Of course, the usual way is to have a reference book written by a professional author. However, that is not so simple where a reference book is concerned, because the author must be well-versed in the specialist subject in order to be able to write understandably about it. Because we as a mid-size enterprise are used to thinking pragmatically, however, the logical step was for us to write the reference book ourselves.

No sooner said than done. And that's how the story of the first reference book from Grob GmbH Antriebstechnik began. And who better to write a reference book than our own employees, who deal with this subject in detail day in, day out? The leading  authors were our Deputy Sales Manager, Philipp Schmalzhaf, along with Ruben Disterheft, a further sales engineer – both of whom, by the way, completed their dual study training in industrial engineering at Grob. The writing was additionally accompanied by a former design manager who was involved with this topic for many years.

The fledgling authors soon found out that writing a reference book alongside their normal daily business was anything but simple.

"Writing a reference book alongside our daily business and not losing track of things really pushed us to our limits", says Philipp Schmalzhaf, the Sales Manager who suddenly became an author. "I wasn't planning on becoming an author, but now I'm glad that we overcame this challenge. What particularly helped us as a team of authors was to put ourselves in the customer's place as the user and to describe relevant information so that it would be understandable from his point of view."

We are all the more pleased that we were able to publish this reference book with the renowned Springer Verlag. Apart from that, we were very surprised that we got a direct entry in the German National Library (catalogue of the German National Library) with this reference book.
For whom was this reference book written?

One thing is sure: those who buy a reference book aren't looking for entertainment. In fact, they want to expand their knowledge in a certain specialist field – in this case in the field of linear drive technology. And who deals with linear drives, drive technology and screw jacks every day? from our point of view there are two target groups who benefit from this reference book:

For the design engineer
Naturally design engineers from planning offices and design departments, whose task is to come up with a creative technical solution for a lifting or conveying problem. They need technical information and practical calculation principles when they design lifting systems. It is helpful when they can benefit from practical hints, of which this reference book is full.

For students of technical subjects
Although students can read a great deal about individual topics such as dynamics, kinematics, statics or machine elements in technical literature, they can find everything in compact form at a glance in this "Handbook of electromechanical linear drive technology", rendering a search in various reference books superfluous. This considerably eases the introduction to this topic for students.