Fast Facts
Company Name: Rockwell Automation Inc.
Headquarters: Milwaukee, WI
Business Segments: Architecture & Software; Control Products & Solutions
Customers: Located in 80 countries
Sales (2007): $5.4 billion
Number of Employees: 20,000
Web: www.rockwellautomation.com
The story of Rockwell Automation starts out with a young man named Lynde Bradley, born in 1878, who studied electricity through a correspondence course. At the age of 15, he used a college-level textbook (Electricity for Engineers, Charles Desmond, 1891) to help him design his first carbon pile rheostat —in his basement workshop of his family’s home in Milwaukee — which he used to operate a wood lathe, a proud possession financed by selling magazine subscriptions.
In 1894, Bradley left school to work for a company that repaired bicycles, fixed locks, and installed electrical doorbells. In 1898, he went into business for himself to promote the workings and possibilities of the x-ray, discovered only a few years earlier by Röntgen. Bradley promoted his company, the Milwaukee X-Ray Laboratory, to both military (using x-rays to find bullets and shrapnel) and legal (using x-rays for forensics) concerns.
Dr. Stanton Allen, an orthopedic surgeon, shared Bradley’s interest in then-new x-ray imaging, and the two formed a strong friendship. After nearly two years of operation, Bradley closed the lab and began employment as a troubleshooter and erector with the Milwaukee Electric Company. One of the first devices he encountered there was a crane control. Not impressed with its design or operation, he took it upon himself to design one of his own.
Bradley presented his new design to his boss, the chief engineer. Although met with disapproval, Bradley forged ahead and used some time off to work on the new design. Before his design was finalized, he was called back to work in a new position involving travel and working with engineers. His employ ended rather abruptly, with his resignation from a company in turmoil.
The Allen-Bradley Relationship
On his first day free, he went to see Dr. Allen. Still believing that his carbon pile device was workable, Bradley accepted a proposition: Allen would put up a thousand dollars ($24K in 2007 dollars) for Bradley to build his controller with the understanding that profits would be shared 50/50. Bradley had a working prototype a few days later; specifically, a device to control cranes. In 1903, the two formed the Compression Rheostat Company.
After mending relationships with Milwaukee Electric Company, Bradley arranged to test his new controller there, before three executives and Dr. Allen. The controller worked satisfactorily, and the patent process began. By December of 1901, Bradley was informed that 12 of his 15 patent claims were allowed, and officials of Milwaukee Electric first tried to buy-out Dr. Allen, then offered to sell Bradley’s controllers with a share in the profits. Bradley and Allen declined both approaches.
Bradley continued testing and development in a shop that he rented for $3 per week. Parties interested in Bradley’s device included, for example, Henry Cutler of the Cutlet-Hammer Company. A Cutler-Hammer representative tested Bradley’s device exhaustively in the shop of the Chain Belt Company. While the device passed the tests, Cutler-Hammer told Bradley that his device was too expensive to be a commercial proposition.
Following the failure of an arrangement with a company to manufacture his controller, he found another provider to work with: the machine shop of Pfeiffer & Smith. Within a few months, the firm had made four motor starters for Bradley, two of which were sold to Allis-Chalmers and the other two kept for demonstration purposes. A subsequent relationship with Frank G. Jones, head of the American Electric Fuse Company, furthered Bradley’s and Allen’s efforts. In what was later discovered to be a severely lopsided legal relationship, Bradley and Allen nonetheless needed the manufacturing and marketing resources of American Fuse. Business growth by 1904 required the addition of a third man, who turned out to be Harry Bradley, Lynde Bradley’s younger brother.
The First Order
Even with the relationship with American Fuse, Dr. Allen had insisted that the devices be advertised with the name “Allen-Bradley.” The first order received for Allen-Bradley Products was in 1904, for thirteen crane controllers for $1,000.
Hard times set in shortly after. Most were business related but, also, their controllers were failing prematurely, failures that were eventually traced to the wildly varying resistance of the supplied carbon used to make the required carbon discs. Harry Bradley, in his recollections for Allen Bradley: An American Story, opines that such rough times are truly beneficial to a person’s character in the long run. Also, he said, this was a turning point for Allen-Bradley, a point at which the group placed complete emphasis on quality.
“It is true that prices of products must be competitive, but too often, businessmen take the short cut and try to make their prices competitive by a sacrifice of the quality of their product,” Harry said. “The lower price may get an order, but any product lacking in quality will seldom secure a customer, and the repeat orders make a business succeed.”
After many months of work, Harry, in 1907, produced improved carbon parts: graphite discs coated with amorphous carbon. That as well as other design changes increased both controller reliability — and sales.
Despite product advances, angry battles and years of litigation ensued with American Electric Fuse Company. In 1909, the name of the company was changed from the Compression Rheostat Company to the Allen-Bradley Company.
A break came for Dr. Allen and the Bradleys, in the form of an offer from Allis-Chalmers to manufacture and distribute Allen-Bradley products. In 1912, the Allen-Bradley Company purchased the rheostat department of American Electric Fuse -- which had by this point gone bankrupt — “including all drawings, patterns, tool dies, engineering data, patents, copyrights, trademarks, good will, books of account, mailing lists, and other records.” On their own, finally, Dr. Allen and the Bradley brothers formed the foundation for the Allen-Bradley Company in 1910 and 1911. As recounted by Harry Bradley, starting to build their own staff was a proud moment, with vision and understanding above and beyond the manufacture of quality products. In relation to their two new hires, Bradley said, “In short, men who knew, and no one had to tell them, that there is work to do that only business can do, and a part to play in a nation’s existence that only business can play – that part being to build the nation’s economy, and to keep on building it.”
With Harry running the company and Lynde now concentrating on product design and development, the company from 1912-1915 introduced a number of new devices, and obtained seven more patents covering current controllers, resistance devices, telephone transmitters, and a process for lining containers.
Given the nightmares involved with American Fuse, Dr. Allen and the Bradleys were advised to form a new company in order to protect themselves and their patents. So in 1914, the Reliance Company was formed under the laws of the State of Wisconsin. Allen-Bradley patents were transferred to Reliance, which then authorized Allen-Bradley to make the products. When Dr. Allen died in October of 1916, his wife, under previous agreement with the Bradleys, was paid $30,000 plus dividends. More than a financial transaction, the payment recognized Dr. Allen’s unwavering faith in Lynde Bradley over the years.
War and Depression
By 1917, the year World War I was declared, Allen-Bradley sales broke all records, doing a gross business of $404,683. With some new, war-related business coming in, sales for 1918 totaled $593,278. By 1919, the company had moved into a new building, had sales representation in several cities, and was becoming a threat to larger companies. Even with WWI ending, they were “overloaded with orders.” Also, in 1918, the company hired its first female worker, Julia Polczynski. The following year, she became the company’s first female foreman and by 1920, was named supervisor of the Bradleystat production department.
The post-WWI depression came and went, leaving in its wake lost customers and lost profits for Allen-Bradley. Especially compelling even today, in the face of 2008’s global economic crisis, Harry Bradley said, “To lay off people, especially salaried people, and to stop development work, in order to reduce operations expenses, even for a short while, is a very costly proposition. I made up my mind then and there never to do it again – and, when again faced by similar conditions, to try other ways to meet the problems and the responsibilities of management.” In the depression of 1921, the company acted according to those beliefs, keeping people employed and development work moving ahead.
The advent of radio led Lynde to develop the Bradleystat ‘perfect filament control’ radio vacuum tube, made available in 1922. Within three weeks of that announcement, the company had orders for 40,000 units and, quickly, for another 60,000. Also during this time, dc battled ac in terms of the power grid. Ac pulled ahead, and Allen-Bradley developed its first across-the-line starting switch. Also, in 1922, rheostats called Bradleystats, Bradleyohms, and BradleyLeaks — forerunners of today’s resistors — were supplied by the millions to builders of amateur radio equipment.
Net sales reached $953,120 by 1923, and the company surpassed the million-dollar mark in 1924, with net sales of $1,161,380. With neither stockholders to consider nor directors to interfere, according to Harry Bradley, the company pushed earnings into expansion. By 1929, continued expansion led to net sales of nearly $3 million. But in October of that year, the stock market collapsed.
The following years were difficult for Allen-Bradley, as they were for the rest of the country. Despite heavy losses in the early 30s, the company in 1931 introduced a new limit switch, a drum switch, the Type A Bradleyometer, and suppressors for automobiles and radio. While no one was laid off in these times, the company reduced wages in parallel to sales, and liquidated some assets to keep creditors at bay. The Allen-Bradley business by 1932 had shrunken to a mere 1/3 of what it was in 1929.
Announced in the year of IEN’s birth, 1933, the Bulletin 709 magnetic starter switch with overload protection (very likely the very same switch that appeared in IEN’s first issue of May, 1933) was an important element in bringing Allen-Bradley out of the depression.
Times improved for Allen-Bradley throughout the remainder of the 1930s. The company rebounded to pre-depression levels, with sales reaching nearly $4 million in 1937.
The year 1942 brought the death of Lynde Bradley. Legal and financial matters following Lynde’s death ensued, and it appeared that the company— which had previously offered preferred stock held by the family — would have to go public and thus, be controlled by outsiders. A young tax attorney for Allen-Bradley, Harvey Peters, developed a structure of interlocking trusts controlled by key members of the management team as well as the Bradley family. According to Harry, this is what enabled forward motion in the years ahead, assuring “that company shareholders — not outsiders — would determine the fate of Allen-Bradley.” By 1944, 80% of the company’s orders were war-related, with most of those products being industrial controls and electrical components.
Birth of the PLC
The seeds of one the most useful and necessary devices in industrial history were planted in the late 1950s. While debate continues regarding who actually fathered the programmable logic controller (PLC), most agree that that Austrian-born, American engineer Odo J. Struger was involved with the creation of the Allen-Bradley PLC in the late 50s — and even coined the acronym “PLC.” Struger came to work for Allen-Bradley in 1958 as a research engineer. He later became a vice president of technology, a position he held until retirement in 1997. He conceived about 50 U.S. and Canadian patents during his tenure.
The PLC, as the fable is told by the other ‘father’ of the PLC, Dick Morley, was a “box of software” that “could do the same thing as 50 feet of cabinets, associated relays, and wiring.” Today, the PLC is used in some form in nearly every factory worldwide. PLCs are so pervasive (and technology has moved so quickly, even outside of industry) that they’re not only used to control factories of most any type, but also lavish entertainment shows and increasingly complex amusement park rides.
The 1960s brought continued prosperity for the company, symbolized by the Allen-Bradley Tower Clock. With Harry Bradley’s intent to build it dating back to 1959, the tower was dedicated on October 31, 1952, with Harry himself throwing the start switch. With octagonal faces nearly twice the size of those of Big Ben, the clock’s mechanism and hands are both patented. Serving as both a famous landmark and navigational aid for Great Lakes ships, the clock towers 280 feet above the streets of Milwaukee and has been listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest four-sided clock in the world. Chimes were not included in the tower’s design, so that Big Ben could retain the title of the largest, four-sided chimed clock in the world. In the mid-1970s, it was converted to digitally display temperature instead of time, while a larger, taller clock tower was built nearby.
In 1979, Allen-Bradley introduced the first plant-floor network, the DataHighway, which enabled LAN-based communication between PLCs, computers, and other devices. Meanwhile, over at another industrial giant, Rockwell International, Robert Anderson assumed the position of chairperson. Previously, he had left Chrysler Corp. and was named president of Rockwell in 1970, and CEO in 1974. Regarded more as an engineer than a financial person, Anderson had little tolerance for waste, and managed Rockwell with a firm hand, guiding the defense and aerospace powerhouse through many tough times.
Rockwell Enters the Picture
In 1985, Anderson managed the first major acquisition of his tenure: the Allen-Bradley Company. While Rockwell encountered difficult financial situations involving, for instance, the cancellation of the B-1 bomber program and various projects involving the space shuttle, the $1.7 billion Allen-Bradley acquisition brought with it steady profits from the industrial automation systems business and also lessened Rockwell’s dependence on government contracts. Even so, Allen-Bradley itself, with expertise in PLCs, drives, and motor control centers, contributed to the space shuttle’s success story.
Anderson retired in 1988, at which point control of Rockwell went to president Donald R. Beall. National financial strains of the 1980s didn’t dissuade Beall from putting more than $250 million into Allen-Bradley.
The mid-90s painted a brighter economic picture. In 1993, Allen-Bradley introduced DeviceNet, which quickly became a standard for device-level networks. By 1994, Rockwell’s investment paid off in spades, to the tune of $8.1 million in sales per day attributed to Allen-Bradley—the greatest amount in either company’s history. In 1995, the company marked the 25th anniversary of the PLC, going so far as to produce a limited-run issue of Newsweek magazine with an Allen-Bradley-specific celebration cover.
The end of the 1900s and into the new century brought the acquisitions of such well-known companies as Anorad, Dynapro, Entek, Systems Modeling Corp., Sequencia, and others, further expanding Rockwell Automation’s portfolio. In 2001, Rockwell became a public company traded on the NYSE as ROK. On the heels of its 100th anniversary in 2003, Rockwell in 2004 partnered with Intel to expand high-performance networking in industrial automation.
Today, Rockwell Automation is a global leader in industrial automation serving customers in more than 80 countries. Its two main segments include Architecture and Software, and Control Products and Solutions. About 50% of the company’s sales are outside the U.S.
While the company is run much differently today than it was as Allen-Bradley earlier on, Dr. Allen and the Bradleys would no doubt be pleased with what their sweat and blood has become.
Rockwell Automation Timeline
1903: Dr. Stanton Allen (pictured below) offers Lynde Bradley seed money to build his carbon pile crane controller. They form the Compression Rheostat Company.
1909: Compression Rheostat moves to Milwaukee and changes name to the Allen-Bradley Company.
1914: Company’s first sales office is established in NY.
1915: Sales reach $86,000 and in 1917 balloon to $404,683.
1920: Company introduces Lynde Bradley-developed Bradleystat rheostat introduced; by 1924, it accounts for over $1 million in sales.
1923: Octagon logo becomes company’s trademark.
1937: Company recovers post-depression with sales of nearly $4 million.
1942: Co-founder Lynde Bradley (below) passes away.
1958-60: Engineer and scientist Odo Struger helps develop the first Allen-Bradley PLC.
1962: Harry Bradley throws the switch for the Allen-Bradley Tower Clock. He passes away in 1965.
1970: First Allen-Bradley PLC introduced (1971 CARDLOK controller shown).
1985: Allen-Bradley hits mark of $1 billion in sales; Rockwell Int’l purchases Allen Bradley, the largest acquisition in Wisconsin history.
1993: Company announces DeviceNet, which becomes an industry-standard device-level network.
1999: Rockwell expands industrial portfolio through acquisitions of Enterprise Technology Group, Anorad, Dynapro, and U.K.-based EJA.
2001: Rockwell Automation goes public and is traded on the NYSE.
2003: Allen-Bradley brand celebrates its 100th anniversary.
2004: Rockwell works with Intel on industrial networking.
