The hundred-year history of The Timken Company is one of the great success stories of U.S. manufacturing. Born in 1899 in a St. Louis, Missouri, carriage factory where Henry Timken developed and patented the Timken tapered roller bearing, the company moved to Canton, Ohio-in the nation"s industrial heartland-in 1901. From that home base it has expanded to become a global organization and a leader in two key industries: bearings and steel. A major force in the early automotive supply industry, Timken was one of the large enterprises that made the United States an economic and military superpower and the American corporation a model for business organizations in the decades after World War II. It was also on the forward edge of the industrial renewal that has revived the midwestern economy and restored U.S. manufacturing to a position of leadership after the competitive crisis of the 1980s.
In Timken: From Missouri to Mars-A Century of Leadership in Manufacturing, historian Bettye Pruitt traces the evolution of this exceptional organization and the role its bearings and specialty alloy steels have played in the advancement of essential technology from steel mills and machine tools to computer disk drives and spacecraft. More than just a chronicle of the company"s growth, this absorbing account examines the factors that have sustained its vitality and competitiveness through dramatic changes in the business environment. It looks beyond strategy, structure, and organizational capabilities to corporate purpose and culture for an explanation of Timken"s sustained success over the long term.
Little has been written about the bearing industry, yet anti-friction bearings are critical components in virtually all types of machinery. A central thread in the company"s history is the long stream of process and product development that has made the Timken bearing a high-performance component in much of the most advanced equipment of our age: the high-speed printing presses that produce our morning papers; the minivans and sport utility vehicles we drive; the giant construction machinery that builds our roads; the planes and high-speed trains we rely on for business and vacation travel. The company"s combination of steel making and precision manufacturing is unique in U.S. industry. Its technical history presents a fascinating case study in the central role that materials have played in the steadily improving performance of the machines we take for granted in modern life.
Yet Timken is primarily a book about people-colorful personalities, individuals with integrity and nerve, bureaucrats, autocrats, and visionaries. It is a book about the shaping of an organizational culture, the emergence of rigidities in a managerial hierarchy, and the rejuvenating force of deep cultural change. This is a story full of inspiration and insight for anyone who works in or studies large organizations. Это и многое другое вы найдете в книге Timken: From Missouri to Mars-A Century of Leadership in Manufacturing (Bettye H. Pruitt)