Progress office furniture

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Progress Ltd.

logo
legal form GmbH
founding 1901
resolution 1976
Seat Freiburg im Breisgau , Germany
Website www.samas-buero.de

The Progress Office Furniture GmbH was a company in the furniture industry, based in Freiburg . It was founded in 1901 and went bankrupt in 1976. The Progress brand subsequently changed hands several times and is now under the umbrella of the Swedish Kinnarps Group. Progress made office furniture. This includes table systems with mobile and substructure containers, filing cabinets, cupboard and partition systems, partition walls, conference tables as well as side and special furniture.

history

For a long time, the company belonged to the Gütermann family from Gutach im Breisgau , known for the manufacture of sewing silk . The company's motto was: "To serve the people in offices and offices".

According to unconfirmed US reports, the company with its 200 employees was said to have been active in arms production during World War II. Progress is said to have been taken over by Messerschmitt in October 1944 and used to manufacture parts for the Messerschmitt Me 163 and the V2 rocket . Despite this knowledge of the American armed forces, the company was not hit by the British air raid on November 27, 1944 .

In 1976 the company became insolvent and was taken over by Schärf GmbH, Worms , in the Schärf Group. For this purpose, a new production hall of 20,000 m² was built in the Hochdorf industrial area in Freiburg . In 1991 this hall was expanded to 40,000 m². Progress with the Schärf Group has been part of the Dutch Samas Group since 1994 .

In 1985, the Bonn parliamentary offices were equipped with the first computer workstation furniture called Ergodata , which appeared in 1979. The peak of sales development was reached at the end of the nineties, when the company reached sales of around € 50 million.

In 2005 the production site in Freiburg was closed for economic reasons. Since then, the furniture has been manufactured in various other production facilities of the Samas Group. Administration, product development and sales are located in Worms. Progress Büromöbel GmbH has only served as a sales office since then. The products are sold through around 100 selected dealers in Germany as well as agencies abroad in some European countries.

At the Freiburg-Hochdorf location is the Büro & Objekt company , which continues to run the Progress brand today .

In early 2010, the Swedish company Kinnarps acquired most of the Samas group, including the rights to progress.

Inventions, developments

Progress became known in the 20th century through several developments that had become necessary due to the changes in the office world, not least due to the mechanization and electronization of the working world. More recent knowledge of work ergonomics was also taken into account. So we developed suspension file systems (loose-leaf filing), furniture for special accounting purposes, computer furniture and the first height and tilt adjustable office desks.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Gerd R. Ueberschär : Freiburg in the air war 1939-1945 , Ploetz, Freiburg im Breisgau / Würzburg 1990, ISBN 3-87640-332-4 , p. 205 f.
  2. ↑ Progress at Büromöbelwelt.de. Archived from the original on March 11, 2009 ; Retrieved November 17, 2011 .
  3. ↑ Office and object - We plan and design your office furnishings. Retrieved September 27, 2016 .
  4. ↑ Carola Schark: Freiburg Südwest: Wiedesehen: Where office furniture used to be made in Haslach is now the Gutleutviertel. Badische Zeitung, April 7, 2015, accessed on September 27, 2016 .
  5. ↑ Sales contract concluded between Kinnarps and Samas .

Coordinates: 48 ° 2 ′ 28.9 ″  N , 7 ° 48 ′ 48.5 ″  E