Corning Incorporated Information
Corning Incorporated (NYSE: GLW) is an American manufacturer of glass, ceramics and related materials, primarily for industrial and scientific applications. The company was known as Corning Glass Works until 1989, when it changed its name to Corning Incorporated. While probably best known for its line of Corelle tableware and Pyrex cookware (businesses which it sold but in which it still holds an ~8% interest), Corning has transformed itself over the years into a high technology company, allocating a significant amount of resources towards research and development. As of 2008, Corning has five major business sectors: Display Technologies, Environmental Technologies, Life Sciences, Telecommunications and Specialty Materials. Corning is also involved in several joint equity ventures. These include Dow Corning, as well as two companies, Quest Diagnostics and Covance, that were spun off from Corning.
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History
One of the first optic headlamp lenses, the Corning Conaphore. Selective yellow "Noviol" glass version shown.Originally founded in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, New York, the company later moved its operations to (and took the name of) the city of Corning, New York. Corning maintains their world headquarters within New York City itself. The firm has also established and continue to expand their nearby research and development facility, as well as operations associated with catalytic converters and diesel filters. Corning has a long history of community development and has assured community leaders of their intent to remain headquartered in the city.[1]
1917 advertisement for the Corning Conaphore headlamp lens shown above.The company had a history of science-based innovations following World War II and the strategy by management was research and "disruptive" and "on demand" product innovation.[2]
In 1968, Corning developed a new automobile windshield with properties designed to make it thinner and lighter, as well as reduce the danger of injury by turning into small granules when smashed.[3] This toughened glass featured a chemically hardened outer layer and its manufacture incorporated an ion exchange and a "fusion process" in special furnaces that Corning built in its Blacksburg, Virginia facility.[2][4] Corning developed it as an alternative to laminated windshields and to become a supplier in an automobile industry segment.[2] The new windshields debuted on the 1970 model year Javelins and AMXs built by American Motors Corporation (AMC).[4] Because of the absence of government safety standards for motor vehicle windshields, the larger automakers had no incentive to change from the cheaper and less-safe glass.[2][4] Corning terminated its windshield project in 1971, after it turned out to be one of the company's "biggest and most expensive failures."[4]
In the fall of 1970, the company announced that researchers Robert D. Maurer, Donald Keck, Peter C. Schultz, and Frank Zimar had demonstrated a fiber with 17 dB optic attenuation per kilometer by doping silica glass with titanium. A few years later they produced a fiber with only 4 dB/km using germanium oxide as the core dopant. Such low attenuations ushered in optical fiber telecommunications and enabled the Internet. Corning became the leading manufacturer of optical fiber.
Company profits soared during the late-1990s as part of the dot-com boom and Corning expanded its fiber operations significantly with several new plants. They also entered the Photonics market with the intent of becoming a major provider of complete fiber optic systems. The subsequent collapse of the dot-com market had a major impact on the company, with its stock plunging at one point to $1 per share. As of 2007, Corning has posted five straight years of improving financial performance.
Current technologies
As of 2008, Corning is the leading manufacturer of the glass used in liquid crystal displays. Corning has recently announced the expansion of existing facilities as well as the construction of an all new Gen 10 facility co-located with the Sharp Corporation manufacturing complex in Sakai, Osaka, Japan.[5] Corning has gone "green" in LCD glass substrate, in that the glass is produced without the use of heavy metals. The company continues to produce optical fiber and cable for the communications industry at its Wilmington and Concord plants. It is also a major manufacturer of ceramic emission control devices for catalytic converters in cars and light trucks that use gasoline engines. The company is also investing in the production of ceramic emission control products for diesel engines as a result of tighter emission standards for those engines both in the U.S. and abroad.
In 2007 they announced the development of an optic fiber, ClearCurve, which uses nanostructure technology to facilitate small radii bending that one would encounter in FTTX installations. Gorilla Glass (originally called Chemcor, and developed in 1962[6]) entered the market in 2008, a high-strength alkali-aluminosilicate thin sheet glass used as a protective cover glass offering scratch resistance and durability in handheld devices with touchscreens.[7] As part of its commitment to constantly reinventing itself, Corning invests a substantial amount of revenue (~10%) towards research and development and has earmarked $300 million dollars towards further expansion of its Sullivan Park research facility.[8]
Other notable products manufactured by Corning Incorporated include a high purity fused silica employed in microlithography systems, a low expansion glass utilized in the construction of reflective mirror blanks, windows for U.S. Space Shuttles, and Steuben art glass. While the number of Corning facilities still employing the traditional tanks of molten glass has shrunk over the years, it maintains the capacity to produce a wide assortment of glass compositions and to supply the market with bulk or finished material.
Currently, as part of its research and development efforts, Corning is working in a variety of emerging technology areas including green lasers, mercury abatement, microreactors, photovoltaics and silicon on glass.
Other activities
Corning Incorporated employs over 23,000 people worldwide and had sales of $5.9 billion for the 2008 calendar year. Corning has been listed for many years among Fortune magazine's 500 largest industrial companies, and was ranked 414.
Although the company is publicly owned, James R. Houghton, a descendant of the founder, served as chairman of the board of directors from 2001 to 2007 and still serves as a director. Wendell P. Weeks is chairman and chief executive officer (as of 2009).
Other Corning notables over its 150-year history include: invention of a process for rapid and inexpensive production of light bulbs (Corning developed the glass for Thomas Edison's light bulb), early major manufacturer of glass panels and funnels for television tubes, invention and production of Vycor (high temperature glass with high thermal shock resistance), and the invention and production of Corelle (durable glass dinnerware), Pyrex, and Pyroceram (glass-ceramic cookware). Corning manufactured the windows for every U.S. manned space vehicle, and supplied the glass blank for the primary mirror in the Hubble Space Telescope. Corning is also a four-time National Medal of Technology winner for its product and process innovations[citation needed].
In July 2008, Corning announced the sale of its Steuben Glass operations to Steuben Glass, LLC, an affiliate of the private equity company of Schottenstein Stores Corporation. The Steuben Glass operations had been unprofitable for over a decade, losing 30 million dollars over the previous five years.[9]
Board of directors
- John Seely Brown: Retired Chief Scientist, Xerox Corporation
- Robert F. Cummings, Jr.: Senior Managing Director, GSC Group, Inc.
- James B. Flaws: Vice Chairman and Chief Financial Officer, Corning Incorporated
- Gordon Gund: Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Gund Investment Corporation
- Carlos M. Gutierrez: Retired U.S. Secretary of Commerce
- James R. Houghton: Chairman Emeritus, Corning Incorporated
- Kurt M. Landgraf: President and Chief Executive Officer, Educational Testing Service
- James J. O'Connor: Retired Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, Unicom Corporation
- Deborah D. Rieman: Managing Director, Equus Management Company
- H. Onno Ruding: Retired Vice Chairman, Citicorp and Citibank, N.A.
- William D. Smithburg: Retired Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, The Quaker Oats Company
- Hansel E. Tookes II: Retired Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Raytheon Aircraft Company
- Peter F. Volanakis: President and Chief Operating Officer, Corning Incorporated
- Wendell P. Weeks: Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Corning Incorporated
- Mark S. Wrighton: Chancellor and Professor of Chemistry, Washington University in St. Louis
See also
- The Houghton Family
- City of Corning, NY
- Overflow downdraw method - technology applied by Corning Incorporated for producing flat panel displays
- World Kitchen LLC - was the new name adopted by Corning's Consumer Products after it was sold to Borden.
- Corning Museum of Glass
References
- ^ "Corning Chairman Emphasizes Sustainable Performance and "Unwavering" Commitment to Innovation". Corning.com. 2008-04-24. http://www.corning.com/news_center/news_releases/2008/2008042402.aspx. Retrieved 2010-08-05.
- ^ a b c d Clarke, Sally H.; Lamoreaux, Naomi; Usselman, Steven (2009). The Challenge of Remaining Innovative: Insights from Twentieth-Century American Business. Stanford University Press. p. 99. ISBN 9780804758925. http://books.google.com/books?id=Ho6hmHrCjCEC&pg=PA99&dq=AMC+Javelin+windshield+auto+companies&hl=en. Retrieved 26 November 2010.
- ^ Flint, Jerry M. (27 November 1968). "New Windshield for Cars Called Safer in Crashes". The New York Times: p. 53. http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F60A10F6395E1A7B93C5AB178AD95F4C8685F9. Retrieved 13 August 2010.
- ^ a b c d Dyer, Davis; Gross, Daniel (2001). The generations of Corning: the life and times of a global corporation. Oxford University Press. pp. 302–303. ISBN 9780195140958. http://books.google.com/books?id=AvofPf8dTMMC&pg=PA303&dq=Javelin+windshield&hl=en. Retrieved 26 November 2010.
- ^ "Large Generation Glass". Corning Incorporated. http://www.corning.com/displaytechnologies/en/products/large_gen.aspx. Retrieved 3 November 2010.
- ^ Dobbin, Ben (1 August 2010). "1962 glass could be Corning's next bonanza seller". Finance.yahoo.com. http://finance.yahoo.com/news/1962-glass-could-be-Cornings-apf-978849301.html?x=0. Retrieved 26 November 2010.
- ^ "Gorilla Glass Overview". Corning.com. 31 December 2007. http://www.corning.com/gorillaglass/index.aspx. Retrieved 26 November 2010.
- ^ [1]
- ^ "Corning Reaches Agreement to Sell Steuben". Corning Incorporated. 23 July 2008. http://www.corning.com/news_center/news_releases/2008/2008072301.aspx. Retrieved 26 November 2010.
External links
- Corporate website
- The Trials of Amory Houghton Jr., article in Forbes Magazine, September 1977, describing the company's mid-1970s crisis.
- 2008 Annual Report
- 2007 Annual Report
- 2006 Annual Report
- 2005 Annual Report
- 2004 Annual Report
- 2003 Annual Report
Categories: Companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange | Manufacturing companies based in New York | Networking hardware companies | Companies established in 1851 | Glassmaking companies | Steuben County, New York | Wire and cable manufacturers
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