IKEA, the Swedish furniture company was founded in 1943 by Ingvar Kamprad. The company originally started as a small mail-order company selling household products such as pens, wallets and picture frames. In the 1950s, IKEA began producing furniture. They introduced the concept of reducing assembly and transportation costs by selling furniture in flat packs and allowing customers to assemble items themselves.
This novel concept was a great success and contributed significantly to the company’s global expansion. Today, IKEA is known worldwide for its wide range of affordable and quality furniture and home accessories. It operates more than 400 stores in over 50 countries and employs more than 200,000 people.
IKEA is committed to producing sustainable furniture and plans to increase the proportion of recycled material in its products to actively contribute to environmental protection. By using recycled materials, IKEA aims to offer environmentally friendly products that meet customer needs while minimising the impact on the environment.
To ensure that the quality of its products remains high despite the use of recycled materials, IKEA invests in research and development to understand and continuously optimise the properties and performance of these materials. These efforts are reflected in IKEA’s long-term vision to produce quality furniture that is not only environmentally friendly, but also ensures excellent customer satisfaction and contributes to a more sustainable lifestyle.
To determine the properties of the recycled materials required for product development, the company installed a ZwickRoell electrodynamic testing machine at its headquarters in Sweden. The machine enables high-precision testing under axial and torsional loads. The new material data obtained from these tests are used for calculations in computer systems in which new products are designed. The computers then calculate the strength of the product, enabling digital and virtual product development.
Previously, IKEA’s quality developers could only perform simple loading tests until the samples broke. The new ZwickRoell machine will facilitate more extensive tests due to its flexibility and versatility. Dynamic tests can also be carried out to obtain detailed results that can be used to modify materials to ensure that product quality is maintained and manufactured goods are fit for purpose which saves IKEA both time and money.
“We have high demands in our development department. That’s why we carried out a thorough feasibility study,” says Marko Kokkonen, Test Development Engineer at IKEA. “Thanks to the good cooperation with ZwickRoell’s demonstration laboratory in Germany, which was quick and accommodating, we were able to make a well-founded and very good decision.
“Other important factors that led to our decision were the strong local support and service provided by our local ZwickRoell organisation,” Marko adds.
