Information on how to minimise and prevent the spread of COVID has been communicated to all employees at all our sites. This is a worldwide unprecedented and challenging time for so many people and at S. Norton we are ensuring we continue to implement the robust measures required to continue to safely operate our business. Find out more about S. Norton Processes. Home About S. Processes Our Liverpool and Manchester facilities are designed to maximise the extraction of ferrous and non-ferrous metals from feed stock.
Exports S. Norton exports worldwide and we have the capacity to load bulk carrier vessels of up to 70, tonnes DWCC. Company Profile S. Logistics S. Norton have a dedicated transport department which helps us bring a high quality service to our customers. The company introduced a numbered grading system and distributed catalogues and pamphlets to customers, explaining in detail the characteristics and uses of each wheel.
The permutations of 26 grades, ten faces, 15 thicknesses, 23 diameters, and 21 grits was staggering. By the early s, Norton stocked the largest grinding wheel inventory in the world. In addition, Norton consultants spent whatever time necessary on site to advise on special orders and handle customer questions.
Not only did Norton's sales expand in the United States, where it opened distributorships in Chicago and New York , but also in Europe. Sales in Europe are credited with saving the company during the depression of By Norton was the undisputed industry leader. The company was profitable each year including and paid "conservative" dividends each year with the exception of , the result of the move. What was not paid out in dividends went into reinvestment and cash reserves.
These cash reserves allowed the company to self-finance construction of an office building in the s and an abrasives plant in However, the firm's conservatism also had a downside. It sometimes passed up innovation.
For example, in Edward Acheson sent an electric current through a mixture of clay and powdered coke. The resultant crystals, which he dubbed carborundum, scratched glass, and, according to Acheson, diamonds. This new technology opened the way for artificial abrasives: the components of grinding wheels could now be controlled in ways that naturally occurring compounds could not.
Norton turned down Acheson's request for financing. Acheson then turned to banker Andrew Mellen for help in forming the Carborundum Company, and by the early s, Acheson's company was Norton's major competitor, with a big head start.
It was not until the early s that Norton entered into the realm of artificial abrasives. In the company did, however, enter into a partnership with Charles H. The machine tool business was quite a departure for Norton and was undertaken gingerly. Charles Norton was a machinist who came to the company with an idea for building stationary grinding machines that could replace expensive workmen.
What they got in was a versatile production grinder capable of high volume. Moreover, the grinder was able to work with pieces up to pounds and had the ability to grind to the unheard of tolerance of. Sales were slow at first because of resistance in the machine shops, although there were some sales to early auto makers. The company was slow to recoup this investment. At the turn of the century, Norton was merely the largest enterprise in a tiny industry.
Grinding and the use of abrasives was seen primarily as a way of smoothing rough edges, not as a precision tool. That was to change with the popularization of the automobile. Prior to the automobile, it was very rare for a job to require tolerances tighter than. A skilled machinist could, with great effort and concentration, achieve that on a lathe. However, automobile engines and other parts, such as crankshafts, required tolerances of.
These could only be tooled efficiently, accurately, and economically by grinding. This was where Charles Norton's production grinders made all the difference. In Ford is said to have commented that "the abrasive processes are basically responsible for our ability to produce cars to sell for less than a thousand dollars.
Were it not for these processes these same cars would cost at least five thousand dollars, if indeed they could be made at all. In Norton estimated that 95 percent of an automobile's moving parts required grinding. At that time, the industry bought about 55 percent of Norton Grinding Company's output and had more than 68, grinding machines.
In fact, the automotive industry had became Norton's biggest customer. Automobiles, though, were not the only factor in Norton's growth. Norton, like many other companies, received a tremendous boost from World War I.
Tanks and airplanes were among the vehicles whose parts required grinding. Another factor in Norton's growth was the increase in the size of the machine tool industry to cope with industrial demand. Machine tools had always been a significant user of abrasives. In the s, however, Norton failed to maintain its role as an innovator in grinding machines. Its piece-by-piece construction of grinders was at odds with the needs of industry.
Some products went 28 or more years without significant improvements. It also gave up leadership and business to companies that developed more efficient "centerless" external grinders. In part, this stagnation was due to management's primarily Jeppson and Higgins, the owner-operators loyalty to their original product, abrasives.
Charles Norton, after all, had been an outsider. And Charles Norton himself opposed the new machines, favoring his own. In the early s, in an attempt to correct the situation, the company reorganized and redesigned its product line, although resources were withheld from the machine division and put into the construction of abrasives plants.
This company, Norton's first acquisition, added coated abrasives and sandpaper to Norton's line. In fact, these products became the most profitable for Norton well into the s, while the company's grinders and bonded abrasives languished.
However, the two companies rarely cooperated or pooled their talents and know-how. Behr-Manning became a leader in the development of belt sanders in the s, although its main competitor, 3M Company, consistently led it in sales. By the late s, Behr-Manning monthly profits actually outstripped those of the parent company.
Behr-Manning was eventually absorbed into Norton. Overseas expansion, begun in by Charles Allen, grew slowly and for a long time was mainly concerned with sales. Norton's first foreign plant, the German Deutsche Norton Gesellschaft, was built in Its production was disrupted by World War I, and after the war Norton was hesitant to upgrade it.
Norton did build a plant outside Paris, and established facilities in Canada and Japan in the s. In general, Norton considered these operations peripheral, and in any case, in order to maintain secrecy, all bonds and grains were made and shipped from Worcester. In the ten largest abrasives manufacturers formed Durex Abrasives Corporation, whose purpose it was to market American abrasives overseas.
Over the years, this expanded Norton's market to a greater degree than it could have accomplished on its own, at least during the initial period. In the s, s, and s, the company built abrasives and other plants throughout the world. By the s, it had about 90 such facilities.
In Norton was still a family company; the third generation of Jeppsons and Higginses still ran it. However, the need to decentralize authority and bring on competent outsiders to manage the company had been evident since the s and before. Several steps were undertaken. First, the company went public in This step enabled the company to, among other things, create a bonus plan that would attract professional managers. The company then recruited professional managers to oversee the company.
It then diversified into new industries, including the manufacturing of safety products and petroleum and mining tools. Finally, it decentralized authority over the various parts of the business. This company was involved in aerospace research and in areas such as the manufacture of transistors and semiconductors, but had also developed such consumer products as frozen orange juice and vacuum lens coatings for binoculars and periscopes.
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