edison manufacturing company - federal laboratory consortium
TRANSCRIPT
Brian E. Joseph President, COO
Founder
Reinventing the Invention Factory
CFOAM Building
Composites
Analytical
Laboratories
Design Center
MMC
Touchstone Research Laboratory 1983
A laboratory built on invention as its central focus
Touchstone’s First R&D Facility
Menlo Park Edison’s Invention Factory
1876 to 1882
Menlo Park
1876 to 1882
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
About the Man
• Optimist
• Restless urge to make a difference
• Enjoyed being around people
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
• 22 people…
• 12 remained were there the entire time…
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
So How did Edison accomplish this?
Hiring
• Most employees were local
• Men with specific skills came from Europe
R&D Model
At Touchstone…
R&D Model
Think Action Rethink Action Rethink Action
R&D
R&D Model
Think Action Rethink Action Rethink Action
R&D
Machine Shop Culture
• Highly skilled
• Great Autonomy
At Touchstone
Most employees
Come from industry
Spirit of Openness and Camaraderie
• No factory fences
• No guarded entrances
• A sense of community
Gambling
Practical jokes
Rowdy sing-songs at the organ
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.
• The Men knew they were making history.
Lack of Rules
“There are no rules here. We are
trying to achieve something.”
Thomas A. Edison
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.”
Just another 30 hour work day…
Lead By Example
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.
• Set hard-to-achieve short term
milestones daily if possible – create
culture that does this.
Breakthrough Management
• Gantt Charts are Worst Case Scenarios
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
Creativity is limited by our experiences.
Edison Didn’t have Super Powers But he did draw a lot
• Edison’s Quadruplex System
R&D Work for Others
• The biggest lab has the greatest potential
Heart of the Touchstone Approach:
There are 200 pieces of equipment that tell us
90% of what’s known in the universe.
Results…
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:
Commercialization and
Technology Transfer
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
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
Blurred the lines between
his research and that for others
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
• Edison Iron Concentrating Company
12000 shares of GE Stock
The Edison Companies
Automobile Company
• Lansden Company
•Made 1,750 electric trucks
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
164 “Edison Companies”
The easiest way to become wealthy is
to make everyone around you
wealthy at the same time.
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: [email protected]
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