Who owns ao smith motors

By war's end, the company was producing 6, bomb casings per day, thanks to a welding breakthrough that produced stronger bonds in less time. Throughout the war years, a team of Smith's best engineers formulated a revolutionary plan to automate the company's frame production process. The machines performed separate functions, including forming, trimming, and riveting.

It took A. Smith 15 years to recoup its investment in the Mechanical Marvel which was designated a National Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark in , but the plant ran practically without stop until The Mechanical Marvel marked only the beginning of an enterprising decade, during which the company's person engineering department developed new applications for the welding process formulated during World War I.

A welded coupling designed to link seamless steel casings for oil drilling rigs soon became a petroleum industry standard. High pressure tanks for gasoline refineries developed by A. Smith could withstand three times the pressure of customary tanks.

Engineers also modified those tanks for use in the paper, chemical refining, and other industries by adding an anticorrosive, stainless steel liner to the tanks. During the s, A. Smith also originated the large-diameter, high-pressure pipe that launched the natural gas transmission industry and made natural gas a viable alternative to coal and oil. The company captured every order for large diameter pipe in the country.

As the authority in this industry, Smith had to send its own employees out to weld pipeline installations around the world. Smith was thus well positioned when the stock market crash of October ushered in the Great Depression. It had a two-year backlog of pipe orders and a dominant position in its other markets.

As auto sales fell from 4. Heath, to play 'bad cop. In May , 3, employees--almost half the total company's payroll--were laid off. Corporate historians noted that 'Demand for frames was so low, supervisors painted them by hand to save the expense of starting the automatic equipment.

Smith's 'savior' came from a highly unlikely source--the December repeal of Prohibition. The end of that 'noble experiment' brought America's brewing capital, Milwaukee, back to life, and A. Smith utilized its technical creativity to profit from the rebirth. The company quickly introduced a steel beer barrel with a special liner that protected the beer from metallic migration. The new keg's quick acceptance enabled A. Smith to recall laid-off workers.

The company also developed an innovative process to fuse glass to the interior of 35, gallon tanks that resulted in the superior cleanliness demanded by the brewing industry. Ray Smith left day-to-day management of the company to Heath after suffering a heart attack in Heath led the company to apply its glass-and-steel fusing process in A.

Smith's first mass consumer product, the water heater. Before the product's introduction, most homeowners had to replace their all-steel water heaters often due to corrosion, or spend prohibitive amounts on stainless-steel ones.

Smith developed its affordable, durable, glass-lined model in and was able to mass-produce it by , world war interrupted the company's plans a second time. By the end of the s, electric motors, especially hermetically sealed ones, were A. Smith's best-selling product. Smith had already submitted proposals for aerial bombs made of welded pipe, won the government contracts, and built a factory to produce them.

The company's engineers developed better, cheaper propeller blades and manufactured landing gear for B 'Flying Fortress' and B 'Super Fortress' fighter bombers. The company was such a vital wartime supplier that Adolf Hitler targeted it in an unexecuted invasion of the United States.

Smith to unprecedented success in the booming postwar American economy. As new housing starts jumped to 4, per day and auto production soared to one million a month, the company was poised to prosper. Smith water heaters under a private label.

Monthly production approached 50, units by the mids. Smith had also entered the commercial water heater market in through the acquisition of Toledo, Ohio-based Burkay Company. In addition, A. Smith supplied all of Chevrolet's automotive frames during the s, when that make was the most popular in the United States. The contract helped establish A.

Smith as the largest independent supplier of chassis frames to the auto industry in the postwar era. Petroleum pipeline sales also recovered quickly and Smith formed a joint venture with steelmaker ARMCO to create a pipe factory in Texas close to customers.

Diversification continued under Heath in the postwar era, with the development in of Harvestore glass-lined silos that were filled from the top, emptied from the bottom, and were dark-colored to prevent wintertime freezing of the feed stored inside. After a slow start, the silos were well accepted by U. Smith started exploring the fiberglass industry in in cooperation with Dow, forming a glass fiber division in forerunner of Smith Fiberglass Products.

The company soon developed fiberglass pipe and fittings for special niche applications in oil fields, and later made fiberglass Corvette Sting Ray bodies. Diversification was accompanied by rationalization. When A. Smith's patent on the glass-lined water heater expired in and competition was opened, Smith eased out of the private-label segment, and scaled back efforts in the residential market to concentrate on the commercial segment with its leading Burkay brand.

The company also phased out pressure containers such as beer and petroleum tanks in the late s. Smith's own success thwarted some of its business interests.

The completion of the U. Smith acquires Whirl-A-Way Motors of Dayton, Ohio, and consolidates its electric motor manufacturing operations there. Over the next 50 years, A. Smith installs more than 70, structures on farms throughout North America. Smith acquires the Burkay Company of Toledo, Ohio, and enters the market for commercial water heaters.

The company constructs a , square foot residential water heater plant in Kankakee, Illinois. As part of the war effort, A. Smith begins producing bob casings, aircraft propellers and landing gear, torpedo air flasks and other material. By , it had built 4. Extending its reach in the oil field, the company acquires Sawyer Electric of Los Angeles, California, a manufacturer of electric motors. One of their products was a pump motor that could be used in oil well applications. Smith patents the glass-lined water heater.

This concept quickly became the standard of the industry, making hot water an affordable convenience for homeowners. The company began mass-producing residential water heaters three years later, but shifted all production to war-time use during World War II.

The end of Prohibition provided an opportunity to apply our new technology to a revitalized brewing industry. Capitalizing on research in the process of fusing glass to steel, the company introduces the first large, single-piece glass-lined brewery tank. Over the next 32 years, A. Smith made more than 11, glass-lined tanks. Smith employed more than engineers. Perfects a method of economically forming and welding large-diameter steel line pipe.

This new mass production technique was instrumental in launching the natural gas industry and transcontinental oil pipeline business. Smith was a leading supplier of line pipe until it exited the business in Introduces the first arc-welded, high-pressure vessel used to refine oil. Orders soon followed from Cadillac, Packard, and Oldsmobile. Smith and Sons is the largest U. Smith-Machinist in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, beginning as a machine shop making metal parts for baby carriages and other hardware specialties.

He was later joined by two of his sons and changed the name to C. Smith and Sons. Where are you from? United States. Middle East. The links below will guide you trough the long history of A. Smith The Formative Years Entering the Auto Industry Innovation and Expansion War and Post-War Boom Diversification Restructuring and Global Growth Focus on Water Technology Focus on Water Technology Present.

Smith incorporates A. For more information about our products, visit www. About History A. Smith's History. History History Timeline. History Timeline Brochure. Smith's year history. In we celebrated years of Integrity, Innovation, and Customer Satisfaction. Signature Series A. O Smith Pro The A. Cras luctus posuere enim.