Company Profile
Johnson Controls, Inc.
Company Overview
Johnson Controls is a global diversified technology and industrial leader serving customers in over 150 countries. Our 130,000 employees create quality products, services and solutions to optimize energy and operational efficiencies of buildings; lead-acid automotive batteries and advanced batteries for hybrid and electric vehicles; and interior systems for automobiles. Our commitment to sustainability dates back to our roots in 1885, with the invention of the first electric room thermostat. Through our growth strategies and by increasing market share we are committed to delivering value to shareholders and making our customers successful.
Company History
THE SPIRIT OF INVENTION...
Warren S. Johnson was the quintessential inventor and entrepreneur. He created huge pneumatic tower clocks. He experimented with electric storage batteries and started a wireless telegraph business. He developed steam-powered vehicles, from luxury touring cars to the first postal service trucks.
It is Johnson’s system of temperature regulation, invented while he was a college professor in Whitewater, Wisconsin, that is his legacy. Johnson installed his electric tele-thermoscope in classrooms to keep students more comfortable—and end hourly interruptions from the janitor checking the rooms’ temperature.
Johnson’s system, using principles still relevant today, made it practical to regulate temperatures room by room in homes and commercial buildings. The Johnson Electric Service Company launched in 1885, with Johnson as vice president and treasurer. An industry was born.
The quickly growing business, renamed the Johnson Service Company in 1902, brought evenly regulated temperatures to buildings around the world: the Palace of the Imperial Prince in Tokyo, Japan; the king’s palace in Madrid, Spain; the city hall in Toronto, Canada; a factory in Warsaw, Poland.
The company settled into the Milwaukee, Wisconsin location that today still serves as headquarters for the Building Efficiency business. Warren Johnson continued innovating, receiving patents for a steam generator to be used in “auto-carriages” and a pneumatic clock system that ran his grand tower clocks.
In 1901, with Johnson now President, the company began making steam-powered cars and trucks, and six years later introduced a line of gasoline cars featuring luxurious leather and wood interiors.
COMFORT CATCHES ON...
The building boom of the early 1900s meant big business for Johnson Service Company. Skyscrapers required temperature controls, as did the theaters, restaurants and stores introducing air-cooled interiors.
After Warren Johnson’s death in 1911, Harry W. Ellis became President in 1912. Ellis sold the company’s automotive and pneumatic clock businesses to focus on building controls, emphasizing efficient manufacturing and dedicated customer service.
Meanwhile, two future Johnson Controls businesses were formed. In 1911, the Globe Electric Company in Milwaukee began making electrical equipment for streetcars and street lights, soon adding automotive battery production. In 1913, the Hoover Steel Ball Company began operations in Ann Arbor, Michigan, serving the precision bearing and automotive industries—which years later would lead them to automotive seating.
As the 20th century progressed, revolution shook China, Mexico, Russia and Ireland. Starting in 1914, war shook the world. The U.S. government’s War Industry Board classified the temperature control industry as nonessential to the war effort, indicating these systems’ main purpose to be comfort. To keep the factory and its employees going, the sales force turned to government buildings for business, and, for the first time, began to retrofit old buildings with new controls.
Prosperity returned soon after the war’s end. By 1919, the volume of new contracts exceeded $1 million. In 1924, Johnson introduced the Dual Thermostat to lower temperatures during building off-hours. Ten years later, the Johnson Duo-Stat adjusted indoor temperature based on outdoor conditions.
These innovations were exactly what building owners demanded as the Great Depression brought a new need for fuel savings. Johnson’s comfort products were now a necessity.
THRIVING ON INNOVATION...
The Johnson Service Company went public in 1940, trading its securities over-the-counter. Joseph A. Cutler, who started in 1912 as a sales engineer and became President in 1938, led the company as the world moved from the Great Depression into World War II.
The U.S. government now classified Johnson Service Company as part of an industry essential to the war effort. This meant the company equipped defense facilities with temperature and humidity control systems, and also developed gas leak detectors, radiosondes to help pilots gather weather data, and echo boxes to test radar sets.
Following the war, civilian construction included renewed interest in air conditioning, for comfort and for health. When Jonas Salk’s polio vaccine was rushed into mass production in 1955, the Johnson Service Company installed temperature-regulating apparatus in the virus incubation rooms.
Large buildings now had hundreds of thermostats, valves, dampers and other control devices, each of which had to be checked several times a day. Johnson Service Company’s pneumatic control center, introduced in 1956, made it possible to monitor all of a facility’s temperature control devices from one location. Johnson Service Company sales hit $50 million in 1959, up from $10 million in 1949. Innovation was thriving.
EXPANDING INTO NEW OPPORTUNITIES...
The space race was on, with the Johnson Service Company providing mission control instrumentation for the Apollo and Saturn programs through the 1960s. As the decade drew to a close, company President Fred Brengel led the company into its own new world.
The company expanded its technological capabilities through a series of acquisitions, including Penn Controls in 1968, with plants and subsidiaries in Canada, the Netherlands, Argentina and Japan. In 1972, building control innovation continued as Johnson introduced the industry’s first mini-computer system dedicated to building control. The JC/80 could reduce fuel use by as much as 30 percent, highly desirable in an era of rising oil prices.
In 1974, the company took on a new name—Johnson Controls. In 1978, Johnson Controls took on leadership in a new field, acquiring Globe-Union, the largest U.S. manufacturer of automotive batteries.
Three years after the merger, sales surpassed $1 billion. Diversification continued in 1985, when the company acquired Hoover Universal and entered the automotive seating and plastic container industries. With the acquisition later that year of automotive seating supplier Ferro Manufacturing, Johnson Controls was now the leading independent supplier of automotive seats to the original equipment manufacturers.
GLOBAL LEADERSHIP...
While the world marveled at personal computers, mobile phones and the Internet, Johnson Controls began an era of exceptional growth, adding business operations and customers all over the globe.
In 1990, the company introduced the breakthrough Metasys® building management system, created by a team from the U.S., Japan, India, Germany and Canada. Metasys integrates management of a building’s environment, energy use, lighting, fire safety and security, and today offers Web and wireless capabilities. In 2005, Building Efficiency doubled in size when it acquired York International. Today, Johnson Controls is a leading provider of equipment and controls for heating, ventilating, air-conditioning and refrigeration, as well as security systems for buildings.
Meanwhile, Automotive Experience evolved from producing components, to seating systems, to cockpit modules, to complete interiors—greatly expanding the business in 1996 with the acquisition of Prince Automotive. By 2000, Johnson Controls was providing seating, overhead systems, electronics and door systems for 35 million vehicles a year. Emerging and expanding markets in Europe and joint ventures in China fueled growth at the end of the decade.
Since 1985, Power Solutions has become the world’s largest maker of lead-acid automotive batteries and a pioneer in battery technology. In a joint venture with Saft, Johnson Controls is the only company in the world producing lithium-ion batteries for mass-produced hybrid vehicles. With a nearly $300 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy in 2009, the company is building the industry for hybrid, plug-in and all-electric vehicles, starting with the first lithium-ion manufacturing facility in the United States, in Holland, Michigan.
True to its core values, Johnson Controls also emphasizes environmental stewardship, diversity and community support. Through a building retrofit, the company’s Corporate and Power Solutions headquarters in Glendale showcases the energy-efficient and sustainable building products and services we provide to customers, with the goal of becoming the world’s first LEED platinum-rated campus.
Benefits
The quality of our products and services is directly tied to attracting and retaining the best talent available. Competitive wages and benefits, future opportunities, plus a dynamic work environment make Johnson Controls the employer of choice for professionals of all backgrounds. We support development of our employees through continuing education and challenging work assignments. And we reward employees based on their performance.
We offer an attractive benefits package featuring health care coverage, tuition reimbursement, a 401(k) retirement plan and much more. Johnson Controls also operates a full-time educational institute where thousands of employees each year enhance their job skills and grow personally.
Johnson Controls regularly conducts a survey in which we ask employees for their perception of Pride in Company, Treatment, Employee Development, Compensation, Benefits, Teamwork, Their Job, Immediate Supervisor, Communication, Employee Satisfaction, Quality, Health and Safety, and Diversity. Based on the feedback we receive, we develop action plans to make improvements in the areas requiring further attention – or continue to leverage those areas where we are doing well. We give our employees opportunities to be part of these changes to help ensure that they feel Johnson Controls is a great place to work.
We also reward our people for going above and beyond the call of duty. The company’s highest honor — the Chairman’s Award for Exceeding Customer Expectations — recognizes employees who exceed customer expectations through quality, service, productivity and time compression. Chairman’s Awards are given personally by the company’s chairman at special ceremonies throughout the world.