable system for office desks with the revolutionary “electric leg” for desks: the DL1 Inadvertently kicking off a global trend!
By the early 2000s, sit-stand desks had become the norm in Scandinavia and were rapidly gaining ground throughout the rest of Northern Europe. The trend for electrically height-adjustable desks did not really gain traction in North America until the late 2000s, when the media coined the phrase “sitting is the new smoking”. After that, uptake dramatically increased.
Many furniture manufacturers joined LINAK in communicating the benefits of height-adjustable technology to improve ergonomics in the workplace. By working to find a solution for our customers, we had unknowingly helped ignite a global trend - improving the lives of office workers through ergonomic solutions.
The DL1 was state-of-the-art 25 years ago and an updated version is still part of our product range. In today’s market, innovative new LINAK products, like the Desk Panels DPI and DPG1C, continue to win awards for product design, while other products are awarded for customer design - including Best in Innovation at NeoCon and Best of NeoCon Gold Award for Desk2Device USB charger.
As working styles change, so will furniture design and functionality. Being deeply rooted in “the will to change“ provides LINAK with a unique drive to adapt and address known and unknown challenges. But the experience of innovating so many firsts is what motivates us to continue to take adjustable furniture design to the next level.
With more than 10 million electric adjustable desk systems sold since 1998, it is true to say that LINAK has succeeded in changing the office landscape for the better - by improving the lives of office workers around the world.
DL1: The backbone of the very first desk system launched by LINAK in the late 1990s.
The carpenter’s early partnership
Can a height-adjustable desk using the DL1 system for more than 25 years still be working today?
The answer is yes.
In 1998, a carpenter called Herwig Danzer decided to create his own height-adjustable desks, an idea that was very futuristic and modern at that time.
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Don’t leave your ergonomics at the office!
In our new normal, many of us have traded office desks for kitchen tables. And even if global events move us back to the workplace soon, working from home in some form or fashion is here to stay. Dr. Mark Benden and Martha Parker of the Texas A&M University Ergo Center have plenty of tips and tricks for those facing the challenges of working from home now and in the not-so-distant future.
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