The man behind a revolution
It was back in the 1990s when Göran Johansson was tasked with making scores of flexible signs for Swedish fuel stations after their signs were ruined by storms.
Tuesday, 12 Jun 2018 10:20 GMT
Göran Johansson: the man behind the invention of a flatbed applicator
Johansson of Reklamidé in Sweden comments: “That was easier said than done. In those days, everything was done by hand. We rented a school sports hall where we spread out the materials on the floor, measured and cut the material and applied it with soapy water and hand-held squeegees. It was heavy, time consuming work, and there was the impending risk of not meeting our deadline.”
The inventor and sign-maker watched the operation as the sign-makers worked away in the sports hall and thought there had to be a better way of making the signs. Scribbling notes he came up with a solution: a table with a traverse beam and a roller would make it much easier to apply material to the underlying surface. In short it was the proto- flatbed applicator.
We had limited resources, so I decided to build one myself. We bought steel from a scrapyard and a roller from an old paper machine. I made my first flatbed applicator in a week”
He comments: “We had limited resources, so I decided to build one myself. We bought steel from a scrapyard and a roller from an old paper machine. I made my first flatbed applicator in a week.”
Reklamidé could turn around work faster leading to a boost in sales and the invention of the Rolls Roller flatbed applicator which was patented and has now sold in its thousands around the world.
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