Your safety partner for your lifting equipment
Creation in Colombes (Paris region) of “STAS” (Société Technique d’Accessoires Spécialisés) by Mr Archer, engineer. STAS manufactures and sells lifting equipment and accessories.
Achieving the ability to respond to the most individual demands while expanding very rapidly, STAS is now settled in two big buildings in Sartrouville (Val d’Oise).
STAS offers its products to the army and to the biggest steel industries in France, through a spectrum that evolves at the same rhythm as the realization of the inventions that Mr. Archer, passionate advocate of research and development, creates in his research office.
After becoming a real jewel in the French lifting industry, STAS employs more than fifty permanent staff members.
In 25 years, STAS had imposed itself amongst the greatest manufacturers of lifting equipment not only in France, but also in Europe, Northern Africa and the Middle East.
Its catalogue continues to grow thanks to the innovations of Mr. Archer – joined now by his son Michel (graduated as engineer from a renowned polytechnic establishment in 1964) – including textile lifting slings, cable lifting slings and other shackles.
Now it is Michel Archer’s turn to apply for a patent for his “wear and tear gauge”, a tool designed to check the levels of wear and tear of army bridges built over French rivers. STAS, preparing to celebrate its 30th birthday, does not deviate from the creation make-up of its founder: incessantly offering intelligent technical solutions for a large spectrum of infallibly high-quality products.
In its workshop, STAS teams are busy creating unique as well as aesthetically pleasing products: enormous stainless steel spider machines, real technical marvels that will be used to position satellites under the shell of the space rocket Ariane!
The Archer family passes the manufacturing activities of STAS to the group Certex, specialized in sling and lifting accessories. Certex is part of the English group Crosby, world producer of hooks; Certex has the responsibility for the European sales of Crosby’s products.
Denis Poisson, entrepreneur until now specializing in the handling industry, takes over STAS from Certex. Mr. Poisson considers STAS as “a real gem” whose star has paled following its incorporation in a big group with incompatible manufacturing culture. “If I had not acquired the company, STAS would have closed down. Buying STAS was a unique chance for me, because it still had enormous potential. In more than half a century, the 4 letters of STAS had practically engraved themselves as the official symbol of the impeccable expert on the matter of lifting slings. No one has ever been able to define an article from the STAS catalogue with ‘bad quality’. Equally, despite the slowing down of production between 2000 and 2005, the company continued to make profit, which is extremely rare!”
Thanks to the STAS’ reputation for high technical quality as well as to the dozen of employees still working in the company, Mr. Poisson takes it upon himself to start again regular visits to his clients, to respond quickly to their enquiries and to give a new spark to the machines in the workshop, updating all 6 mounting presses, the 2 screwing machines and the sewing machine.
Despite the economic crisis, STAS is in good health and even marks an increase in its business account, almost doubling the incoming revenue of 2005, at the second take-over by Mr. Poisson. “I have however decided to sell STAS in order to ensure its development while protecting its employees who played the game with me. Alone I did not have the necessary abilities to develop technically new products and to update the existing ones.” he explains.
Mr. Poisson therefore sells his shares to the ALIPA Group whose management values he appreciates and with whom he had had the opportunity to work in the past. In this way STAS becomes part of a small industrial grouping from Luxembourg whose commercial, technical and marketing practical knowledge guarantees the long-lasting respect from its name. “I did not want to find a wheeler-dealer, STAS needed to continue work under the same label, with its own team. I also wanted all seeds I had sewn to start germinating. This is precisely the case today: the managers of STAS subscribe to a long-term philosophy, they invest in important projects by capitalizing on the label.”
That same year STAS extends its activities in Europe and the world under the name LIFTEUROP for the overseas markets of the original French company.
Created in 2010 and based in Wiltz, Luxembourg, LIFTEUROP manufactures in workshops equipped with adequate controlling machinery, the lifting equipment and accessories of the STAS label. The company assembles its own parts and applies the tried and tested rules of manufacture.
STAS-LIFTEUROP employs new technicians, invests in new additional machinery (sewing machines…) and reasserts its presence amongst the leaders in the sector in many international fairs where the company promotes most of all its made-to-measure production line.
This year the company signs a number of contracts with the French army and is especially singled out and chosen by Dassault for the supply of special lifting slings for the Rafale fighter airplanes.
The company wins the Trophy MIDEST in the Research and Development category for the development and manufacture of an automatic lifting machine designed for the handling of six-ton citterns used in cryogenic equipment; STAS proves its expertise in the field.
STAS-LIFTEUROP remains an international reference-point in the manufacture and sale of lifting accessories for the aeronautical and automobile industries, car assembling parts, the naval industry and the steel and heavy industries, administration and army sectors. It sells its lifting equipment in more than 40 countries worldwide.
It is the only company in the world that manufactures neoprene-coated cables. Major player in the European lifting industry for many years who also just invested in a new sewing machine incorporating latest technology.
STAS-LIFTEUROP today is part of the lifting division of the ALIPA Group which in turn employs more than a hundred employees. Carrier of certificates ISO 9001, 14001 and CSR, the company is a trusted reference point in the production of lifting equipment and accessories.
LIFTEUROP has also been awarded the label “Made in Luxembourg” and is a member of MLQE (Movement for Quality and Excellence in Luxembourg). Respected as trusted participant and partner in international commerce by the immigration and customs authorities, LIFTEUROP has been awarded the certificate AEO “Accredited Economic Operator” since February 2015.