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STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Swede Ingvar Kamprad, the billionaire founder of the IKEA retail empire whose cheap, functional furniture is a feature of homes around the world, has died at the age of 91.

As much of a national symbol as pop group ABBA and tennis ace Bjorn Borg, IKEA helped to cement the image of Swedes as practical, egalitarian and unsnobbish.

Born on March 30, 1926, in southern Sweden, Kamprad started by selling matches to neighbors at the age of five and soon expanded his range to include seeds, Christmas tree decorations, pencils and ball-point pens.

He founded IKEA in 1943 when he was just 17, but didn't hit gold until 1956, when the company introduced flat-pack furniture.

The idea came to him as he watched an employee taking the legs off a table to fit it into a customer's car and realized that saving space meant saving money.

Always looking to cut costs, Kamprad bought much of IKEA's furniture from then communist Poland in the 1960s. He eschewed formal business suits, dressed in well-worn clothes and in later years drove an old Volvo.

Outlining the IKEA philosophy in his "Testament of a furniture salesman" in 1976, Kamprad said wasting resources was "a mortal sin".

"We do not need fancy cars, posh titles, tailor-made uniforms or other status symbols. We rely on our own strength and our own will!" he said, in what was meant to be the company's manifesto.

Clever design and modest prices coupled with appealing styles quickly caught on and IKEA's warehouse-like stores now sell everything from TVs to fitted kitchens.

Revenues were more than 38 billion euros ($47.2 billion) last year and the IKEA annual catalog is said to be more widely read than the Bible.

POLITICAL CONTROVERSY

Despite his success in building the IKEA business, Kamprad was a controversial figure.

He was forced to apologize for his time as a member of the New Swedish Movement, a nationalist, far-right group that supported fascist parties around Europe, in the 1940s.

His decision to live abroad, mainly in Switzerland, to avoid Sweden's high income taxes was also widely criticized.

Kamprad returned to Sweden in 2014 after a reorganization of IKEA's complex ownership slashed his tax bill and left him with little formal influence.

Forbes rich list, which once put him as the world's 11th richest man, has dropped him from its rankings.

Despite his flaws, Swedes took his plain-spoken style - as well as his furniture - to heart, voting him the top entrepreneur of all time in 2014.

Accepting the award, Kamprad had typically homespun advice, saying that success in business comes from "finding someone you trust and talking with a really good friend and testing ideas with them". To be called the best, he said was a catastrophe.

"Because what I do today, I have to do a little better tomorrow," he explained.

($1 = 0.8052 euros)

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Flat-pack pioneer Kamprad built Sweden's IKEA into global brand

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STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Swede Ingvar Kamprad, the billionaire founder of the IKEA retail empire whose cheap, functional furniture is a feature of homes around the world, has died at the age of 91. As much of a national symbol as pop group ABBA and tennis ace Bjorn Borg, IKEA helped to cement the image of Swedes as practical, egalitarian and unsnobbish.

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In the grand scheme of things, flatpack furniture is actually fairly modern; although, it feels like it has been around forever. The pioneers in this ready to assemble invention are most certainly Ikea, whose brand name has spread like wildfire across the UK and the rest of the world. We thought we would give you a bit of an insight into the history of this Swedish retailer and the ever-rising popularity of flatpack furniture.
Ingvar Kamprad - The Genius Behind Ikea
Our story begins in the 1920s with a rather entrepreneurial young man from Sweden, Ingvar Kamprad. Not satisfied with being a typical five year old, he decides to set up his first business selling matches to his neighbours. By the time he is seven years old he has enough money to buy a bicycle and start selling his matches in places outside of his own area. He quickly realises that it is cheaper to buy matches in bulk, in Stockholm, where he can then sell them on individually at a profit. This buy in bulk and sell on individually mindset then progresses onto other items, including Christmas tree decorations, pencils, greetings cards, flower seeds and ballpoint pens.

Remember when IKEA gave these out? pic.twitter.com/ixzfTwGceL

- We Love FlatPacks (@WeLoveFlatpacks) March 3, 2014

After completing his studies (in between all of his business ventures), Ingvar Kamprad is given money by his father as a reward. Instead of going out and splurging it on beer, Ingvar decides that he wants to set up his very own business; IKEA. Selling items such as pens, picture frames and nylon stockings, the business aim was to meet the needs of Swedish customers at greatly reduced prices. By 1948, furniture was introduced to the Ikea range.
The First Ikea Catalogue
Ingvar Kamprad is the kind of man that doesn't like to do things by halves, which is why he saw a golden opportunity and took it. He realised that he could sell his furniture to a wider audience by putting together a catalogue and distributing it around Sweden. The first ever Ikea catalogue, that we all know and love, was published in 1951. From then the brand continued to grow, with the first ever show room opening up in 1953. This showroom was a huge step for Ikea and it's customers, as people could finally see and feel the furniture that they would then go on to buy.

Flatpack Furniture Is Born
In 1951, Ikea had a rather clever employee named Erie J. Sauder, who came up with a genius idea for a table that he couldn't fit into his car. He worked out that furniture could be made in parts and sold to customers, before being assembled once it was in the home. After getting his own Lövet table home, by unscrewing the legs, he talked to his employer about the idea to see what they thought. Ingvar Kamprad was blown away by the invention and quickly changed his business model to suit the flatpack concept. By 1956 the first piece of flatpack furniture was launched and Ikea have never looked back.

Ikea and Flatpack Furniture Flourish
Ikea have come on in leaps and bounds since 1956, producing dozens of flatpack furniture ranges that appeal to all types of customers. People loved the idea of buying items for the home at a cheaper rate, even if they then had to assemble it themselves. By 1989 Ikea had spread to France, Belgium, USA, UK and Italy. Everybody was hooked by the giant Ikea stores, complete with furniture that you could see and touch before buying in a neatly packed box and taking home. The whole experience (complete with the world famous Swedish meatballs) became a huge success and Ikea now has over 200 stores around the world.

To think, that flatpack furniture was born by someone who couldn't fit his table into his car. And that the whole of IKEA was built by a man who used to sell matches to his neighbours as a child. We can bet one thing though, if Ingvar Kamprad had to spend time putting together his own work desk then he may not have had the time to think up such a business idea. The moral of the story? Make time for inspiration and let someone assemble your furniture for you!

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The History of Ikea and the Rise of Flatpack Furniture

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In the grand scheme of things, flatpack furniture is actually fairly modern; although, it feels like it has been around forever. The pioneers in this ready to assemble invention are most certainly Ikea, whose brand name has spread like wildfire across the UK and the rest of the world.

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When Was the Industrial Revolution?

Though a few innovations were developed as early as the 1700s, the Industrial Revolution began in earnest by the 1830s and 1840s in Britain, and soon spread to the rest of the world, including the United States.

Modern historians often refer to this period as the First Industrial Revolution, to set it apart from a second period of industrialization that took place from the late 19th to early 20th centuries and saw rapid advances in the steel, electric and automobile industries.

Spinning Jenny

Thanks in part to its damp climate, ideal for raising sheep, Britain had a long history of producing textiles like wool, linen and cotton. But prior to the Industrial Revolution, the British textile business was a true "cottage industry," with the work performed in small workshops or even homes by individual spinners, weavers and dyers.

Starting in the mid-18th century, innovations like the spinning jenny (a wooden frame with multiple spindles), the flying shuttle, the water frame and the power loom made weaving cloth and spinning yarn and thread much easier. Producing cloth became faster and required less time and far less human labor.

More efficient, mechanized production meant Britain's new textile factories could meet the growing demand for cloth both at home and abroad, where the British Empire's many overseas colonies provided a captive market for its goods. In addition to textiles, the British iron industry also adopted new innovations.

Chief among the new techniques was the smelting of iron ore with coke (a material made by heating coal) instead of the traditional charcoal. This method was both cheaper and produced higher-quality material, enabling Britain's iron and steel production to expand in response to demand created by the Napoleonic Wars (1803-15) and the later growth of the railroad industry.

Impact of Steam Power

An icon of the Industrial Revolution broke onto the scene in the early 1700s, when Thomas Newcomen designed the prototype for the first modern steam engine. Called the "atmospheric steam engine," Newcomen's invention was originally applied to power the machines used to pump water out of mine shafts.

In the 1760s, Scottish engineer James Watt began tinkering with one of Newcomen's models, adding a separate water condenser that made it far more efficient. Watt later collaborated with Matthew Boulton to invent a steam engine with a rotary motion, a key innovation that would allow steam power to spread across British industries, including flour, paper, and cotton mills, iron works, distilleries, waterworks and canals.

Just as steam engines needed coal, steam power allowed miners to go deeper and extract more of this relatively cheap energy source. The demand for coal skyrocketed throughout the Industrial Revolution and beyond, as it would be needed to run not only the factories used to produce manufactured goods, but also the railroads and steamships used for transporting them.

Transportation During the Industrial Revolution

Britain's road network, which had been relatively primitive prior to industrialization, soon saw substantial improvements, and more than 2,000 miles of canals were in use across Britain by 1815.

In the early 1800s, Richard Trevithick debuted a steam-powered locomotive, and in 1830 similar locomotives started transporting freight (and passengers) between the industrial hubs of Manchester and Liverpool. By that time, steam-powered boats and ships were already in wide use, carrying goods along Britain's rivers and canals as well as across the Atlantic.

Banking and Communication in the Industrial Revolution

In 1776, Scottish social philosopher Adam Smith, who is regarded as the founder of modern economics, published The Wealth of Nations. In it, Smith promoted an economic system based on free enterprise, the private ownership of means of production, and lack of government interference.

Banks and industrial financiers soon rose to new prominence during this period, as well as a factory system dependent on owners and managers. A stock exchange was established in London in the 1770s; the New York Stock Exchange was founded in the early 1790s.

The latter part of the Industrial Revolution also saw key advances in communication methods, as people increasingly saw the need to communicate efficiently over long distances. In 1837, British inventors William Cooke and Charles Wheatstone patented the first commercial telegraphy system, even as Samuel Morse and other inventors worked on their own versions in the United States.

Cooke and Wheatstone's system would be used for railroad signaling, as the speed of the new steam-powered trains created a need for more sophisticated means of communication.

Labor Movement

Though many people in Britain had begun moving to the cities from rural areas before the Industrial Revolution, this process accelerated dramatically with industrialization, as the rise of large factories turned smaller towns into major cities over the span of decades. This rapid urbanization brought significant challenges, as overcrowded cities suffered from pollution, inadequate sanitation, miserable housing conditions and a lack of safe drinking water.

Meanwhile, even as industrialization increased economic output overall and improved the standard of living for the middle and upper classes, poor and working class people continued to struggle. The mechanization of labor created by technological innovation had made working in factories increasingly tedious (and sometimes dangerous), and many workers-including children-were forced to work long hours for pitifully low wages.

Such dramatic changes and abuses fueled opposition to industrialization worldwide, including the " Luddites," known for their violent resistance to changes in Britain's textile industry.

Did you know? The word "luddite" refers to a person who is opposed to technological change. The term is derived from a group of early 19th century English workers who attacked factories and destroyed machinery as a means of protest. They were supposedly led by a man named Ned Ludd, though he may have been an apocryphal figure.

In the decades to come, outrage over substandard working and living conditions would fuel the formation of labor unions, as well as the passage of new child labor laws and public health regulations in both Britain and the United States, all aimed at improving life for working class and poor citizens who had been negatively impacted by industrialization.

The Industrial Revolution in the United States

The beginning of industrialization in the United States is usually pegged to the opening of a textile mill in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, in 1793 by the recent English immigrant Samuel Slater. Slater had worked at one of the mills opened by Richard Arkwright (inventor of the water frame) mills, and despite laws prohibiting the emigration of textile workers, he brought Arkwright's designs across the Atlantic. He later built several other cotton mills in New England, and became known as the "Father of the American Industrial Revolution."

The United States followed its own path to industrialization, spurred by innovations "borrowed" from Britain as well as by homegrown inventors like Eli Whitney. Whitney's 1793 invention of the cotton gin (short for "engine") revolutionized the nation's cotton industry (and strengthened the hold of slavery over the cotton-producing South).

By the end of the 19th century, with the so-called Second Industrial Revolution underway, the United States would also transition from a largely agrarian society to an increasingly urbanized one, with all the attendant problems.

By the mid-19th century, industrialization was well-established throughout the western part of Europe and America's northeastern region. By the early 20th century, the U.S. had become the world's leading industrial nation.

Effects of the Industrial Revolution

Historians continue to debate many aspects of industrialization, including its exact timeline, why it began in Britain as opposed to other parts of the world and the idea that it was actually more of a gradual evolution than a revolution. The positives and negatives of the Industrial Revolution are complex.

On one hand, unsafe working conditions were rife and environmental pollution from coal and gas are legacies we still struggle with today. On the other, the move to cities and ingenious inventions that made clothing, communication and transportation more affordable and accessible to the masses changed the course of world history.

Regardless of these questions, the Industrial Revolution had a transformative economic, social and cultural impact, and played an integral role in laying the foundations for modern society.

Photo Galleries

Sources

Robert C. Allen, The Industrial Revolution: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007
Claire Hopley, "A History of the British Cotton Industry." British Heritage Travel, July 29, 2006
William Rosen, The Most Powerful Idea in the World: A Story of Steam, Industry, and Invention. New York: Random House, 2010
Gavin Weightman, The Industrial Revolutionaries: The Making of the Modern World, 1776-1914. New York: Grove Press, 2007
Matthew White, "Georgian Britain: The Industrial Revolution." British Library, October 14, 2009

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Industrial Revolution: Definition, Inventions & Dates - HISTORY

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The Industrial Revolution of the 1800s, a time of great growth in technologies and inventions, transformed rural societies into industrialized, urban ones.

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The Industrial Revolution | The British Library

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In this article Matthew White explores the industrial revolution which changed the landscape and infrastructure of Britain forever.

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Evolution of manufacturing - project template

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industrial revolution

https://www.history.com/topics/industrial-revolution/industrial-revolution

https://www.bl.uk/georgian-britain/articles/the-industrial-revolution

Industry 3.0

https://www.essentracomponents.com/en-gb/news/infographics/industry-3

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/industrial-revolution-30_b_5806874?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAAoDfR3SUmMYMiMr_PKmZXtwR2Eoip0GJdBdLS7V1veuaQ7IKLSCXZbikyQKlnud2qme-wwlUyKycSlyb_4HZs1IecYfxUk1V0EAL0Z1oPLMd5PdjYbEx3PKzQck3MIahZF7tmNsPxywQ56yWXUtvdpaAR26NcLcVwrCtHj7MyT9

https://supplychaingamechanger.com/the-industrial-revolution-from-industry-1-0-to-industry-5-0/

Industry 4.0

https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2018/09/02/what-is-industry-4-0-heres-a-super-easy-explanation-for-anyone/#2220e11f9788

http://www.firestormkit.co.uk/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=2976

IKEA case

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-people-kamprad-obituary/flat-pack-pioneer-kamprad-built-swedens-ikea-into-global-brand-idUSKBN1FH0HL

https://www.houseandgarden.co.uk/article/modular

https://www.architonic.com/en/story/bosse-the-unique-modular-furniture-system/7000954

Factory process

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/behind-the-scenes-ikea-design-lab

ikea deisgn https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/coventry/reader.action?docID=1794544

furniture design https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/coventry/reader.action?docID=946961

manufacturing https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2F978-3-642-20183-7.pdf

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https://www.ikea.com/ms/en_JP/this-is-ikea/on-the-factory-floor/index.html