Wyman-Gordon
Wyman-Gordon is a US-based metalworking company and a subsidiary of Precision Castparts Corporation , now headquartered in Houston , Texas .
history
Wyman-Gordon was founded in Worcester in 1883 by Horace Wyman and Lyman Gordon as a manufacturer of drive shafts for weaving machines . The initial wooden barracks housed seven Hammers made by a 50 hp - steam engine were powered and operated by eight employees. Wyman's and Gordon's fathers were both senior employees at the Crompton Loom Works, a Worcester weaving mill. Through their employment, they ensured new orders for the production of iron shafts and other forged parts in the early days. In the decades that followed, customers from the bicycle, railroad and, above all, the automotive industry were also acquired.
When the First World War broke out, the company received government contracts to manufacture forged parts for aircraft construction. These orders built lasting relationships in civil and military aircraft construction in the United States, and in the next two decades generated additional orders for forged parts for engines, fuselages, and landing gears. The large number of orders made it necessary to expand the existing plant and build a new one in Illinois. Wyman-Gordon was one of the first manufacturers of titanium forgings in the USA.
The first titanium products were components for aircraft turbines from Pratt & Whitney , which were installed in aircraft of the Century series . Other customers were General Electric and Westinghouse . Wyman-Gordon forged parts for the rocket engine of the LGM-30 Minuteman in the 1950s. Also in the 1950s , one of the largest forging presses in the world was installed in a United States Air Force forge in Grafton , operated by Wyman-Gordon. This press was developed as part of the Heavy Press Program and was later added to the list of Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmarks by ASME . In the following decades, the company was involved in the development of and component manufacturing for the Lockheed SR-71 , the Boeing 747 and numerous fighter aircraft. At the beginning of the 1970s, almost every civil and military aircraft, helicopter and ballistic missile made in the USA had titanium components manufactured by Wyman-Gordon. From 1980, the demand for aircraft components made of titanium became so high that the company ran into difficulties in sourcing raw materials. Since Wyman-Gordon's suppliers refused to permanently expand their capacities due to doubts about the sustainability of the increased demand, the supply of titanium semi-finished products soon became scarce. In view of these delivery difficulties, the group management decided to start manufacturing the semi-finished products themselves. In 1980 a majority stake in International Titanium, Inc, a manufacturer of titanium foam, was taken over . This metal foam was later melted down at Wyman-Gordon, poured into its basic shape and formed into semi-finished products.
Towards the end of the 1980s, also due to the end of the Cold War, the demand for components for military aircraft, but also for traffic machines, fell suddenly. This ushered in a veritable crisis for the entire arms industry and with it Wyman-Gordon. After a short period of consolidation, the company was taken over by Precision Castparts in 1999.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ American Society of Mechanical Engineers: THE WYMAN-GORDON 50,000-TON FORGING PRESS , accessed February 26, 2019.
- ↑ fundinguniverse.com: Wyman-Gordon Company History , accessed February 26, 2019.
- ↑ wbjournal.com: Buffett's piece of Worcester , accessed February 26, 2019.