edison manufacturing company - federal laboratory consortium
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Background
• Born in Milan, Ohio, in 1847
• Not a quick student; home schooled
• Started working at age 12 selling
newspapers and candy on the
Grand Trunk Railway
• At age 14, contracted scarlet fever
and lost most of his hearing
• Died, 1931at the age of 84
Clear Mission
• “invention factory”, where "will come
up with a small thing every ten days
and a big thing about every six months”
Edison’s Patent Applications by Year
Electronics
Acoustics
Transportation
Metallurgy
Radio
400 Patents
Touchstone has put out at least 1 patent application per month for 10 years
Goal: Find seams of IP not incremental technologies
With about 35 people on average
Spirit of Openness and Camaraderie
• No factory fences
• No guarded entrances
• A sense of community
Balancing Act
• Edison kept the muckers under
constant pressure, submerging
them with work and often criticizing
the results.
• Told stories, fished, and played
with the electric train to reduce
the intense pressure.
Balancing Act
• Quoting John Clarke:
Life in the laboratory was “strenuous but
joyous … physically, mentally and
emotionally,” working “frequently to the limit of human endurance.”
Didn’t Hold Himself Apart
• John Ott describing Edison:
• “He was as dirty as any of the other
workmen and not much better dressed
than a tramp. But I immediately felt there
was a great deal to him.”
Balancing Act
Continually crossed the line between
• One of the boys
• Autocratic manager who hired & fired with ease
Management by Walking Around
• Edison would stroll about the laboratory
buildings, questioning each man at the
workbench about what he had done,
discussing the results, and deciding what
to do next.
Intense focus on results not process
Teams were free to draw on:
• All laboratory facilities
• Supplies
• Scientific information
• Edison’s Expertise
• Other Experts
Focus on what’s important
• “Edison was notoriously tolerant of
relative incompetence in his assistants”
Flexibility
• Most employees were expected to
work on almost anything and often
several things
• Work week was six 10 hour days
Heart of the Touchstone Approach:
There are 200 pieces of equipment that tell us
90% of what’s known in the universe.
Menlo Park - Edison’s Invention Factory
• Among the 400 inventions at Menlo Park:
• Microphone for the Telephone
• Phonograph
• Incandescent light bulb
• Electrical distribution system
• Electric train
• Ore separation
• Edison effect bulb
• Early experiments in wireless radio
• Grasshopper telegraph
• improvements on telegraphic transmission
Edison’s Patent Applications by Year
“I’m going to be a business man. I’m going to take a long vacation
in the matter of invention” 1883
Edison’s West Orange Laboratory
• Wanted the lab to pay for itself through R&D
Contracts
• Usually ended up in business lab’s clients
• sharing IP, gaining stock, etc.
Plan for Paying for the lab
• Edison lamp Company $10,000
• Edison Electric Light Co. $5000
• Edison Machine Works $6000
• Edison Speaking Phonograph Co $3000
• Edison Ore Milling co. $3000
Total $27,000
• Work for others:
• Copper smelting Research
• Bleaching Tobacco
• AB Dick - electric pen stencil system
• American Bell Telephone Co. - Telephony
Lawsuits
“[A patent] is simply an invitation to a law suit. . . .
[I have] lost all faith in patents, judges and everything else relating to patents.”
Thomas Alva Edison
The Edison Brand
• Wizard of Menlo Park
• World’s worst businessman
“Edision is the world’s best inventor and worst businessman.”
Henry Ford
Battery Companies
• Deutsche Edison Akkumulatoren Company
• Edison Gesellschaft
• Edison Manufacturing Company
• Edison Storage Battery Company
• Edison Storage Battery Garage, Inc.
• Edison Storage Battery Supply Company.
Cement & Cement Products
• Architectural Concrete Company
• Edison Crushing Roll Company
• Edison Portland Cement Company
• Edison Pulverized Limestone Company
• North Jersey Paint Company
• Pilling & Crane
• Warren County Warehouse Company
Electric & Lighting - Domestic
• Bergmann & Company
• Edison Company for Isolated Lighting
• Edison Electric Illuminating Company of New York
• Edison Electric Light Company
• Edison General Electric Company
• Edison Lamp Company
• Edison Machine Works
• Edison Shafting Manufacturing Company
• Edison United Manufacturing Company
• Edison Wiring Company
• Electric Tube Company
• General Electric Company
• Sprague Electric Railway and Motor Company
• Thomas A. Edison Central Station Construction Dept.
• United Edison Manufacturing Company
Electric & Lighting - Domestic
• Allgemeine Elektrizitats Gesellschaft
• Argentine Edison Light Company
• Australasian Electric Light Power and Storage Company, Ltd.
• Brush Electrical Engineering Company
• Canadian Edison Manufacturing Company
• Comitato per le Applicazioni dell'Elettricita Sistema Edison in Italia
• Compagnie continentale Edison
• Compagnie Generale des Lampes Incandescentes
• Compania Electrica de Edison
• Deutsche Edison Gesellschaft
• Edison and Swan United Electric Light Company, Ltd.
• Edison Electric Light Company, Ltd.
Electric & Lighting - Foreign
• Edison Electric Light Company of Cuba and Porto Rico
• Edison Electric Light Company of Europe, Ltd.
• Edison Electric Light Company of Havana
• Edison's Indian and Colonial Electric Company, Ltd.
• Edison Spanish Colonial Light Company
• Fabbri & Chauncey
• Frazar & Company
• Societe Generale Italiana di Elettricita Sistema Edison
• Societa d'Appareillage Electrique
• Societe Electrique Edison
• Societe Industrielle et Commerciale Edison
• Tokyo Electric Light Company
Electric & Lighting - Foreign
Mining
• Dunderland Iron Ore Company, Ltd
• Edison Iron Concentrating Company
• Edison Ore Milling Company, Ltd.
• Edison Ore-Milling Syndicate, Ltd.
• Mining Exploration Company of New Jersey
• New Jersey and Pennsylvania Concentrating Works
• New York Concentrating Works
• Ogden Iron Company
• Pilling & Crane
• Standard Construction Corporation, Ltd.
• Sussex County Iron Company
Miscellaneous
• American Novelty Company
• Aultman, Miller & Company
• Edison Industrial Works
• Edison Manufacturing Company
• Edison Manufacturing Company, Ltd.
• Edison-Saunders Compressed Air Company
• Halogen Products Company
• Menlo Park Manufacturing Company
• Sims-Edison Electric Torpedo Company
Motion Pictures
• American Talking Picture Company
• Compagnie Francaise du Phonographe Edison
• Compania Edison Hispano Americana
• Continental Commerce Company
• Edison Gesellschaft
• Edison Kinetophone Company
• Edison Manufacturing Company
Motion Pictures
• General Film Company
• Kinetoscope Company
• Kinetoscope Exhibiting Company
• Maguire & Baucus
• Motion Picture Patents Company
• Raft & Gammon
• Vitascope Company
Office Machinery and Supplies
• A. B. Dick Company
• American Novelty Company
• Bates Manufacturing Company
• Edison's Electric Pen and Duplicating Press Co.
• Electric Writing Company
• Pike Adding Machine Company
Phonograph, Domestic
• Automatic Phonograph Exhibition Company
• Douglas Phonograph Company
• Edison Business Phonograph Company
• Edison Phonograph Company
• Edison Phonograph Toy Manufacturing
Company
• Edison Phonograph Works
• Edison Speaking Phonograph Company
• National Phonograph Company
• New England Phonograph Company
• New Jersey Patent Company
• North American Phonograph Company
• Ott Manufacturing Company
• Toy Phonograph Company
• United States Phonograph Company
Phonograph, Domestic
Phonograph, Foreign
• Compagnie Francaise du Phonographe Edison
• Compania Edison Hispano Americana
• Deutsche Edison Phonographen Gesellschaft
• Edison-Bell Consolidated Phonograph Company, Ltd
• Edison-Bell Phonograph Corporation, Ltd.
• Edison Gesellschaft
• Edisonia, Ltd.
• Edison's Phonograph Company
• Edison United Phonograph Company
• Frazar & Company
• Graphophone Syndicate, Ltd.
• International Graphophone Company
• London Stereoscopic and Photographic Company
• Mexican National Phonograph Company
• National Phonograph Company, Ltd
• National Phonograph Company, Ltd (Australia)
Phonograph, Foreign
Railway
• Electric Railway Company of the United States
• Pohatcong Railroad Company
• Port Huron and Gratiot Street Railway Company
• Port Huron Railway Company
• Sarnia Street Railway Company
• Sprague Electric Railway and Motor Company
Telegraph and Telephone, Domestic
• American Automatic Telegraph Company
• American Bell Telephone Company
• American District Telegraph Company
• American Printing Telegraph Company
• American Speaking Telephone Company
• American Telegraph Works
• Atlantic and Pacific Telegraph Company
• Automatic Telegraph Company
• Bankers' and Brokers' Telegraph Company
• Consolidated Railway Telegraph Company
• Domestic Telegraph Company
• Edison and Murray
• Edison and Unger
• Edison Phonoplex System
• Financial and Commercial Telegraph Company
• Gilliland and Company
• Gold and Stock Reporting Telegraph Company
• Gold and Stock Telegraph Company
Telegraph and Telephone, Domestic
• Murray and Company
• Newark Telegraph Works
• News Reporting Telegraph Company
• Pope, Edison & Company
• Railway Telegraph & Telephone Company
• Railway Train Telegraphy Company, Ltd.
• S. Bergmann & Company
• Thau & Bergmann
• Western Electric Manufacturing Company
• Western Union Telegraph Company
Telegraph and Telephone, Domestic
Telegraph and Telephone, Foreign
• Compania Chilena de Telefonos de Edison de Valparaiso
• Consolidated International Railway Telegraph Company
• Consolidated Telephone Construction and Maintenance Company, Ltd.
• Edison Gower-Bell Telephone Company of Europe, Ltd.
• Edison Telephone Company of Europe, Ltd.
• Edison Telephone Company of Glasgow, Ltd.
• Edison Telephone Company of London, Ltd.
• Exchange Telegraph Company
• National Telephone Company
• Oriental Telephone Company, Ltd.
• Smith, Fleming & Company
• Societe du Telephone Edison
• Societe Generale des Telephones
• United Telephone Company, Ltd.
Telegraph and Telephone, Foreign
• Thomas A. Edison, Incorporated
• 1957 McGraw-Edison Company
• 1985 absorbed by Cooper Industries.
Edison’s last company
Andrew Carnegie $480M
• Will $12,000,000
• 1928 Congressional Gold Medal
• Congress valued his technology at:
$15,599,000,000.
$203,483,094,104.05
“If we all did the things
we are really capable of doing,
we would literally astound ourselves”
Thomas Alva Edison
Email: BrianEJoseph@Gmail.com
Phone: 304.312.4565
• To the FLC, one amazing organization!
• For the wonderful Edison images: Edison National Historical Site
National Park Service
US Department of the interior
• For Adre Millard’s Book “Edison and the Business of Innovation”
Johns Hopkins University Press
• For William S. Pretzer’s book: Working at Inventing
Johns Hopkins University Press
• The Thomas Edison Papers, Rutgers University
• Special thank you to the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village who were so patient during my many hours and my many questions at the Menlo Park Exhibit
Thank You
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