In the halls of Stannah's headquarters, the past quite literally fuses with the future. Framed letters from my great-great-great-grandfather Joseph Stannah to The Engineer hang beside digital prototypes of our latest mobility solutions. These yellowed pages document a Victorian entrepreneur's challenges, triumphs, and unwavering belief in engineering excellence, the same principles that guide our newest venture, Uplifts, today.
As a sixth-generation leader of a 150-year-old British engineering business, I've often contemplated the delicate balance between honouring heritage and pursuing innovation. Many view these as opposing forces, tradition anchoring us to the past while innovation pulls us toward the future. My experience suggests the opposite - our heritage isn't baggage to be carried but a foundation to build upon.
When Joseph Stannah corresponded with this very publication in the 19th century, sharing his innovations in lifts and cranes that were transforming Victorian industry, Britain was experiencing its own technological revolution. The challenges were different, but the entrepreneurial spirit remained the same. Innovation wasn't a buzzword then, it was survival. Engineering firms either adapted to changing technologies and market demands or perished. Joseph's pioneering work with lifting mechanisms established a foundation that has evolved through generations to today's advanced mobility solutions.
Today's engineering landscape presents similar ultimatums, albeit in a digital context. The fourth industrial revolution demands transformation at unprecedented speeds, leaving established companies with a critical choice: evolve or become irrelevant. For heritage brands, this evolution requires particular finesse.
At Stannah, we've found that our longevity provides three distinct advantages in the innovation race. First, institutional knowledge, the collective wisdom accumulated over generations, offers insights that no algorithm can match. Second, a proven track record of reliability builds customer trust that new startups must spend years establishing. Third, our multi-generational perspective helps us distinguish between fleeting trends and genuine paradigm shifts.
While our stairlifts have long been the gold standard in home mobility, we recognised that the challenges of ageing in place go far beyond navigating stairs. Mobility isn’t just about movement; it’s about maintaining independence and quality of life. By combining our deep-rooted expertise in mechanical engineering with modern cutting edge design technologies, we’ve developed a new generation of homelifts - discreet, stylish, and seamlessly integrated into the home. These solutions represent more than just an evolution of our product range; they reflect a broader rethinking of how home mobility can enhance everyday living with dignity and ease.
This approach hasn't been without challenges. Traditional engineering businesses often develop organisational structures and cultures that, while excellent for reliability and quality control, can impede rapid innovation. We've addressed this by establishing Uplifts as a semi-autonomous venture with its own agile methodology while maintaining access to Stannah's engineering expertise and manufacturing capabilities.
The success of this model highlights a crucial lesson for heritage engineering firms: innovation doesn't require abandoning your identity but rather rediscovering your core purpose through a contemporary lens. For Stannah, our purpose has never been merely making lifts or stairlifts, it's enabling people to maintain independence and dignity regardless of physical limitations, while helping businesses operate buildings safely and efficiently. By moving both people and goods in and around homes and buildings, we enhance lives through convenience and accessibility. This purpose-driven approach provides both continuity with our past and direction for our future.
British engineering heritage companies are uniquely positioned to lead in the current innovation landscape. Our industrial heritage equipped us with problem solving methodologies that remain relevant despite technological changes. What's changed isn't the intellectual approach but the tools at our disposal.
For engineering leaders contemplating their own modernisation journeys, I offer this advice: start by excavating your company's original purpose and values. These foundational elements should guide your transformation rather than be sacrificed to it. Next, create organisational structures that allow for experimentation while protecting your core business. Finally, embrace the tension between heritage and innovation, this creative friction, when properly channelled, generates distinctive solutions that neither startups nor conglomerates can replicate.
As I review Joseph Stannah's correspondence with The Engineer, I'm struck by how many of today's engineering challenges echo those he faced: material limitations, energy efficiency, user safety, and the balance between functionality and aesthetics. The tools and technologies have evolved dramatically, but the fundamental engineering mindset remains remarkably consistent.
Perhaps the most valuable lesson from our 150-year journey is that true innovation isn't about discarding the past but building upon it. In engineering, as in life, we stand on the shoulders of those who came before us, and our responsibility is to provide sturdy shoulders for the generations that will follow.
Sam Stannah is CEO of new Stannah venture Uplifts
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