Some entrepreneurs react piqued to the term “Corona profiteer”. Especially if it’s true. But Rainer Maria Wagner uses the frowned upon word of greeting without being asked. Later he will tell how he, the professor and entrepreneur, even helped out with his brother in the factory on Saturday to meet the demand that the pandemic had given them. “Some of the employees don’t even know that we’ve been standing on the line for half our lives,” he says. That, as his brother Peter Wagner adds, they helped out in the factory as children for 50 cents an hour and built all the upholstery and backrests and springs themselves – into chairs.
Even a generation later, the order situation is still good at the chair manufacturer Topstar in Langenneufnach, Swabia (district of Augsburg). However, they do not currently have to work extra shifts there, as they did during the Corona peak, which gives the company bosses the breathing space to promote their idea of sitting from their desks again: from furniture that ideally resonates, protects the back and relieves pain – all that, that home office workers are complaining about in these times and that has also fueled business. Since the pandemic, sales have grown by more than a third, to 114 million euros. Last year, the brothers sold more than a million chairs – that’s more than 500 times as many seats as local residents.
It is an unequal team that manages the fortunes of the chair factory in the village of 1800 inhabitants. Rainer Maria Wagner, born in 1965, Harald Lesch type, takes care of business. He also teaches business administration at the Fresenius University of Applied Sciences and has published a volume on Industry 4.0. According to his older brother, Peter Wagner, who is three years his junior and looks more like a start-up guy, is responsible for “everything that is fun”, including product design. His workplace is not the administration building, but a separate glass block next to it: with panes like shop windows, each almost 20 meters long and “the world’s largest glass that has ever been installed,” as an architecture magazine noted in 2020. Inside, a lot of white greets you, a stylish interior and a conference room with a long table.
The Wagner DesignLab: a futuristic glass block in the Swabian hills.
(Photo: Topstar GmbH)
Topstar GmbH – consisting of Topstar and its premium brand Wagner Living – is one of the largest in its branch in Germany. The business model used to be timeless, after all, people always sit. But the how becomes more important. In many companies, specialists have long been responsible for adjusting desks and chairs correctly and in a way that is easy on the back. This meets the demands of top stars not only to lounge comfortably, but also to be healthy.
“Sitting in motion” is the name of the concept: chairs that keep the body in motion and are intended to reduce complaints from long periods of sitting. The Wagners can talk for a long time about details such as three-dimensional sitting, spines and the study position, but maybe it’s best to just try it out. The chairs in the conference room, for example, are great for rocking back and forth, rotating and bouncing so that it never stays still. The chair as a balancing instrument. The movement in a new model is said to be so great that sitting can initially cause something like sore muscles. “It’s almost like jogging,” says Peter Wagner.
Marketing of a hands-on kind: Company founder Moritz Wagner above, his tavern chair below.
(Photo: Topstar GmbH)
After the Second World War, things started out in Langenneufnach with little movement: with a robust tavern chair that you can still find in some pubs today. One photo shows founder Moritz Wagner standing on the shoulders of two employees, who in turn are balancing on the legs and back of the chair. In the 1970s, his factory became the Topstar company, and swivel chairs were added. With the entry of the third generation around the turn of the millennium, the focus increasingly shifted to “sitting in motion” – and the question of how to counter the strengthening of the competition from the Far East.
In 2005, around twice as many chairs left the Langenneufnach plant as today. Then the formula changed: less quantity, more quality. The result can be explored on a tour of the factory, which stretches up the hill behind the administration building and glass block. It is made to order, sometimes 300 identical chairs, sometimes one. To simplify things, the parts are sorted into a box at the beginning of the conveyor. From then on, it goes straight to shipping for self-assembly – or by elevator for assembly.
Seat, backrest, spring, cross: a chair is made from individual parts.
(Photo: Maximilian Gerl)
In many places, automation and technology take the hassle out of people. However, it is not possible without manual work. In the sewing room, for example, employees clatter at dozens of sewing machines so that backrests are made from colorful lengths of fabric. The upholstery shop staples, glues and stretches.
In the sewing room, employees prepare future backrests.
(Photo: Maximilian Gerl)
In the in-house test laboratory, on the other hand, metal arms push backrests 100,000 times, while next door stools are made using a 3D printer. And in a workshop, self-propelled robots move parts from one belt to another. In the end, the chairs are sent across Germany and Europe in delivery vans. For a high-quality Wagner armchair, online shops sometimes have four-digit sums, the pieces are recommended in interior design magazines and exhibited at design fairs.
In the chair factory, self-propelled robots bring parts from A to B.
(Photo: Topstar GmbH)
The Swabians aren’t the only ones to advertise with a healthy seating experience. “We haven’t reinvented sitting,” they say in Langenneufnach. But they are convinced that they have done better – and have, so to speak, brought in reinforcements. Felix Neureuther and his foundation are on board for one product line, and designers Stefan Diez and bar legend Charles Schumann for another.
And they also anticipated a current trend in production. In the face of disrupted supply chains and a rampant shortage of raw materials, many industries are considering bringing production back. Topstar’s never went away. Around 450 employees face 1800 inhabitants in Langenneufnach. Going to China to save money “wouldn’t have been good,” says Rainer Maria Wagner. Of course you can always find someone there who can do it even cheaper, but “whether the quality is right is another question”. According to the company, most of the required parts are also purchased in Europe, which makes the supply chains less vulnerable.
Topstar sees itself as an “innovator” and pioneer in terms of Industry 4.0. The automation of the factory is therefore part of the business model – “not to save workers, but because we don’t have any more”, as Rainer Maria Wagner puts it. Greetings from demographic change. Standing on a production line day in and day out is not for everyone anyway. And the work is not likely to end anytime soon either: real estate people, architects and interior decorators around the world are brooding over the question of the extent to which working from home will continue after the pandemic and what that will mean for the jobs of the future. The topic, says Wagner, “is hotter than ever”.