ISKU

About

ISKU is a Finnish furniture manufacturer based in Lahti that designs and produces furniture and interior solutions for learning, working and health and care environments, as well as for restaurants and cafes, control rooms, marine interiors and other public spaces. Its head office is at Mukkulankatu 19 in Lahti, and it has centralised its production at its own factory in the same city. The company describes itself as 100 percent family-owned, established by Eino Vikström in 1928 and still owned by the same family in the third generation, and states that it has 600 employees. The company traces its start to 1928, when Lahden Puukalusto Oy was registered as a limited company by Eino Vikström together with his partner Matti Metso, who sold his share in 1929. During the 1930s the business specialised in office furniture. The ISKU name emerged in the 1950s with the establishment of the Iskukaluste Oy retail network, and construction of a new plant at Mukkula in Lahti began in 1957, on the site where the factories still stand. As the Iskukaluste name took hold, Lahden Puukalusto Oy renamed itself Iskun Tehtaat Oy. Eino Vikström died in September 1966 and Timo Vikström took over the second generation of the business. In 1978 the retail organisation Iskukaluste Oy and the furniture production units of Iskun Tehtaat Oy were amalgamated into Isku Oy. Seppo Vikström became the first third-generation family member to begin a career at Isku in the early 1980s, and continued as Chairman of the Board after Timo Vikström retired in 2004. In 2005 Isku Oy was divided into separate companies by business area, including Isku Koti Oy, Isku Interior Oy, Isku Invest Oy and Isku Keittiöt Oy, under the parent company Isku-Yhtymä Oy. Certification documents published by the company set out the current division of work: Isku Interior Oy covers the design, sourcing, manufacture and sale of furniture and contract-manufactured products, Isku Spaces Oy the sale, marketing and purchasing of furniture and workspace solutions, and Isku Koti Oy the sale, marketing and purchasing of furniture, with Isku-Yhtymä Oy providing group administration services. Manufacturing takes place at the Lahti factory, which the company describes as 50,000 square metres of production space employing 400 people. The company states that more than 100 million euros were invested in Lahti between 2014 and 2021. Processes carried out on site include board-based manufacturing, CNC machining and robotics, mould pressing and edge casting, surface finishing, metalworking and painting, foam cutting and gluing, cutting, sewing and upholstering of fabric and leather, assembly and packaging, logistics, and product design and testing. One production line, described by the company as the Grada line, combines thermoformed wood board with robot technology. The education range covers classrooms, canteens, libraries, staff lounges, learning lounges and STEAM labs, with student chairs and desks, electrically adjustable tables, lecture tables, storage units, soft seating and acoustic screens and booths. The health and care range is aimed at nursing homes, hospitals and other healthcare facilities and includes easy chairs, armchairs, sofas, chairs with heightened seats and adjustable and low tables. Named collections include the Tutto chair collection, designed by Mikko Laakkonen and available in wood, technical veneer, laminate, painted finishes and upholstery, and the MyFlow collection, designed by Vertti Kivi, which spans chairs, easy chairs and lounge seating, sofas and pouffes, tables, storage and acoustic screens. The Solt collection appears across both office and care settings. ISKU has developed antimicrobial furniture under the ISKU+ name, stating that it has studied antimicrobial technologies in its research and product development since 2013. The surfaces use silver, and the company reports that the technologies have been tested to ISO 22196. ISKU+ options are offered across its standard product collection and are directed at hospitals, schools and other shared interiors. The company publishes its management system certificates. Isku-Yhtymä Oy holds ISO 9001:2015 (certificate FI010457) and ISO 14001:2015 (certificate FI010477) from Bureau Veritas Certification Finland, and Isku Interior Oy holds ISO 45001:2018 (certificate FI010478); all three run to 15 March 2028. Isku Interior Oy also holds a PEFC Chain of Custody certificate to PEFC ST 2002 and PEFC ST 2001, number BVSE-PEFC-COC-200773, issued by Bureau Veritas Certification Sverige AB, originally approved on 27 March 2013 and valid to 26 March 2028, covering the production and sale of office and home furniture in oak, beech, birch, ash and laminate on a percentage-based method. ISKU states that it received its first ISO 9001 certificate in 1992 and an ISO 14001 certificate in 1997. On materials and emissions, the company states that its Still and Step+ office chairs are M1 classified for indoor air emissions and that melamine-coated boards and its water-based, solvent-free varnishes fall within emission class M1, that wood-based boards meet formaldehyde class E1 under EN 120 or EN 717-1, that upholstery fabric formaldehyde content is below 300 mg/kg in line with EN ISO 14184, and that its foam rubber is CertiPUR-certified. It also states that its production processes have operated without an environmental permit since 2015 because of low VOC emissions. A 2.8 MW solar power plant with more than 6,000 panels at the Lahti factory was inaugurated on 3 October 2022, and the production buildings are heated geothermally. Carbon footprint calculations for the whole operation and for individual products have been made by a third party against SFS-EN ISO 14067:2018. ISKU Group is listed as a participant in the UN Global Compact from 17 May 2022. ISKU sells through its own sales organisation and showrooms, with locations in Lahti and elsewhere in Finland and showrooms in Tallinn, Riga, Vilnius, Kaunas, Almaty and Astana, alongside a business partner in Poland; the company states that it operates internationally in 68 cities. Isku Koti runs furniture stores across Finland and an online store for consumers, and the Lahti factory also takes on contract manufacturing for other companies. As a family-owned Finnish manufacturer producing at a single site in Lahti, ISKU works mainly in the contract market for schools, workplaces and care environments, alongside a domestic consumer business.