Customers' needs drive change

Rockwell Automation, Inc., the world leader in industrial automation and information, is a testament to the Milwaukee business community’s evolution to meet their customers' needs.

Like Milwaukee, Rockwell Automation continues to be a manufacturing heavyweight, but its focus has shifted to advanced technologies, software and service solutions. Rockwell Automation can trace its Milwaukee roots to 1903 and the formation of the Compression Rheostat Company founded by Lynde Bradley and Dr. Stanton Allen. The company’s first patented product was a motor controller for industrial cranes that was demonstrated at the St. Louis World’s Fair the following year.

The company became Allen-Bradley in 1909 and quickly built a reputation for aggressive research and development. During the 1920s, the company’s miniature rheostat business fueled the growth of the burgeoning radio industry. It played key roles in both world wars, supplying control panels and electrical components for the military. Its innovations in industrial controls, electronic components, control systems and adjustable speed drives powered the growth of America’s manufacturing, petrochemical, aerospace and mining industries. Throughout this time, Allen-Bradley continually adapted to emerging technologies and changing market needs.

Rockwell International purchased Allen- Bradley in 1985 and continued its heritage of technological innovation, but with a shift in focus to software and system architecture. In 1999, Rockwell Automation moved its corporate headquarters to Milwaukee, thanks in large part to the efforts of MMAC, city, county and state officials. “Milwaukee fits us to a ‘T’." Don Davis, then Rockwell Automation’s Chairman and CEO, said at the time.

Today, Rockwell Automation continues to be a manufacturing powerhouse with $6.3 billion in annual sales and 22,000 employees in more than 80 countries. Its focus has shifted again – from manufacturing to technology development with a portfolio that is now almost evenly divided between control products and solutions ($3.4 billion) and software and system architecture ($2.9 billion). Milwaukee-based engineers are focused on the “Internet of Things” – the software, sensors and actuators that allow pieces of equipment to “talk” with each other and with other business information systems. Rockwell Automation’s mission is to provide the technology customers need to analyze their operational data. Its solutions have allowed customers to monitor unmanned remote assets, predict equipment failure, avoid the costs of onsite servers, and improve productivity by reducing downtime and optimizing processes.

Allen-Bradley engineers invented hot-molded fixed resistors, which revolutionized electronics at the time.

Like the rest of Milwaukee’s business community, Rockwell Automation has changed significantly since the days of Allen-Bradley. Throughout these many decades, however, there has been one constant – a commitment to meeting customer needs by changing with the times.

Rockwell Automation provides advanced automation technologies to help drive sustainability in groundbreaking, zero-emissions vessel

The world’s first vessel powered by hydrogen and renewable energy, the Energy Observer, is on a six-year trip around the world to prove a potential energy system of the future. Rockwell Automation has become an official supplier and service provider for this project, providing automation systems that help power the vessel, which operates with zero greenhouse gasses or fine-particle emissions.