Kone

Kone Oyj (Finnish pronunciation: [ˈkone]; officially known as KONE and trading as KONE Corporation) is a Finnish multinational elevator engineering company employing over 60,000 personnel across 60 countries worldwide. It was founded in 1910 and is now headquartered in Helsinki, Finland, with its corporate offices located in Espoo. In addition, Kone builds and services moving walkways (referred to by the company as autowalks), automatic doors and gates, escalators, and lifts. In the Finnish language, Kone means "machine".

Since 1924, Kone has been controlled by the Herlin family. Harald Herlin purchased the company in 1924 and served as its chairman until 1941. Afterward, his son, Heikki H. Herlin, took over his father's post from 1941–1987. In 1954, Pekka Herlin joined Kone and succeeded his father as president in 1964. Since 2003, Antti Herlin, the son of Pekka Herlin, has been its chairman. As of December 2019^[update], Antti Herlin controls 62% of the voting rights and 22% of the shares of the company, which is listed on Nasdaq Helsinki.

Kone (then known as Osakeyhtiö Kone Aktiebolag) was founded in 1910 as a subsidiary of Gottfr. Strömberg Oy. Strömberg's license to import Graham Brother's elevators was transferred to the new company. Kone sold just a few units before terminating the licensing agreement in 1917. Kone, then a company with only 50 employees, started to make and install its elevators in 1918. Six years later, in 1924, entrepreneur Harald Herlin bought Kone from Strömberg and became the new chairman of the company's board of directors. His son, Heikki H. Herlin, joined the company and was appointed technical director in 1928. His office was located in a former margarine factory on Haapaniemi Street in Helsinki, which Kone had bought and converted into an elevator production facility the previous year. Heikki H. Herlin took over as Kone’s president in 1932. Kone’s first foreign subsidiary, AB Kone Hissar of Sweden, was established in 1957.

After World War II, Kone was called upon by the Finnish government to contribute elevators, electric hoists, and cranes to the war reparations being paid to the Soviet Union. This program forced Kone to expand its capacity, rationalize production processes and learn to meet demanding manufacturing schedules. In the 1950s, Kone introduced its first group controls, automatic doors, and hydraulic elevators. Heikki H. Herlin turned over the president's duties in 1964 to his son, Pekka, who had served as an administrative director since 1958.

Kone opened an elevator factory in 1966 in Hyvinkää, Finland. The following year Kone was listed on the Helsinki Exchanges and started its international expansion through the acquisition of Sweden's Asea-Graham and its Norwegian and Danish affiliates. Numerous acquisitions followed during the 1970s and 1980s, with only the most significant being listed here. The acquisitions of companies larger and older than Kone itself brought Kone respectability and lifted the company to a position of market prominence. Eventually, Kone further expanded its business scope. The company became one of the world's largest manufacturers of hoists and cranes, as well as a producer of high-tech electronic equipment for hospitals and laboratories.

In 1981, Kone entered the American elevator market with the acquisition of New York City-based Armor Elevator Company, which it continued to operate independently as a wholly owned subsidiary. The company acquired Navire Cargo Gear in 1982 and International MacGregor, makers of shipboard cargo access equipment. Wood-handling systems and equipment for pulp and paper mills, hydraulic piping systems, mining equipment, conveyors, and specialized steel components were manufactured at Kone's steel foundry. In 1987, after 60 years as a member of Kone's board of directors and 46 years as its chairman, Heikki H. Herlin retired. Prevented by Finnish law from serving simultaneously as president and board chairman, Pekka Herlin ceded the presidency to Matti Matinpalo, the first non-Herlin to occupy the position in 55 years, and continued as chairman of the board.

Kone sold its shipboard cargo handling business in 1993, as well as its crane (Konecranes), wood handling, and piping systems businesses in 1994, and finally the steel foundry and electronic medical instruments divisions in 1995. Only its elevators, escalators, and automatic door branches remained. Kone acquired the Montgomery Elevator Company of the U.S. in 1994. Soon afterwards, the Kone Corporation purchased a majority of the outstanding shares of O&K Rolltreppen GmbH of Germany, a supplier of escalators and autowalks. In 1998, the company made a $29 million (US) investment in the construction of an elevator and escalator factory in Kunshan, China.

In 1996, Antti Herlin, the great-grandson of the company's founder, was appointed Kone CEO and deputy chairman of the board of the company that he had now inherited. The company introduced new technology, such as the Kone EcoDisc hoisting machine and the Kone MonoSpace elevator technology concept, in 1996. Kone was one of the first to introduce machine-room-less (MRL) construction in elevators. Kone's MRL designs significantly reduced the size of elevator machinery and its lift mechanism by using permanent-magnet electric motors (PMM). The use of these mechanisms enabled all of the elevator's equipment and its inner workings to be confined to the space above the elevator shaft, known as the hoistway overhead, instead of needing an entire room dedicated to machinery. At the beginning of the 21st Century, due to the apparent benefits of Kone's pioneering elevator systems, rival companies^[which?] began competitively marketing machine-room-less elevators of their own.