Lumberg Holding GmbH & Co. KG

Founded 90 years ago, the Lumberg Group, headquartered in Schalksmühle, Germany, is one of the leading suppliers of connector and contact systems. The group’s expertise lies in particular in its own development, production and worldwide distribution of electromechanical components and mechatronic components. The main focus of the recognized connection solutions and customer-specific products is on partnerships in the automotive, home appliances, building technology and communications industries. Subsidiaries in Europe, America and Asia form a close-knit sales network.

Lumberg laid the foundation for the worldwide success of RAST connectors 45 years ago with a groundbreaking technological innovation: insulation displacement technology. With this technology, a contact can be connected to a cable very efficiently. The cable does not need to be stripped beforehand; instead, the contact has a gap at the back, called a cutting fork, into which the cable is pressed. The insulation is cut, the conductor is clamped inside this gap – and thus contacted. This technique is well known – but only for solid conductors, i.e. stiff, solid conductors. What Lumberg pioneered in 1979 was to implement this insulation displacement technology for stranded conductors as well. Stranded conductors mean that inside, under the insulation, there is not one thick wire but, for example, twelve very fine, stranded wires serving as the electrical conductor. The entire cable is thus much more supple, and „cable breakage“ due to mechanical stress is almost impossible. The great advantage of insulation displacement technology is that it can be automated. In one crimping process, a single stroke, 20 conductors are easily contacted with the connector at the same time.

Based on the insulation displacement technology, the home appliances specification RAST (acronym for Raster-Anschluss-Steck-Technik) is developed 13 years later under the umbrella of the ZVEI by a working group of manufacturers of large home appliances and of connectors: The RAST connector is „invented“ – and because of its rational processing, it quickly grows out of „white goods“ into business fields ranging from automotive to medical technology.