Pub. 7 2017 Issue 1

8 AT THE CENTER OF UTAH INDUSTRY JOY GLOBAL: A HISTORY OF INNOVATION F or more than a century, the mining brands that form the foundation of Joy Global – P&H, Joy and Mon- tabert – have led the charge on mining innovation. All three brands were independently founded with a focus on improving processes and solving industry challenges, motivations that remain at the heart of Joy Global’s operations today. P&H co-founders Alonzo Pawling and Henry Harnischfeger were the first of these ground-breaking innovators. They joined forces in 1884 and quickly transitioned frommachine and pattern supply to solving the crane industry’s challenges. By 1920, they’d launched the Model 206 Excavator - the first in a long line of best-selling shovels for mining. Just a year earlier, in 1919, Joseph Francis Joy founded the Joy Machine Company and patented the first mechanical loader. He soon answered the industry’s call for “block coal” as well, producing a number of coal saws and accompanying saw loaders that resembled today’s continuous miners. Then in 1921, Joannès Montabert founded his company to produce pneumatic equipment. By 1949, Montabert had its own Research and Development Department to initiate new product engineering and rapidly accelerate innovation. As their industries shifted and customer needs changed, these brands adapted and expanded their offerings to keep improving processes, removing people from harm’s way and pushing for further innovation. Pawling and Harnischfeger responded to the rapidly developing industrial and infrastructural systems of early 1900’s America with the first earth-altering P&H machine. Joy in 1948 produced its first continuous miner (Model 3JCM) and revealed its new high-seamshuttle car (model 10SC). Montabert would come to invent the first hydraulic concrete breaker and in a similar vein to the other brands, commercialize the product and open it to global distribution. Adaptability was vital for each of these brands to maintain their positions as market leaders and remain focused on customers’ challenges. Montabert, for example, by the second half of the 20th Century, saw that customer selection and customization was the name of the game and developed a series of innovations including the new “burn cut” method of underground drilling and the first hand-held, hydraulic powered jack hammer.