70 years of innovation, safety and responsibility

The origins

The expansion to Belgium and Spain were not the only relocations that they have undergone. In 1957, Stedehouder moved his entire company to Nunspeet. The village, situated at the border of vast forests of the Veluwe, became the basis for selling ladders, stepladders, scaffolds and suspension bridges to more than 65 countries. That was the basis for the product range that we all know today. In 1974, a new storage and distribution centre was built and several years later, the product range was expanded to include hydraulic platforms. Renting access equipment also became an important activity.

Two years later, the facility in Nunspeet became too small for the growth ambitions. The company searched and found a location for constructing a new facility. On 21 November 2001, builders’ broke ground at the Hessenpoort industrial area in Zwolle. This became the new home for Altrex with a total of 25,000m² of office, factory and warehouse space. Everything under one roof. On 10 April 2003, the company officially opened the doors of this new facility. During that same year, the rental company Altrex Hi-Reach decided to continue further as an independent company.

1. Safety

You can always count on Altrex, literally and figuratively. We do everything in our power to ensure that you can always work safely with our products – at any height. Based on practice, we conceive and develop pioneering solutions. If legislation imposes a new safety norm, we are the first to come up with a practical and workable answer. Being a leader is characterised by the invention of the Safe-Quick® GuardRail. This is the solution for working safely on a rolling tower and furthermore, the first guardrails in the world. Yet safety also demands ergonomics. Besides making work situations safer, we also ensure minimum strain on your body. For example, a Fiber-Deck® scaffold platform is 30% lighter than a traditional wooden platform. You can certainly imagine the positive effect of these inventions on the human body. That way, you know that you can always count on Altrex – at any time, at any place. ‘Relax. It’s an Altrex’ is our proud slogan.

3. Innovation

Furthermore, innovation is a standard feature at Altrex. Innovation is the solution, but innovation is also doing just a bit more than what is expected of us. That means optimizing user’s ease in all our products. A few decades ago, we introduced the Double Decker, Taurus and Mounter. We have now developed these into their best versions and thereby offer user comfort on every rung and step.

Innovation is having a solution for the challenge posed by a client, take for example the MiTOWER, the first rolling tower that can be built up by one person, or the Eifel platform step ladder, which was developed in collaboration with safety experts and ergonomists, or the 75-meter long welding line, named the best innovation in Europe in 2015. This is the shape of progress and the shape of innovation.

Towards the future

Safety awareness in the workplace has become increasingly greater among employers and employees. The current collaboration with dealers, standards agencies and sector organisations as partners is expanding all the time. They all have a mutual goal: reducing accidents in the workplace. And that begins with logical considerations and reliable access equipment.

On balance, for 70 years we have been representing the standard in access equipment. Over 70 years, we have grown into the trusted partner, an international manufacturer of access equipment with several branches and above all, a place where people can feel at home. Because wherever we grow, we do that with our people, our machines and our resources. That is our identity, and this will never change.

“Relax. It’s an Altrex.”