How did this area of specialisation come into being? The philosophers give us the first clue. Hermann Lübbe from the University of Ziirich deals in detail with mode an ³⁾. In his opinion people of today are not very different from their ancestors in the sense that they have always sought to make their work as easy as possible. This thesis gives us a starting point in the history of the industrial floor: right from the outset the purpose of floors was to make production and storage easier and more convenient at minimum cost.

Let me explain this in more detail. First of all the intensive exchange of goods, which not everybody could produce for themselves, led to an economy of work division which we today call industry. In comparison to the transportation of people (travel) we require greater numbers of routes for the exchange of goods. Travelling people do not necessarily need smooth roads but, again for reasons of greater comfort and convenience, rich citizens in antiquity had themselves carried in sedan chairs. Thus the problem of bad road conditions shifted from the person being carried to the carrier.

Trading in goods did not develop alongside travel until those occupants of sedan chairs hit on the idea that capital invested in surfacing paths and roads would return dividends not only in terms of greater speed but also safer transportation. The high initial investment was quickly recovered and all the quicker, the lower the cost of labour and material used. once this beginning had been made, there followed one improvement after another. Instead of people horses were used to pull the sedan chairs, single-wheeled barrows were replaced by two-wheeled vehicles and later by four-wheeled transporters.

It was probably the Chinese who, in the 2^nd century AD, discovered that horses could be harnessed one behind the other. In this way the load which could be transported was increased significantly without the need for a wider road ⁴⁾.

Comfort could not be greatly increased until the price of iron dropped. Then uneven paving stones or soft earth were replaced by level rails of the sort seen nowadays in many high-racking warehouses and used by industrial vehicles.

It is only possible to reach places to which rails have previously been laid.

First of all the trucks for mass transportation of goods were pulled by hand or by horses until the steam engine was invented by Watt in 1765 and the electric locomotive by Siemens in 1879. That was 200 and 100 years ago respectively. Then there came a flood of inventions for improved transportation and industrial floors, as can be seen from the following table.

The above table gives the years in which these products first appeared on the market. In the majority of cases the chemical reactions on which the commercial products are based were discovered considerably earlier. Thus plexiglass dates back to the thesis by Röhm in 1901. Berzelius experimented with polyesters as early as 1847 and two years later Wurtz first investigated isocyanates which react with polyol to give polyurethanes. Similarly the reaction which produces epoxides was already known around 1900⁵⁾.

On the other hand, I have not so far been able to discover who invented the pallet, pallet truck and fork-lift truck. The date of their invention is also unknown. When I researched in the 1960 edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica in order to discover the state of the art 25 years ago, I only found illustrations of motor trucks. In-plant industrial vehicles (for which German has the curious term "Flurfördergerät") were not shown. Furthermore, the entry under the title Lifting gear only dealt with elevators and hoists. The reason cannot be the hydraulic system s this has been around for 2,000 years ⁶⁾.

The concrete road first used in the USA in 1892 and the tar macadam road invented 10 years later were the prerequisites for rail-connected traffic capable of reaching every location. These innovations together with the motor vehicle were everything that was needed for today's methods of industrial transportation. All that then remained were minor individual improvements in safety and comfort for staff. The latter encompasses the following questions and problems:

• smooth and level surface
• wear
• hygiene
• skid prevention
• elimination of dust
• moisture protection
• light reflection
• ease of maintenance
• chemical resistance
• explosion protection
• adhesion
• cohesion
• upkeep and
• repair.