Innovations made by Klöber: A pioneer of sitting culture thanks to science and expertise

Owingen, October 2016. In a professional environment that’s becoming increasingly digitalised, you need office concepts that promote the wellbeing and motivation of employees. As a specialist in the manufacture of office seating, Klöber knows how to do its bit for the smart office of the future with its innovative range of products. Chair after chair has been a success thanks to an open corporate culture, a close relationship with science and a location that allows workers a high standard of living.

Klöber was founded more than 80 years ago as a small-scale factory producing health chairs – it’s now one of Germany’s leading office seating manufacturers. Around 140 employees contribute to the Klöber success story on a daily basis at the company facility in Owingen on the shores of Lake Constance. Good teamwork and a practically inexhaustible inventive talent has allowed the company to position the brand successfully in more than 25 countries around the world.

Product development with expertise and science

In a situation where creative processes and inter-departmental communication are encouraged, new ideas can take shape quickly. In this spirit, Klöber’s best chairs are always created within a collaborative project. Thanks to the company’s skilled knowledge, years of experience and an infrastructure consisting of state-of-the-art technology, the first prototypes can be brought to life quickly. Products are put through their paces on a day-to-day basis in the company’s own test lab, where a close relationship with the world of science is integral to the company’s approach. Working closely with the smart guys from completely different industry backgrounds is a way of ensuring that new channels are explored. That’s how we can be sure of creating innovative products that very often result in a patent: for example the “heating” and “ventilation” functions of the Klöber Klimastuhl.

The Klöber Klimastuhl as a research object

The Klöber Klimastuhl has been subjected to ongoing testing under real-life conditions in the “Living Lab smart office space” at Kaiserslautern University of Technology. The colleagues involved in the project play the role of testers, and provide important information for further development. This includes the subject of “thermal comfort”: if the room temperature in the office is too hot or too cold, wellbeing and efficiency at work can be reduced considerably. But because the ideal comfort climate varies from person to person, the intelligent office chair from the Klöber stable performed well in the study. It was possible to influence how contented individual users were with the temperature using both the heating and ventilation functions.

From the initial vision through to large-scale production

Producing a world first like the Klöber Klimastuhl is a challenge. There were innumerable details to be considered throughout the process, from the original vision up to the point of production on a large scale. The most difficult task encountered during development was probably integrating the functions inspired by a car seat into an office chair that can only be powered by a rechargeable battery. The final result was a success that bears witness to the expertise and highly innovative spirit of the Owingen-based company. But there’s more to it than home-grown development: a modern office chair has to look good as well. Designer and product developer Jörg Bernauer is responsible for this. His latest achievement is the Connex2. Following in the footsteps of its popular predecessor from the eighties, Bernauer’s new task chair was a successful and unique marriage of design and function.

The future’s smart

Connex2 is already fulfilling the requirements of tomorrow, taking into account the imminent demographic change within the working environment. Thanks to a straightforward operation concept and outstanding sitting comfort, this office chair is a dependable partner for people who plan to remain in their career longer. There’s no shortage of visions for the future at Klöber, as Managing Director Brian Boyd stresses: “In a few years’ time the workplace will be characterised by intelligent office furniture elements that can communicate with each other. We have taken the first step towards the smart office with the Klimastuhl. But that was just the beginning.” 

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