Luxo has been a prominent supplier of luminaires for over 70 years. The company's founder Jac Jacobsen laid – in 1934 – the basis for a company that today manufactures lighting solutions in three countries and has sales units throughout Europe, the USA and Canada.
Jac Jacobsen started his business importing textile machinery. After some years, the company also comprised three other sectors; lighting, ventilation and Venetian blinds. Today, focus is given to the lighting sector only, and this is the lighting story:
In 1936 Jac Jacobsen received two crane-like spring balanced "monster" luminaires included in a shipment of sewing machines from England. Supposedly, these luminaires were sent to help operating the machines.
Being technically minded, Jac Jacobsen took a fancy to the strange looking luminaires, and contacted the supplier in England to get the distributorship for Norway. It was given on the condition that he bought mechanical parts for 500 luminaires – a substantial number at the time – and that he obtained product approval by the Norwegian safety authorities.
Although the technical invention comprising the luminaire arm was ingenious, the luminaire
construction as a whole was primitive and had to be improved a great deal by Jac Jacobsen
before being approved and presented to the market. He succeeded – and manufacturing
started in Oslo in the autumn of 1938.
He derived the name LUXO from Latin - "I give light".
Jac Jacobsen saw the great functional and timeless beauty of this luminaire, and he successively obtained license to produce and market the product in all countries outside the Commonwealth. Nearly 70 years later, the original version of the Luxo architect luminaire, L-1, is still in production, and more than 25 million (!) Luxo luminaires have been sold worldwide.
Jac Jacobsen lived to be 95 years old and was active in the company until his last days. Since 1998 Luxo is a multinational company listed on the Oslo stock exchange, but the Jacobsen family still holds shares.
After the stock exchange listing and the acquitision of the Swedish producer "Svelux" Luxo was ensured a broader product base, tailor made for the interior lighting market, resulting in considerable growth opportunities and expansion.
Production plants:
Luxo Norge AS
Established in 1970, Luxo Norge AS is the largest production unit in the Luxo Group, and it is organised according to the “just in time” principle.
The Norwegian product line consists of ergonomic desk luminaires, uplighters, illuminated magnifiers and medical examination and bed head luminaires. These products are exported to all our sales units and distributors worldwide.
In December 1992 Luxo ASA was certified in conformity with the ISO 9001 quality standard, and in 1998 we also achieved the ISO 14001 certification.
Luxo Sverige AB
Luxo Sverige AB is a modern manufacturing operation that focuses on total lighting solutions for the professional market. The production unit features great flexibility and responsiveness to customer needs, combined with speedy order delivery.
Luxo acquired Luxo Sverige AB (former Svelux AB) in July 2000 in order to realise the ambition of evolving into a substantial supplier of total lighting solutions and to extend the product range.
Burton Medical Products
J.A. Korengold founded Burton Medical Products, previously known as Burton Manufacturing Company, in 1928 in Chicago, Illinois. He named this company after his nephew, Burton Korengold.
Over the next 65 years, Burton merged with a number of companies. By the end of 1981, Burton Medical Products became Luxo ASA’s first U.S. medical acquisition. Luxo ASA now has a complete lighting product line, which has enabled significant growth in Europe and other international markets.
Over the last years Burton has introduced a significant number of new medical lighting products into the U.S.: Bright Spot-tm, CoolSpot-tm II, Outpatient®, Outpatient® Plus, Outpatient® II, Fleximounts-tm and Fastrac-tm (for CoolSpot and Outpatient series), X-Ray Viewer, Pearl-tm, Opal-tm, Burton Headlight, Halux-tm, Saturn-tm, Genesis® & Genie-tm and Aim 100. The Outpatient luminaires are today used in more than 60% of all examination rooms in USA. Regarding operating theatre lighting, we have continuously improved our products and remained the leader in innovative, aesthetic and reliable lights for the medical industry.
In June 1999 Burton was certified in conformity with the ISO 9001 quality standard.
http://www.burtonmedical.com