A black door leads into the building. Welcome to the Lintex factory — to the staff, the crafts and the machines. This is where the products are made. Quality sits at the core of the brand and is born when carefully designed writing boards, office screens and noticeboards are built in the controlled setting of a modern factory. Lintex products don't arrive from anonymous manufacturers on the other side of the planet — they are created here in our factory in Nybro, a small town in southern Sweden.
Lintex moved here in 2009, into a disused factory that had previously made kitchen-cabinet fronts, and built up production and extended the premises step by step. Room after room, materials sit on racks and shelves with scanners tracking every last detail. Solutions to problems appear everywhere. Lintex writing boards are made by handcraft in combination with clever machines and the best kind of low-tech linked to computers. The company's own complex apparatus is essential to keeping production rational. A stage that used to take 45 minutes by hand can now be done in 10. Saving time is essential for production to remain in Sweden.
Step by step, raw materials and product parts come together into Lintex products. The processes reveal a deep care for materials, environmental issues and logistics. The factory staff share a particular Lintex spirit of care and pride. Some have just joined; others have been here for decades. Many come from local woodworking factories or glassworks. The mood is positive, with plenty of ribbing and discussion. Respect for craft is everywhere. Every part of a product passes through many hands. At every stage, quality control ensures that no fault or sloppy fit slips through.
An advanced computer system runs the factory at the level of detail — inputs, outputs, what's finished on a given morning, tempo, time, deliveries. Lintex prides itself on rapid deliveries, often within two weeks of an order, sometimes within two days if the product is a standard from stock. Trucks back up to the loading bays, are loaded, and depart for Berlin, Basel, Lausanne, Italy, the UK, Finland. The whole world waits beyond the loading bays of the Nybro factory.
Text: Petter Eklund. Photos: Brendan Austin.