Honeywell

History

The Butz Thermo-Electric Regulator Company was founded in 1885 when the Swiss-born Albert Butz invented the damper-flapper, a thermostat used to control coal furnaces, bringing automated heating system regulation into homes. In 1888, after a falling out with his investors, Butz left the company and transferred the patents to the legal firm Paul, Sanford, and Merwin, who renamed the company the Consolidated Temperature Controlling Company.

As the years passed, CTCC struggled with debt and the company underwent several name changes. After it was renamed the Electric Heat Regulator Company in 1893, W. R. Sweatt, a stockholder in the company, was sold "an extensive list of patents" and named secretary-treasurer. By 1900, Sweatt had bought out the remaining shares of the company from the other stockholders.

1906 Honeywell Heating Specialty Company founded

In 1906, Mark Honeywell founded the Honeywell Heating Specialty Company in Wabash, Indiana, to manufacture and market his invention, the mercury seal generator.

1922–1934 Mergers and acquisitions

As Honeywell's company grew, thanks in part to the acquisition of Jewell Manufacturing Company in 1922 to better automate his heating system, it began to clash with the Electric Heat Regulator Company now-renamed Minneapolis Heat Regulator Company. In 1927, this led to the merging of both companies into the publicly held Minneapolis-Honeywell Regulator Company. Honeywell was named the company's first president, alongside W.R. Sweatt as its first chairman.

In 1929, combined assets were valued at over $3.5 million, with less than $1 million in liabilities just months before Black Monday. In 1931, Minneapolis-Honeywell began a period of expansion and acquisition when it purchased the Time-O-Stat Controls Company, giving the company access to a greater number of patents for its controls systems.

W.R. Sweatt and his son Harold provided 75 years of uninterrupted leadership for the company. W.R. Sweatt faced hardship and turned an innovative idea – thermostatic heating control – into a successful business.

1934–1941 International growth

Harold took over in 1934, leading Honeywell through a period of growth and global expansion that set the stage for Honeywell to become a global technology leader. The merger into the Minneapolis-Honeywell Regulator Company proved to be a saving grace for the corporation.

1934 marked Minneapolis-Honeywell's first foray into the international market, when it acquired the Brown Instrument Company and inherited its relationship with the Yamatake Company of Tokyo, a Japan-based distributor. Later in 1934, Minneapolis-Honeywell started distributorships across Canada, as well as one in the Netherlands, its first European office. This expansion into international markets continued in 1936, with its first distributorship in London, as well as its first foreign assembly facility being established in Canada. By 1937, ten years after the merger, Minneapolis-Honeywell had over 3,000 employees, with $16 million in annual revenue.

World War II

With the outbreak of World War II, Minneapolis-Honeywell was approached by the US military for engineering and manufacturing projects. In 1941, Minneapolis-Honeywell developed a superior tank periscope, camera stabilizers, and the C-1 autopilot.

The C-1 revolutionized precision bombing and was ultimately used on the two B-29 bombers that dropped atomic bombs on Japan in 1945. The success of these projects led Minneapolis-Honeywell to open an Aero division in Chicago on October 5, 1942. This division was responsible for the development of the formation stick to control autopilots, more accurate fuel quantity indicators for aircraft, and the turbo supercharger.

In 1950, Minneapolis-Honeywell's Aero division was contracted for the controls on the first US nuclear submarine, USS Nautilus. In 1951, the company acquired Intervox Company for their sonar, ultrasonic, and telemetry technologies. Honeywell also helped develop and manufacture the RUR-5 ASROC for the US Navy.

1950–1970s

In 1953, in cooperation with the USAF Wright-Air Development Center, Honeywell developed an automated control unit, that could control an aircraft through various stages of a flight, from taxiing to takeoff to the point where the aircraft neared its destination and the pilot took over for landing. Called the Automatic Master Sequence Selector, the onboard control operated similarly to a player piano to relay instructions to the aircraft's autopilot at certain way points during the flight, significantly reducing the pilot's workload. Technologically, this effort had parallels to contemporary efforts in missile guidance and numerical control. Honeywell also developed the Wagtail missile with the USAF.

From the 1950s until the mid-1970s, Honeywell was the United States' importer of Japanese company Asahi Optical's Pentax cameras and photographic equipment. These products were labeled "Heiland Pentax" and "Honeywell Pentax" in the U.S. In 1953, Honeywell introduced its most famous product, the T-86 Round thermostat.

In 1961, James H. Binger became Honeywell's president and in 1965 its chairman. Binger revamped the company sales approach, placing emphasis on profits rather than on volume. He stepped up the company's international expansion – it had six plants producing 12% of the company's revenue. He officially changed the company's corporate name from "Minneapolis-Honeywell Regulator Co." to "Honeywell", to better represent their colloquial name. Throughout the 1960s, Honeywell continued to acquire other businesses, including Security Burglar Alarm Company in 1969.

In the 1970s, after one member of a group called FREE on the Minneapolis campus (U of M) of the University of Minnesota asked five major companies with local offices to explain their attitudes toward gay men and women, three responded quickly, insisting that they did not discriminate against gay people in their hiring policies. Only Honeywell objected to hiring gay people. Later in the 1970s, when faced with a denial of access to students, Honeywell "quietly [reversed] its hiring policy".

The beginning of the 1970s saw Honeywell focus on process controls, with Honeywell merging its computer operations with GE's information systems in 1970, and later acquiring GE's process control business. With the acquisition, Honeywell took over responsibility for GE's ongoing Multics operating system project. The design and features of Multics greatly influenced the Unix operating system. Multics influenced many of the features of Honeywell/GE's GECOS and GCOS8 General Comprehensive Operating System operating systems. Honeywell, Groupe Bull, and Control Data Corporation formed a joint venture in Magnetic Peripherals Inc. which became a major player in the hard disk drive market.

1985–1999 integrations

1986 marked a new direction for Honeywell, beginning with the acquisition of the Sperry Aerospace Group from the Unisys Corporation. In 1990, Honeywell spun off its Defense and Marine Systems business into Alliant Techsystems, as well as their Test Instruments division and Signal Analysis Center to streamline the company's focus. Honeywell continues to supply aerospace products including electronic guidance systems, cockpit instrumentation, lighting, and primary propulsion and secondary power turbine engines. In 1996, Honeywell acquired Duracraft and began marketing its products in the home comfort sector.

Honeywell is in the consortium that runs the Pantex Plant that assembles all of the nuclear bombs in the United States arsenal. Honeywell Federal Manufacturing & Technologies, successor to the defense products of AlliedSignal, operates the Kansas City Plant which produces and assembles 85 percent of the non-nuclear components of the bombs.

Honeywell began the SmartHouse project, to combine heating, cooling, security, lighting, and appliances into one easily controlled system. They continued the trend in 1987 by releasing new security systems, and fire and radon detectors. In 1992, in another streamlining effort, Honeywell combined its Residential Controls, Commercial Systems, and Protections Services divisions into Home and Building Control, which then acquired the Enviracare air cleaner business. By 1995, Honeywell had condensed into three divisions: Space and Aviation Control, Home and Building Control, and Industrial Control.

Honeywell dissolved its partnership with Yamatake Company and consolidated its Process Control Products Division, Process Management System Division, and Micro Switch Division into one Industrial Control Group in 1998. It has further acquired Measurex System and Leeds & Northrup to strengthen its portfolio in 1997.

1999–2002 merger, takeovers

On June 7, 1999, Honeywell was acquired by AlliedSignal, who elected to retain the Honeywell name for its brand recognition. The former Honeywell moved their headquarters of 114 years to AlliedSignal's in Morristown, New Jersey. While "technically, the deal looks more like an acquisition than a merger...from a strategic standpoint, it is a merger of equals." AlliedSignal's 1998 revenue was reported at $15.1 billion to Honeywell's $8.4 billion, but together the companies share huge business interests in aerospace, chemical products, automotive parts, and building controls.

The corporate headquarters were consolidated to AlliedSignal's headquarters in Morristown, New Jersey, rather than Honeywell's former headquarters in Minneapolis, Minnesota. When Honeywell closed its corporate headquarters in Minneapolis, over one thousand employees lost their jobs. A few moved to Morristown or other company locations, but the majority were forced to find new jobs or retire. Soon after the merger, the company's stock fell significantly, and did not return to its pre-merger level until 2007.

In 2000, the new Honeywell acquired Pittway for $2.2 billion to gain a greater share of the fire-protection and security systems market, and merged it into their Home and Building Control division, taking on Pittway's $167 million in debt. Analyst David Jarrett commented that "while Honeywell offered a hefty premium, it's still getting Pittway for a bargain" at $45.50 per share, despite closing at $29 the week before. Pittway's Ademco products complemented Honeywell's existing unified controls systems.

In October 2000, Honeywell, then valued at over $21 billion, accepted a takeover bid from then-CEO Jack Welch of General Electric. The American Department of Justice cleared the merger, while "GE teams swooped down on Honeywell" and "GE executives took over budget planning and employee reviews." However, on July 3, 2001, the European Commission's competition commissioner, Mario Monti, blocked the move. This decision was taken on the grounds that with GE's dominance of the large jet engine market, led by the General Electric CF34 turbofan engine, its leasing services (GECAS), and Honeywell's portfolio of regional jet engines and avionics, the new company would be able to "bundle" products and stifle competition through the creation of a horizontal monopoly.

US regulators disagreed, finding that the merger would improve competition and reduce prices; United States Assistant Attorney General Charles James called the EU's decision "antithetical to the goals of antitrust law enforcement." This led to a drop in morale and general tumult throughout Honeywell. The then-CEO Michael Bonsignore was fired as Honeywell looked to turn its business around.

2002–2014 acquisitions and further expansion

In January 2002, Knorr-Bremse —who had been operating in a joint venture with Honeywell International Inc. —assumed full ownership of its ventures in Europe, Brazil, and the USA. Bendix Commercial Vehicle Systems became a subsidiary of Knorr-Bremse AG.

In February 2002, Honeywell's board appointed its next CEO and chairman, David M. Cote. Since 2002, Honeywell has made more than 80 acquisitions and 60 divestitures, and increasing its labor force to 131,000 as a result of these acquisitions. Honeywell's stock nearly tripled from $35.23 in April 2002 to $99.39 in January 2015.

Honeywell made a £1.2bn ($2.3bn) bid for Novar plc in December 2004. The acquisition was finalized in March 2005. In October 2005, Honeywell bought out Dow's 50% stake in UOP for $825 million, giving them complete control over the joint venture in petrochemical and refining technology. In May 2010, Honeywell outbid UK-based Cinven and acquired the French company Sperian Protection for $1.4 billion, which was then incorporated into its automation and controls safety unit.

2015–present

In 2015, the headquarters were moved to Morris Plains, New Jersey. The headquarters in Morris Plains included a 475,000-square-foot building on 40 acres.

In December 2015, Honeywell acquired Elster for US$5.1B, entering the space of gas, electricity, and water meters with a specific focus on smart meters. Honeywell International Inc. then acquired the 30% stake in UOP Russell LLC it didn't own already for roughly $240 million in January 2016.

In April 2016, Honeywell acquired Xtralis, a provider of aspirating smoke detection, perimeter security technologies, and video analytics software, for $480 million, from funds advised by Pacific Equity Partners and Blum Capital Partners. In May 2016, Honeywell International Inc. settled its patent dispute regarding Google subsidiary Nest Labs, whose thermostats Honeywell claimed infringed on several of its patents. Google parent Alphabet Inc. and Honeywell said it reached a "patent cross-license" agreement that "fully resolves" the long-standing dispute. Honeywell sued Nest Labs in 2012. In 2017, Honeywell opened a new software center in Atlanta, Georgia.

David Cote stepped down as CEO on April 1, 2017, and was succeeded by Darius Adamczyk, who had been promoted to president and chief operating officer (COO) in 2016. Cote served as executive chairman until April 2018. In October 2017, Honeywell announced plans to spin off its Homes, ADI Global Distribution, and Transportation Systems businesses into two separate, publicly traded companies by the end of 2018.

In 2018, Honeywell spun off both Honeywell Turbo Technologies, now Garrett Advancing Motion, and its consumer products business, Resideo. Both companies are publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange. For the fiscal year 2019, Honeywell reported net income of US$6.230 billion, with an annual revenue of US$36.709 billion, a decrease of 19.11% over the previous fiscal cycle. Honeywell's market capitalization was valued at over US$113.25 billion in September 2020.

Honeywell relocated its corporate headquarters in October 2019 to Charlotte, North Carolina. In July 2019, Honeywell moved employees into a temporary headquarters building in Charlotte before their new building was complete.

Business groups

The company operates four business groups – Honeywell Aerospace Technologies, Building Automation, Safety and Productivity Solutions (SPS), and Performance Materials and Technologies (PMT). Business units within the company are as follows:

Honeywell Aerospace Technologies provides avionics, aircraft engines, flight management systems, and service solutions to manufacturers, airlines, airport operations, militaries, and space programs. It comprises Commercial Aviation, Defense & Space, and Business & General Aviation. In January 2014, Honeywell Aerospace Technologies launched its SmartPath Precision Landing System at Malaga-Costa del Sol Airport in Spain, which augments GPS signals to make them suitable for precision approach and landing, before broadcasting the data to approaching aircraft. In June 2026, Honeywell Aerospace completed a spin-off into an independent public company.

In July 2014, Honeywell's Transportation Systems merged with the Aerospace division due to similarities between the businesses. In April 2018, Honeywell announced to develop laser communication products for satellite communication in collaboration with Ball Aerospace and plans future volume production. In June 2018 Honeywell spun off and rebranded its Transportation Systems as Garrett.

Building Automation and Honeywell Safety and Productivity Solutions were created when Automation and Control Solutions was split into two in July 2016. Building Automation comprises Honeywell Building Solutions, Environmental and Energy Solutions, and Honeywell Security and Fire. In December 2017, Honeywell announced that it had acquired SCAME, an Italy-based company, to add new fire and gas safety capabilities to its portfolio. Honeywell Safety and Productivity Solutions comprises Scanning & Mobility, Sensing and Internet of Things, and Industrial safety.

Honeywell Performance Materials and Technologies comprises six business units: Honeywell UOP, Honeywell Process Solutions, Fluorine Products, Electronic Materials, Resins & Chemicals, and Specialty Materials. Products include process technology for oil and gas processing, fuels, films and additives, special chemicals, electronic materials, and renewable transport fuels.

Corporate governance

Honeywell's current chief executive officer is Vimal Kapur. As of June 2023, the members of the board are:

Acquisitions since 2002

Honeywell's acquisitions have consisted largely of businesses aligned with the company's existing technologies. The acquired companies are integrated into one of Honeywell's five business groups (Aerospace Technologies (AT), Building Automation (BA), Safety and Productivity Solutions (SPS), Energy and Sustainability Solutions (ESS), or Performance Materials and Technologies (PMT)) but retain their original brand name.

Environmental issues

The United States Environmental Protection Agency states that no corporation has been linked to a greater number of Superfund toxic waste sites than Honeywell. In 2007, Honeywell ranked 44th in a list of US corporations most responsible for air pollution, releasing more than 4.25 million kg (9.4 million pounds) of toxins per year into the air. In 2001, Honeywell agreed to pay $150,000 in civil penalties and to perform $772,000 worth of reparations for environmental violations involving:

failure to prevent or repair leaks of hazardous organic pollutants into the air

failure to repair or report refrigeration equipment containing chlorofluorocarbons

inadequate reporting of benzene, ammonia, nitrogen oxide, dichlorodifluoromethane, sulfuric acid, sulfur dioxide, and caprolactam emissions

In 2003, a federal judge in Newark, New Jersey, ordered the company to perform an estimated $400 million environmental remediation of chromium waste, citing "a substantial risk of imminent damage to public health and safety and imminent and severe damage to the environment." In 2003, Honeywell paid $3.6 million to avoid a federal trial regarding its responsibility for trichloroethylene contamination in Lisle, Illinois. In 2004, the State of New York announced that it would require Honeywell to complete an estimated $448 million cleanup of more than 74,000 kg (165,000 lbs) of mercury and other toxic waste dumped into Onondaga Lake in Syracuse, New York, from a former Allied Chemical property.

Honeywell established three water treatment plants by November 2014. The chemicals cleanup site removed 7 tons of mercury. In November 2015, Audubon New York gave the Thomas W. Keesee Jr. Conservation Award to Honeywell for its cleanup efforts in “one of the most ambitious environmental reclamation projects in the United States.” By December 2017, Honeywell completed dredging the lake. Later in December, the Department of Justice filed a settlement requiring Honeywell to pay a separate $9.5 million in damages, as well build 20 restoration projects on the shore to help repair the greater area surrounding the lake.

Leadership

Presidents and chairmen of the company have been:

President

Mark Charles Honeywell, 1927–1934

Harold Wilson Sweatt, 1934–1952

Paul Barclay Wishart, 1952–1960

James Henry Binger, 1960–1965

Stephen Flaherty Keating, 1965–1974

Edson White Spencer, 1974–1978

James Joseph Renier, 1986–1988

David Larry Moore, 1993–1997

Giannantonio Ferrari, 1997–2000

Robert D. Johnson, 1999–2000

Darius Adamczyk, 2016–2018

Vimal Kapur, 2022–2024

Chairman of the Board

Mark Charles Honeywell, 1934–1954

Harold Wilson Sweatt, 1954–1965

James Henry Binger, 1965–1975

Stephen Flaherty Keating, 1975–1978

Edson White Spencer, 1978–1988

James Joseph Renier, 1988–1993

Michael Robert Bonsignore, 1993–2000

Lawrence Arthur Bossidy, 2000–2002

David M. Cote, 2002–2018

Darius Adamczyk, 2018–2024

Vimal Kapur, 2024–present