USM U. Schärer Sons
| USM U. Schärer Söhne AG
|
|
|---|---|
 |
|
| legal form | Corporation |
| founding | 1885 |
| Seat |
Münsingen BE Switzerland
|
| management | Alexander Schärer ( Chairman of the Board of Directors ) ( CEO ) |
| Number of employees | > 400 (2009) |
| sales | 200 million CHF (2006) |
| Branch | Furniture |
| Website | www.usm.com |
The USM AG , headquartered in Bern's Münsingen is an international Swiss furniture manufacturer . The company is known worldwide for its USM Haller furniture system, which was developed in 1963 and expanded to series production in 1969 .
Company history
The story goes back to the locksmith's shop and blacksmith's workshop founded in 1885 by the Swiss craftsman Ulrich Schärer in a suburb of Münsingen. Schärer's wife Rosalie ran a hardware store in the same house . In the 1920s, the company developed into a small factory specializing in window fittings , so-called espagnolettes , which, after the Second World War, expanded its production to include metal construction and sheet metal processing . At the end of the 1920s, Ulrich Schärer handed over his company, which has operated under the name U. Schärer Söhne, to his sons Robert, Paul and Hans Schärer.
At the beginning of the 1960s, when Ulrich Schärer grandson and Paul Schärer son, Paul Schärer jr. (1933–2011), the company realigned itself with the complete new construction of the factory to become a design-oriented industrial company. The architectural contract for the modern factory and office building went to Fritz Haller , then an architect in Solothurn. The functional steel construction system building, which was designed in such a way that it could be expanded as required at a later date (up to a total of seven times in the 2010s), was subsequently marketed as the USM Haller steel construction system and ultimately served as a model for the USM Haller furniture system. Paul Schärer developed the furniture system together with Fritz Haller from 1963, initially for personal use as a functional and expandable or changeable interior for the company's own administration building in Münsingen, the so-called office pavilion, which was inaugurated in 1965. After equipping the Rothschild Bank with 600 workplaces in Paris with USM Haller furniture, the product line went into series production in 1969 for wholesalers and retailers. The first major orders went to Germany: Bayerische Rückversicherung in Munich (since 2001 Swiss Re ) and Bahlsen in Hanover equipped their offices with USM Haller. USM Haller has been the company's main business ever since. The company logo was created in the 1960s by the Swiss graphic artist Alfred Hablützel for the Jacquet advertising agency.
In 1989, in addition to the USM Haller product line, the USM Display presentation system and in 1990 the USM Kitos table construction system were launched. In 1990 Paul Schärer became the majority shareholder in the company. The manufacture of window fittings, which began in the 1920s, was given up in 1992. In 1996 the USM Inos interior organization system came onto the market. In 1998 the company opened its world's first showroom in Hamburg under the name of USM . Since then, additional showrooms have been inaugurated in Bern, Berlin, Düsseldorf, Munich, New York, Paris and Tokyo. In 1999 the USM eleven22 workstation was presented.
After the company was converted from a sole proprietorship to a general partnership in 1929, it was converted into a stock corporation in 1967 . This is still owned by the fourth generation of the family today. The son of Paul Schärer Jr., Alexander Schärer, who has been a member of the Board of Directors of the company since 1993, has headed the Board of Directors of USM U. Schärer Söhne AG since 2000 and is also CEO. As the parent company of the subsidiaries in Switzerland, Germany (USM U.Schaerer Sons GmbH, 1975), France (USM U.Schaerer Fils SA, 1994), the USA (USM U.Schaerer Sons Inc., 1995), Japan (USM U .Schaerer Sons KK, 2008) and Great Britain (USM U. Schaerer Sons ltd., 2015) is the name of the USM Holding AG. About 60% of USM products are manufactured for the European market.
USM Haller furniture system
The USM Haller modular furniture system was launched on the market in 1965. In 1969 series production and sales of the USM Haller furniture system began.
Each USM modular furniture system is based on three basic elements, which enable unlimited variety for individual furnishing design in the office world, in public buildings as well as in the private sector:
- Ball ( brass , chrome-plated)
- Connecting pipes ( steel , chrome-plated)
- Cladding elements in fourteen colors and three materials ( powder-coated sheet steel, perforated metal and glass)
The modular furniture system is now a globally recognized design classic and was added to the design collection of the Museum of Modern Art MoMA in New York (USA) in 2001.
More product lines
Over the past few years, other product lines that are compatible with one another have been developed: USM Display Furniture System (1989), USM Kitos Furniture System (1990) and, in addition, the USM Inos interior organization system (1996). With the launch of the room-creating and room-designing USM furniture system eleven22 at the end of 1999, USM follows on from the basic philosophy of the USM Haller furniture system, but goes completely new ways to meet the diverse requirements of a computerized, permanently reorganizing work environment that is geared towards scarce resources.
Today USM U. Schärer Söhne AG employs around 400 people at its headquarters in Switzerland and in the sister companies in Germany, France and the USA. The manufacturer with production facilities in Switzerland is present in over 30 countries worldwide through sales partners.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Entry of "USM U. Schärer Söhne AG" in the commercial register of the Canton of Bern ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Association of Bernese Economists ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 175 kB), December 4, 2009
- ↑ UBS service ( Memento of the original dated June 5, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Edition 4/2007
- ↑ About Us: Who We Are , usm.com, accessed December 13, 2013
- ↑ Design from Münsingen , textundbild.ch, 2009
- ↑ USM pioneer Paul Schärer died in: Tages-Anzeiger from August 2, 2011
- ↑ The Lord of the World Globe ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. in: design report, 5/2011
