Company type | Public |
---|---|
Founded | 1903 |
Headquarters | Rockwell Automation Headquarters Milwaukee, Wisconsin, U.S. |
Area served | Worldwide |
Key people | Blake Moret (Chairman and CEO) |
Products | |
Revenue | US$9.06 billion (2023) |
US$1.69 billion (2023) | |
US$1.39 billion (2023) | |
Total assets | US$11.3 billion (2023) |
Total equity | US$3.56 billion (2023) |
Number of employees | c. 29,000 (2023) |
Website | rockwellautomation |
Footnotes /references [1] |
Rockwell Automation, Inc. is an American provider of industrial automation and digital transformation technologies. Brands include Allen-Bradley, FactoryTalk software and LifecycleIQ Services.
Headquartered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Rockwell Automation employs approximately 26,000 people and has customers in more than 100 countries worldwide.
Rockwell Automation began in 1903 as the Compression Rheostat Launch Company. It was founded by Dr. Stanton Allen and Lynde Bradley with an initial investment of $1000. [2] In 1904, 19-year-old Harry Bradley joined his brother in the business, and the company's first patented product, a carbon disc compression-type motor controller for industrial cranes, was demonstrated at the St. Louis World's Fair the same year. In 1909, the company was renamed the Allen-Bradley Company. [2]
Allen-Bradley expanded rapidly during World War I in response to government-contracted work. Its product line grew to include automatic starters, switches, circuit breakers, relays, and other electric equipment. After the war, the company grew its miniature rheostat business to support the burgeoning radio industry. By the middle of the 1920s, nearly 50 percent of the company's sales were attributed to the radio department. The year 1929 closed with record company sales of $3 million.
By 1932, at the start of the Great Depression, the company was posting record losses. It reduced its workforce and cut wages by 50%. Throughout this period, Lynde Bradley supported an aggressive research and development approach intended to "develop the company out of the Depression." By 1937, Allen-Bradley employment had rebounded to pre-Depression levels and company sales reached an all-time high of nearly $4 million.
World War II fueled unprecedented levels of production, with 80% of the company's orders being war-related. Wartime orders were centered on two broad lines of products: industrial controls to speed production, and electrical components or radio parts used in a wide range of military equipment. Allen-Bradley expanded its facilities numerous times during the 1940s to meet wartime production needs. With Fred Loock serving as president and Harry Bradley as chairman, the company began a major $1 million, two-year expansion project in 1947. The company completed additional expansions at its Milwaukee facilities in the 1950s and 1960s, including the Allen-Bradley clock tower.
During the 1970s, the company expanded its production facilities and markets and entered the 1980s as a global company. In 1981, the company introduced a new line of programmable logic controllers.
In 1985, Rockwell International purchased Allen-Bradley for $1.651 billion; this was the largest acquisition in Wisconsin's history to date. [3] For all intents and purposes, Allen-Bradley took over Rockwell's industrial automation division.
The 1990s featured continued technology development, including the company's launch of its software business. Rockwell International developed PowerFlex, a manufacturing software and technology in the 1990s. [4] Rockwell International also acquired a power systems business, composed of Reliance Electric and Dodge. These two brands, combined with control systems brands Allen-Bradley and Rockwell Software, were marketed as Rockwell Automation.
In 2001, Rockwell International split into two companies. The industrial automation division became Rockwell Automation, while the avionics division became Rockwell Collins. [5] The split was structured so that Rockwell Automation was the legal successor of Rockwell International, while Rockwell Collins was the spin-off. Rockwell Automation retains Rockwell International's stock price history and continues to trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "ROK".
In February 2019, Rockwell Automation and Schlumberger entered a joint venture to create Sensia, the oil and gas industry's first fully integrated automation solutions provider. [6] Rockwell was later announced as a founding member of the ISA Global Cybersecurity Alliance to help advance readiness and awareness in manufacturing. [7]
Another partnership was formed in November 2019 with Accenture's Industry X to help deliver greater industrial supply chain optimization. [8] Simulation software provider ANSYS and Rockwell Automation also allied to help customers design simulation-based digital twins of products, processes, and manufacturing. [9]
In May 2023, The Wall Street Journal reported that Rockwell Automation was under a U.S. federal investigation regarding potential access to its software by the Chinese government through company employees in Dalian. [10]
In 2021, Rockwell Automation adjusted its organizational structure into three operating segments—Intelligent Devices, Software & Control, and Lifecycle Services. [11]
Rockwell Automation has three primary areas of business operations: [12]
Allen-Bradley—automated components and integrated control systems for safety, sensing, industrial, power, and motion control.
FactoryTalk—software that supports advanced industrial applications including system design, operations, plant maintenance, and analytics.
LifecycleIQ Services—services to help connect, secure, mobilize, and scale manufacturing operations.
A programmable logic controller (PLC) or programmable controller is an industrial computer that has been ruggedized and adapted for the control of manufacturing processes, such as assembly lines, machines, robotic devices, or any activity that requires high reliability, ease of programming, and process fault diagnosis.
Rockwell International was a major American manufacturing conglomerate. It was involved in aircraft, the space industry, defense and commercial electronics, components in the automotive industry, printing presses, avionics and industrial products. At its peak, Rockwell International was No. 27 on the Fortune 500 list, with assets of over $8 billion, sales of $27 billion and 115,000 employees.
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Emerson Electric Co. is an American multinational corporation headquartered in Ferguson, Missouri. The Fortune 500 company delivers a range of engineering services, manufactures industrial automation equipment, climate control systems, and precision measurement instruments, and provides software engineering solutions for industrial, commercial, and consumer markets.
Ansys, Inc. is an American multinational company with its headquarters based in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania. It develops and markets CAE/multiphysics engineering simulation software for product design, testing and operation and offers its products and services to customers worldwide.
The Rockwell Automation Headquarters is an office building located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The building is known for once having the largest four-faced clock in the world.
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The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to automation:
Harry Lynde Bradley, the brother of Lynde Bradley, was the co-founder of the Allen-Bradley Company and the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation. He "became deeply involved in conservative causes", with "a strong sense of anti-communism animat[ing] his political beliefs". He was a founding member of the John Birch Society. He supported Robert A. Taft for the Presidency in 1952, and Barry Goldwater in 1964.
Cameron International Corporation (formerly Cooper Cameron Corporation (CCC) and Cooper Oil Tool, Cameron Iron Works) though now operating under Schlumberger, is a global provider of pressure control, production, processing, and flow control systems as well as project management and aftermarket services for the oil and gas and process industries. Cameron was acquired by Schlumberger (SLB) in 2016, and now operates as 'Cameron, an SLB Company.' At the start of the SLB acquisition in 2015, Cameron employed approximately 23,000 people and delivered $9.8 billion in revenue.
Allen-Bradley is the brand-name of a line of factory automation equipment owned by Rockwell Automation. The company, with revenues of approximately US $6.4 billion in 2013, manufactures programmable logic controllers (PLC), human-machine interfaces, sensors, safety components and systems, software, drives and drive systems, contactors, motor control centers, and systems of such products. Rockwell Automation also provides asset-management services including repair and consulting. Rockwell Automation's headquarters is in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
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Mistral Solutions Pvt. Ltd. is a privately held product design and systems engineering company with a focus on embedded domains. Founded in 1997 by Anees Ahmed and Rajeev Ramachandra, the Indian company was acquired by Axicades Technologies in December 2022.
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