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| Kone celebrates its journey of a century As an industrial engineering company, Kone has been involved in many diverse businesses, but always maintaining the elevator and escalator business as its main focus. It has become an industry leading company with innovative, safe and eco-efficient solutions to deliver the best People Flow experience. Global leading elevator and escalator company Kone has come a long way the last 100 years. From its start as a tiny machine shop in Helsinki, Finland, it has become a company with annual net sales of close to five billion euros, approximately 33,000 employees and operations worldwide. Today it is an acknowledged technology leader and has established itself as a major player in the world's fastest growing markets as well as solidified its position in its traditional markets. In 1908, a machine shop named Tarmo ("vigor") opened in Helsinki. Tarmo's owners incorporated their business as Kone ("machine") Ltd. on October 27, 1910. The tiny machine shop was sold to Strömberg, a producer of electric motors and equipment as well as importer and installer of elevators. In the early 1920s, Kone turned to producing consumer products such as carbide lamps, coffee mills and blades for ice hockey skates. In 1924 Kone became an independent company as Strömberg, amid its financial difficulties, sold its shares to the Herlin family. In the following decades cranes and hoists were added to the product line and equipment maintenance and repair central to business strategy. The new Hyvinkää factory was opened in 1967 with a capacity of 2,000 units per year, double the size of Finland's total elevator market and far more than Kone's total annual output at that time. Kone was set ready to become the first Finnish company to truly internationalize its operations. Its internationalization breakthrough occurred in 1968 with the acquisition of ASEA's elevator business. In 1974 Kone took another gigantic leap forward with the acquisition of Westinghouse's European elevator business. Mid 1970's Kone was an elevator, crane and conveyor company. In the following years Kone expanded its operations into various businesses. Mid-1990's Kone divested its crane, wood-handling, cargo access and instrument businesses. In 1994, Kone purchased Montgomery Elevator Company, the fourth largest elevator company in the United States. It would later proceed to buy the remaining shareholding in its escalator partner, Germany's O&K Rolltreppen. Kone also expanded its operations in the rapidly growing markets of China, India, Russia and Middle-East. In 1996, Kone made a technology breakthrough that would revolutionize the industry, by introducing the new hoisting machine of EcoDisc and its machine-room-less elevator the MonoSpace . Since 2005, Kone has outperformed the competition in terms of growth and profit margin improvement. write your comments about the article :: © 2010 Construction News :: home page |