Lincoln Electric
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Lincoln Electric is a non-union company in Cleveland, Ohio, United States that manufactures arc welding equipment. They are a worldwide leader in production of welding equipment and have subsidiary companies around the globe, including recent strong growth in China. The Lincoln Electric company is renowned for the year-end employee-bonuses they give in early December. Some get as much as $18,000 yearly.
The Lincoln Electric company is one of the oldest companies still trading on the New York Stock Exchange. It was founded in 1895 by John C. Lincoln with a capital investment of $200 to make electric motors he had designed.
By 1911 the product line had been expanded to include battery chargers for electric automobiles and a welding set. In 1911 Lincoln Electric introduced the first variable voltage, single operator, portable welding machine in the world.
In 1914, wishing to concentrate on scientific investigation, John C. turned the reins of the company over to James F. Lincoln. James F. introduced piecework pay and established the Employee Advisory Board, which includes elected representatives from every department and has met every two weeks ever since. By 1915, in a progressive effort for its time, Lincoln employees were covered by group life insurance.
Lincoln Electric employees earned paid vacations, among the first in the nation, in 1923. The first Lincoln employee stock ownership plan, one of the first in the country, was initiated in 1925. An employee suggestion program was implemented in 1929. Lincoln employees received their first annual Incentive Bonus in 1934. While the average Lincoln worker's pay more than doubled during the decade of the Great Depression, electrodes which had sold for $0.16/lb in 1929 were selling for less than $0.06/lb by 1942.
After working 12 years to perfect a ductile weld, John Lincoln created a patented flux which, for the first time, made a weld as flexible as steel.
The Procedure Handbook of Arc Welding Design, first published in 1933, is today in its 13th edition. More than two million copies of this textbook have been sold. In 1936, The James F. Lincoln Arc Welding Foundation was founded as a nonprofit educational organization to advance arc welding as a leading materials joining process. That same year, a young salesman named William I. Miskoe was sent halfway around the world to establish The Lincoln Electric Company Pty. Ltd. in Australia.
The firm has been one of those as a case study by business schools around the world. Since 1975, eight cases have been written about Lincoln Electric by Harvard Business School [1], including three of Harvard's most popular cases.
