ITOKI CORPORATION (Head office: Chuo-ku, Tokyo; President: Yoshiro Hirai; hereinafter referred to as "ITOKI") will launch the industry's first ^*1 anti-tip unit "L-FORCE" in September 2018. The unit does not need to be secured to the top of a wall or floor, and will prevent storage units from falling over even in a magnitude ⁷ earthquake*2.

In recent years, with the growing concern of large-scale earthquakes, including one directly beneath the capital, it has become increasingly important to take measures to prevent furniture from falling over. At ITOKI, we have been developing products that can withstand large-scale earthquakes and prevent storage cabinets from falling over, taking advantage of the fact that storage cabinets accounted for approximately 46% of the repair requests for furniture that had fallen over after the Great East Japan Earthquake, and the fact that we are the only company in the industry that has our own vibration testing facilities.

One method to prevent storage units from falling over during an earthquake is to fix the top of the unit to the wall with an L-shaped bracket (hereafter referred to as wall fixing bracket). However, in a large earthquake with a seismic intensity of 6 to 7, the wall fixing bracket may not be able to withstand the impact and may come off the wall, which may result in the unit not functioning properly as a fall prevention measure. In fact, our own investigations after past earthquakes have confirmed cases where storage units have fallen over. In addition, the Tokyo Fire Department has also suggested that if a storage unit is fixed to a wall (partition, etc.) that is not connected to the building structure with a wall fixing bracket, there is a risk that the wall or ceiling may be caught and the storage unit may fall ^over*3, and so a new fall prevention measure was required.

Therefore, ITOKI will be releasing a new anti-tip unit called "L-FORCE" that uses proprietary technology (patent pending) to prevent the storage unit from tipping over even during a magnitude 7 earthquake by simply fastening and installing it to the bottom of the storage unit's wall (no need to fasten it to the top of the wall or to the floor).

No need to fix to the top of the wall or floor, and can be replaced

Clearing new quality targets based on lessons learned from the Kumamoto earthquake

For other disaster prevention solutions and products, please click here.
Itoki's disaster prevention measures: https://www.itoki.jp/solution/jishin/