Parker Hannifin

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Incorporated: 1918 as Parker Appliance Company
SIC: 3593 Fluid Power Cylinders & Actuators; 3594 Fluid Power Pumps & Motors; 3728 Aircraft Parts & Equipment Nec; 3714 Motor Vehicle Parts & Accessories

Motion control through the use of air, liquid, and gas is the principal concern of Parker-Hannifin Corporation. Operating internationally through numerous subsidiaries, the company manufactures fluid power systems and components for use in industrial machinery, military equipment, air, sea, and space craft, and automobiles.

Parker-Hannifin started as an automobile brake company. The automotive market has been a lucrative one since its early 20th-century infancy. Thought of at first as a rich man's toy, private transportation was within the reach of the middle class well before 1911, when Henry Ford sold 78,000 Tin Lizzies. By 1918, the first year of the Parker Appliance Company's existence, there were more than one million cars a year coming out of factories in Detroit, Michigan; Cleveland, Ohio; and other centers.

Engineer-inventor Art Parker entered this profitable field modestly, with a pneumatic brake booster designed to make stopping easier for trucks and buses. This initial effort was doomed; the company's first promotional tour came to an abrupt end when an ice patch on a Pennsylvania hill sent Parker's only truck careening over a cliff. This catastrophe sank his bank balance but did not douse his dream of heading a motion control manufacturing business.

In 1924 he tried again, offering new flared-tube fitting components to expand his one-product line. Useful for many purposes, these attracted a wide variety of industrial manufacturers. The successful new start encouraged Parker to broaden his horizons. Noting opportunities in the fledgling aviation industry, he made lifelong customers of such pioneers as Donald Douglas of Douglas Aircraft Company and Robert Gross of Lockheed, who soon learned to rely on him as much for his knowledge of hydraulics as for dependable parts. Parker accepted their challenges willingly, helping them to design a hydraulic successor for the heavy gear-and-chain-driven parts then being used to move all airplane control surfaces. This cooperation was so valuable that neither Parker nor the flight industry suffered during the Depression. Instead, all parties flourished, aided by the growing military importance and commercial potential of their products.

Like the aviation section, the automotive division of the Parker Appliance Company grew during the Great Depression years. Though there was a drop of almost 500,000 in privately owned vehicles between 1930 and 1935, this decline did not affect Parker's profits. Travelers without their own cars simply used buses, which always need parts for maintenance and repair.

Now indispensable to two transport industries, the company achieved $2 million in sales in 1934. Other businesses were not so lucky: although almost four million cars rolled off assembly lines in 1935, many smaller factories had to close their doors. A victim of the Depression, the bankrupt Hupp Motor Car Corporation sold its Cleveland building to Parker.

By 1938 the company was ready to look for international markets for its aircraft components. Technologically advanced in both the automotive and the aviation fields, Germany seemed to be a good prospect. Parker and his wife, Helen, changed their minds after a three-month tour of German aircraft factories, because the activity they saw there convinced them that Adolf Hitler was arming for war.

Once back in Cleveland, Art Parker took immediate action. First, he licensed several patents for military aircraft parts that would broaden his previously patented product lines. His next step was to concentrate his energies on the aircraft market, shifting his focus from the automotive side of the business. Then, he placed an order for lathes--the largest that his manufacturer had ever filled.

Equipping his business for the demands of war took huge amounts of money. No longer able to channel capital from his recently abandoned commercial and industrial base, Parker insured himself against a cash-flow shortage by selling 10,000 shares of stock. During the final days of 1938, Art Parker saw his business become a public company.

By the time President Franklin Roosevelt declared war on Japan and its allies in December 1941, patents held by the Parker Appliance Company were setting standards for such components of military aircraft as hydraulic tube couplings, fuel system valves, and pumps. Two years later, there were 5,000 employees working three shifts seven days a week to produce these parts.

Though urgent at the time, this focus on purely military equipment to the exclusion of other business proved costly after the war. Art Parker, who died eight months before hostilities ended, however, was spared the sight of idle factory floors and the employment roll that had shrunk to 200 people as soon as the company's lone customer, the U.S. government, turned its attention back to peacetime pursuits. Although the prospect of bankruptcy now faced Helen Parker, she chose to keep the business running and to recruit new management.

With the help of the company's banker, Charles Sigmier, S. Blackwell Taylor was persuaded to assume the presidency of Parker and to bring his business associate Robert Cornell with him. The two men set to work immediately, selling off surplus inventory and machinery before they did anything else.

Setting long term goals to provide direction was their second task. The strategic operations plan they formulated, quickly dubbed the Corporate Creed, emphatically stated that the company was not for sale. It also stressed that management would now strive to reduce the percentage of government business, while still increasing sales to government customers; a wise precaution that would stand the company in good stead during the Korean War. Other proposals declared that growth would henceforth take place both internally, through research and development, and externally, through friendly acquisitions. Parker, however, had to be the dominant party in all acquisitions, which would be undertaken to expand the company's product lines and keep it on the cutting edge in the field of fluid power. Targets would be profitable family-owned businesses wherever possible, and each new subsidiary would enjoy considerable autonomy. Along with these decisions came the resolve to supply only top quality products and service.

The postwar era also brought increasing interest in automation, much of which relied on fluid power to control motion through pneumatics and hydraulics. Making every effort to meet these needs by developing the range of their products, Parker also began to experiment with synthetic rubber to be used for more effective seals. The demand for these seals soon became so universal that the company became a leader in the worldwide standards that were benefiting original-equipment industries as well as many other engineering concerns. Another innovation was the decision to emphasize the production of replacement parts for those components whose constant motion caused them to wear out.

In 1957, a year that showed sales totaling $28.5 million, the Parker Appliance Company acquired the Hannifin Corporation of Des Plaines, Illinois. A manufacturer of hydraulic and air-power cylinders and of presses and other essential products used in liquid, gas, or air pressure systems, Hannifin was not a small company itself. Its $7.5 million price brought Parker two Illinois plants and one in Ohio, plus an employee roll of 600. It also brought a name change, for the Parker Appliance Company now became the Parker-Hannifin Corporation. In line with company policy, the former Hannifin customers now became customers of the entire corporation. Also in line with company policy, the new acquisition was assured that there would be no competition for the original equipment manufactured by clients.

In 1960 Parker-Hannifin organized an international division to market its products worldwide. Situated in Amsterdam, it was followed in June 1962 by Parker-Hannifin NMF GmbH in Cologne, West Germany, a subsidiary gained by the purchase of Niehler Maschinenfabriek, a manufacturer of hydraulic components. These two new channels brought the company a stronger market for valves, pumps, hoses, air filters, and regulators, as well as for the industrial products of its other ten semi-autonomous subsidiaries.

Also burgeoning at this time was the aircraft division, which had entered the specialized field of cryogenics. Joining the product line of tube fittings, missiles, space vehicles, and systems for the control of wing flaps and landing gear was a ball valve handling liquid oxygen for the Saturn space booster. Other components for both commercial and military use included hydraulic torpedo parts and ground support equipment. Important for military action, these items played a significant strategic role when the United States entered the Vietnam War in 1965. Later this division would produce another important device; a special assembly for the main flight control of the Sikorsky Black Hawk helicopter. Consisting of only five pounds of bulletproof steel, it continued to function if damaged.

Keeping ahead of the competition in these ways had taken a great deal of prior planning. Mindful of the need for ultra-modern manufacturing plants, in 1961 the company had made a heavy investment in equipment to increase capacity and improve operating efficiency. This paid off handsomely the following year, with year-end sales of more than $61 million.

This modernizing, plus the strategic acquisition of profitable foreign companies that continued throughout the 1960s, added a line of refrigeration components and expanded the range of other Parker-Hannifin products now being made in Canada, Italy, France, and South Africa. Like domestic plants, overseas plants manufactured standardized components that were easily replaceable. The wisdom of this practice was reflected in 1967 sales, which totaled more than $152 million.

In 1968, outgoing President Robert Cornell was succeeded by the founder's son, Patrick Parker. Parker had spent three years running the seals division after gaining experience in various departments in Cleveland. Parker introduced new training for machine operators to ensure skilled technical labor for affiliates and subsidiaries. Next came two 1973 courses for distributors and customers. Designed to explain the increasingly complex range of Parker-Hannifin products, the first course covered basic industrial hydraulic technology; the second, advanced circuit analysis.

To reduce Parker-Hannifin's vulnerability to the cyclical swings of the capital goods field, the new CEO focused on the lucrative automotive aftermarket. Reasoning that wear on cars always makes replacement parts necessary, he set his sights on the Plews Manufacturing Company, a maker of quick-disconnect couplings, acquiring this concern in 1968. A 1971 newcomer was the Ideal Corporation, which manufactured hose clamps and turn indicators. Following shortly afterwards were the Roberk Company, which made windshield wipers and rear view mirrors, and in 1978, EIS Automotive Corporation, manufacturers of hydraulic replacement parts for drum- and disc-brake systems.

The automotive section was not the only business segment receiving company attention at this time. The aerospace division, although offering a profit potential of 14 percent--compared to 12 percent apiece from the other two units--was not growing fast enough. In 1978 Parker-Hannifin remedied this situation by broadening both its customer base and its product line. Parker-Hannifin acquired two new subsidiaries: Vansickle Industries, a maker of replacement wheels and brakes for light-weight private aircraft, and Bertea Corporation, providing electro-hydraulic flight controls for commercial airliners. Both companies had previously been leaders in their fields, Bertea showing a 12-month backlog of orders as well as a $19 million contract on primary flight-control actuators for new Boeing 767 airliners.

Internal efforts were also needed to pull the company successfully through business cycle troughs. A recession in 1971, causing profits to tumble, prompted a new strategic plan called cycle forecasting. The brainchild of Tommy McCuiston, vice-president of corporate planning, the forecasting plan is based on the premise that each industry follows its own cyclical rhythm for a period normally lasting three to four years. Six phases are apparent during this time span: growth, prosperity, warning, recession, depression, and recovery. Each phase demands planning providing for the next. During the growth phase, the company anticipates prosperity by expanding the work force and speeding up its training programs. In line with its acquisition philosophy, it also looks for new manufacturing sources. The prosperity phase finds Parker-Hannifin executives planning for the months of warning ahead. Expansion is curbed and superfluous companies are sold at this period of peak earning power. The kingpin of the strategy is strict inventory control, allowing for heavy manufacturing activity during depression periods, before growth phase demand makes production expensive because of overtime wages.

Proof of the strategy's success came with the year-end sales figures for 1980, which passed $1 billion for the first time. Another benefit of the planning came to the fore in the research field, allowing the company to move actively into the field of biomedical engineering. Here, long-used principles of hydraulics were applied to the development of life-enhancing equipment like the implantable insulin dispenser for diabetics, made by the aerospace division.

In 1984, Paul Schloemer succeeded Patrick Parker as CEO and president. Adding 14 acquisitions to Parker's previous 50, Schloemer guided the corporation into the untapped areas of industrial filters and pneumatics, with the addition of Schrader Bellows, in 1984; and electromagnetic motion control, with the acquisition of Compumotor in 1986.

The 1980s brought other significant changes. A weaker dollar against the Japanese yen and the West German mark lost a considerable amount of value between 1984 and 1987. This brought down the price of U.S. technology and products to a level competitive with those of Japan and Europe, making it cheaper to produce components for foreign machinery in the United States than to import them for later assembly.

The automotive market scored heavily here. Quoted in a 1987 article in Fortune, investment strategist John Connolly noted that between 1986 and 1987, Honda had scaled down from one-half to one-quarter the number of parts it planned to import for cars assembled in the United States. This trend, plus joint product ventures like the Mazda/Ford Probe alliance assured a market for automotive components that helped Parker-Hannifin achieve more than $2 billion in sales in 1988, its 70th anniversary.

Other promising trends for growth came from the aerospace division. Several air disasters and near misses brought commercial airlines and air safety associations to the conclusion that tighter maintenance procedures and more frequent replacement of aircraft were necessary. This meant a greater need for complete hydraulic systems and parts for aircraft in frequent service.

In November 1989 Parker-Hannifin sold its three automotive aftermarket components divisions to an investor group headed by the president of the Parker automotive group. The company received about $80 million in exchange for its automotive parts business, and continued to manufacture original equipment for the automotive market. Parker-Hannifin also divested its small biomedical group in January 1990. The biomedical group had 1989 sales of about $4 million. These sectors were sold to allow Parker-Hannifin to concentrate on its core motion control markets--both industrial and aerospace.

Nevertheless, growth by acquisition continued into the 1990s under the leadership of CEO Duane E. Collins, driving sales above the $3 billion mark by 1995. The 1996 purchase of Swedish-based VOAC Hydraulics fortified the company's product line with hydraulic systems for mobile heavy equipment. The Abex/NWL division of Pneumo Abex, also acquired in 1996, supplied aerospace hydraulic actuation gear. Parker-Hannifin bought New Jersey-based EWAL Manufacturing, a maker of fittings and valves, in 1997.

After 60 years, Parker-Hannifin moved into a new, 125,000-square-foot headquarters in August 1997. It donated the old headquarters building at 17325 Euclid Ave. to the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, an institution promoting medical research.

Parker-Hannifin's sales had grown vigorously, due to the earning power of its acquisitions, success in new markets abroad, and to sheer good fortune. Many plants had to run at full capacity in order to keep up with orders. It seemed Parker-Hannifin's investments in superior technology, commitment to customer service, and attention to timing and the business cycle were paying off.

Principal Subsidiaries

iPower Distribution Group Inc.; Parker de Puerto Rico, Inc.; Parker-Hannifin International Corp.; Parker Intangibles Inc.; Parker Properties Inc.; Parker Services Inc.; Abex Industries GmbH (Germany); Acadia International Insurance Limited (Ireland); Alenco (Holdings) Limited (United Kingdom); Brownsville Rubber Co., S.A. de C.V. (Mexico); Ermeto Productie Maatschappij B.V. (Netherlands); Parker Automotive de Mexico S.A. de C.V.; Parker Enzed (N.Z.) Limited (New Zealand); Parker Seal de Baja S.A. de C.V. (Mexico); Parker Seals S.p.A. (Italy); Parker Sistemas de Automatization S.A. de C.V. (Mexico); Parker Zenith S.A. de C.V. (Mexico); Parker Hannifin (Africa) Pty. Ltd. (South Africa); Parker Hannifin Argentina SAIC; Parker Hannifin A/S (Norway); Parker Hannifin (Australia) Pty. Ltd.; Parker Hannifin B.V. (Netherlands); Parker Hannifin (Canada) Inc.; Parker Hannifin Danmark A/S; Parker Hannifin de Venezuela, C.A.; Parker Hannifin (Espana) SA; Parker Hannifin GmbH (Germany); Parker Hannifin Hong Kong Limited; Parker Hannifin Industria e Comercial Ltda. (Brazil); Parker Hannifin Japan Ltd.; Parker Hannifin NMF AG (Switzerland); Parker Hannifin Oy (Norway); Parker Hannifin plc (United Kingdom); Parker Hannifin RAK, S.A. (France); Parker Hannifin S.p.A. (Italy); Parker Hannifin Sp. z.o.o. (Poland); Parker Hannifin S.r.o. (Czech Republic); Parker Hannifin Singapore Pte. Ltd.; Parker Hannifin Sweden AB; Parker Hannifin Taiwan Ltd.; Polar Seals ApS (Denmark); VOAC Hydraulics AB (Germany).

Principal Divisions

Atlas Cylinder; Daedel Division; Fluidex Division; Parker Compumotor Division; Air and Fuel Division; Airborne Division; Aircraft Wheel and Brake Division; Automotive Connectors Division; Brass Division; Commercial Filters Division; Control Systems Division; Cylinder Division; Finite Filter Division; Fluidpower Pump Division; Fluidpower Sales Division; Hose Products Division; Hydraulic Filter Division; Hydraulic Valve Division; Instrumentation Connectors Division; Instrumentation Valve Division; JBL Division; Pneumatic Division; Quick Coupling Division; Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Division; Schrader Bellows Division; Tube Fittings Division; Startoflex Aerospace/Military Division; United Aircraft Products Division.

Principal Operating Units

Fluid Connectors; Instrumentation; Filtration; Hydraulics; Automation; Climate & Industrial Controls; Seal; Aerospace; Asia Pacific; Latin America.

Further Reading

Byrne, Harlan S., "High Stepper," Barron's, February 12, 1996, p. 18.

Ozanian, Michael K., "17325 Euclid Avenue," FW, November 8, 1994, pp. 50-53.

Parker-Hannifin Corporation, "Targets: A Decade of Prodigious Employee Achievement," http://www.parker.com/corp/annualreport/targets.html.

Parker, Patrick, Parker-Hannifin Corporation, New York, The Newcomen Society in North America, 1980.

Wrubel, Robert, "Sum of the Parts," Financial World, February 23, 1988, pp. 24-25.

— Gillian Wolf; Updated by Frederick C. Ingram

Parker Hannifin Corporation

Type	Public NYSE S&P 500 Component
Industry	motion & control
Founded	1918, Cleveland, Ohio, USA
Founder(s)	Arthur L. Parker
Headquarters	Mayfield Heights, Ohio, USA
Number of locations	311 Manufacturing sites worldwide
Area served	Worldwide
Key people	Donald E. Washkewicz, Chairman, CEO & President
Revenue	$12 Billion (FY11)
Website	http://www.parker.com

Parker Hannifin Corporation (NYSE: PH), originally Parker Appliance Company, usually referred to as just Parker, of Mayfield Heights, Ohio (with a Cleveland mailing address), is a corporation specializing in motion and control technologies. The company was founded in 1918, and has been publicly traded on the NYSE since December 9, 1964. Parker Hannifin is one of the largest companies in the world in motion control technologies including aerospace, climate control, electromechanical, filtration, fluid and gas handling, hydraulics, pneumatics, process control, and sealing and shielding. Parker employs approximately 58,000 people globally.

The company is ranked 248 in the Fortune 500.

Contents 1 Business groups 2 History 3 Environmental record 3.1 TyreSaver 3.2 RunWise Advanced Series Hybrid Drive System 4 Aerospace Group 4.1 Greener aircraft and reduced emissions 5 Boeing 737 incidents 6 References 7 External links

Business groups

Parker is divided into eight operating groups that consist of 142 divisions located in 47 countries.

• Aerospace
• Automation
• Climate & Industrial Controls
• Filtration
• Fluid Connectors
• Hydraulics
• Instrumentation
• Seal

History

Milestones:

• 1918: Parker Appliance Company is founded by Arthur L Parker.
• 1919: On a promotional trip to Boston, the truck and trailer carrying the companies entire inventory blows a tire, destroying all of its inventory. Parker Appliance Company became bankrupt, and its founder returned to an engineering post at a Nickel Plate Road plant, but vowed to start again.
• 1924: Arthur Parker saves and restarts the Parker Appliance Company and the pneumatic/hydraulic components division succeeded by serving automotive and aviation customers.[4]
• 1927: Parker's reputation for producing reliable, high pressure connections leads aviator Charles Lindbergh to specify Parker fittings for the Spirit of St. Louis' historic first Atlantic crossing.
• 1935: In the midst of the Depression, optimistic Arthur Parker buys a 500,000-square-foot (42,000 m2) Cleveland auto plant from Hupp Motor Car Company to house his 38-employee Company.
• 1939: Parker Appliance sales reached $3 million.
• 1943: Parker employs 5,000 Clevelanders, all in defense production.
• 1945: Company founder Arthur Parker dies; World War II's end halts defense contracts. With no industrial business, the Company faces near liquidation. Founder's wife, Helen Parker, refuses to give up; hires new management which gradually rebuilds industrial business.
• 1953: Parker makes its first acquisition, the Synthetic Rubber Products Company in Los Angeles, California, USA.
• 1957: Acquisition era is underway. With the acquisition of Hannifin Corporation come new cylinder and valve products and a new corporate name: Parker Hannifin Corporation.
• 1960: New International Division formed to market Parker products abroad.
• 1964: Shares of Parker Hannifin stock (NYSE: PH) are traded on the New York Stock Exchange for the first time.
• 1966: Parker Hannifin enters Fortune 500 listing of top companies.
• 1969: Parker has operations in 10 countries in Europe and Latin America. Pat Parker, the founder’s son, is elected President of Parker and Parker products land on the moon with American astronaut Neil Armstrong.
• 1976: Parker introduces a new company logo.
• 1977: Parker sales reached $500 million.
• 1978: Parker strengthens its position in aerospace market with the acquisition of the Bertea Corporation which lays the foundation for future leadership in flight controls, hydraulics, and fuel management systems.
• 1981: Parker sales reached $1.1 billion.
• 1983: Parker forms joint venture in China.
• 1988: Marking its 70th anniversary, Parker makes seven acquisitions and exceeds $2 billion in sales.
• 1992: Parker globalizes its business by forming worldwide product groups.
• 1997: Parker moves to brand new World Headquarters building in Mayfield Heights, Ohio; a suburb of Cleveland.
• 1998: The first retail store, ParkerStore, opens with the objective to reach the aftermarket and gain a greater customer share.
• 2000: Parker sales reached $5.4 billion. The company merged with Commercial Intertech, its largest deal at the time and completed four other acquisitions.
• 2001: Parker introduced the Win Strategy with the single goal to raise the performance of the company to a higher level. In Europe Parker acquired several large companies in the fluid power business from 1997 and forward, such as Commercial Hydraulics and VOAC Hydraulics.[2][3]
• 2005: Pat Parker died. Parker sales reached $8.2 billion, the Company acquired six companies, and was awarded the hydraulic subsystem for the new Boeing 787 Dreamliner passenger jet.
• 2006: Parker had made 210 strategic acquisitions since the Company's founding.
• 2007: Parker opened its 1,000 ParkerStore.
• 2011: Parker sales reached record sales of $12.3 billion.

Environmental record

TyreSaver

In 2006 Parker Hannifin Corporation and Get Nitrogen Institute, a non-profit organization, teamed up to test and promote the use of nitrogen filled rubber tires. By doing this, it has been found that nitrogen-filled tires hold their air pressure for longer periods of time after being inflated.^{[citation needed]} However, inflating a tire with air requires only an ordinary tire pump, available at nearly any gasoline filling station, while nitrogen inflation equipment is less common. Additionally, some drivers incorrectly believe that putting ordinary air into a nitrogen-filled tire is dangerous, and may unnecessarily drive on underinflated tires to reach a location that can fill tires with nitrogen. Therefore, the question of whether tires that have been filled with nitrogen or with air are more likely to be underinflated may be disputed.

Advantages to keeping tires properly inflated (with either air or nitrogen) include increasing the life of the tire itself and decreasing the amount of discarded tires filling up landfills. Furthermore, it was found that having properly inflated tires improves fuel efficiency by 4 percent.^[1]

RunWise Advanced Series Hybrid Drive System

In 2010 Parker Hannifin, in a partnership with Autocar, a leading manufacturer of commercial vehicles and class 8 trucks, delivered hydraulic hybrid-powered refuse vehicles to three South Florida municipalities. The Autocar E3 refuse vehicles feature Parker’s RunWise advanced series hybrid drive system, which dramatically increases fuel savings and lowers emissions while improving drivability and performance. The RunWise Advanced Series Hybrid Drive achieves fuel savings of up to 50% by decoupling the engine from the rear axle recovering energy normally lost during braking. Parker’s RunWise replaces a refuse truck’s conventional drive train with a series hybrid drive – combining the flexibility and responsiveness of hydrostatic operation for low and medium speeds with the unsurpassed efficiency of mechanical operation for highway speeds. Placed on the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) National Clean Diesel Campaign’s Emerging Technologies List in 2011, it is the only drivetrain on the list. These vehicles provide fuel savings, reduced emissions, less brake and engine wear, enhanced drivability, and cleaner and greener communities. Waste collection fleet owners are excited about RunWise and its ability to increase their productivity and profitability all without requiring changes to driver behavior.

Aerospace Group

Parker Aerospace is a global leader in hydraulic, fuel, flight control, pneumatic, electronics cooling, and fluid conveyance components and systems and related electronic controls for aerospace and other high-technology markets. Its products are used on aircraft manufactured throughout the world today, including commercial transports, military fixed-wing planes, regional and business aircraft, helicopters, missiles, and unmanned aerial vehicles. Based in Irvine, California, Parker Aerospace operates 39 facilities in the Americas, Europe, and Asia. The latest programs include the COMAC C919, Rolls-Royce Trent XWB engine, Bombardier CSeries, Bombardier widebody aircraft, MRJ, Gulfstream G650, Model 850 Citation Columbus and Airbus A350 XWB.

Greener aircraft and reduced emissions

Parker Aerospace is a longtime Airbus supplier with special competencies in multifunctional system integration. Parker is partnering with Airbus to develop fuel cell technology as an alternative energy source for on-ground and in-flight electrical power supply. Within this partnership, Airbus will be responsible for the overall aircraft system architecture and technology integration into the aircraft, and Parker will supply the multifunctional fuel cell system and manage different subsystem suppliers. A fuel cell is a device which transforms the energy contained in hydrogen and oxygen into electricity through a direct chemical conversion at a low temperature level without moving parts. The exhaust product is water, and in the case of an air-breathing system, oxygen depleted air. The electricity produced by fuel cells is cleaner and more efficient than combustion engines. In addition, the water and the oxygen depleted air (inert gas) can be used on the airplane to substitute the water and inerting systems.

The objective of the cooperation is the development of a technology demonstrator followed by a joint flight test campaign for the middle of the decade, including operational and infrastructural tests. With Parker Aerospace involved in the project from this earliest phase, industrialisation can be considered throughout the development of the process, rather than at the end. Airbus considers fuel cell technology as a key contributor to meeting the ACARE 2020 goals, which foresee the reduction of CO2 emissions by 50%, NOx emissions by 80% and noise by 50%.

Boeing 737 incidents

Main article: Boeing 737 rudder issues

It was discovered in 1995 that failures in a servo unit supplied by Parker Hannifin to Boeing for use in their 737 aircraft may have contributed to several incidents.^[2][3]

In 2004, a Los Angeles jury ordered Parker Hannifin to pay US$43M to the plaintiff families of the 1997 SilkAir Flight 185 crash in Indonesia. Parker Hannifin subsequently appealed the verdict, which resulted in an out of court settlement for an undisclosed amount. The Indonesian Transportation Safety Board could not determine the cause of the crash due to the near total lack of physical evidence and complete destruction. ^[4] The NTSB however, disagreed and determined the crash was caused, possibly intentionally, by the pilot.^[5][6]

The FAA ordered an upgrade of all Boeing 737 rudder control systems by November 12, 2002. Parker argued that the components they supplied were not at fault, citing that the product has one of the safest records in its class, but The FAA directive went through regardless.^[7]

References

1. ^ Mal Gormley. "Will Climate Change Challenge BizAv?". Aviation Week. http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story_generic.jsp?channel=bca&id=news/bca0307d.xml&headline=Will%20Climate%20Change%20Challenge%20BizAv?. Retrieved 2008-11-16. 
2. ^ Robert J. Boser. "What is the status of the solution to the B-737 rudder design defect?". airlinesafety.com. http://www.airlinesafety.com/faq/B-737Rudder.htm. Retrieved 2008-11-18. 
3. ^ "Pittsburgh disaster adds to 737 doubts". Seattle Times. 1996. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/news/local/737/part03/. Retrieved 2008-11-17. 
4. ^ "Error: no |title= specified when using {{Cite web}}". http://infopedia.nl.sg/articles/SIP_1576_2009-09-30.html. 
5. ^ SilkAir 185 - Pilot Suicide? (Documentary). National Geographic. 2007. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3ZIE2YIV_Y&NR=1. 
6. ^ "Remembering the Musi – SilkAir Flight MI 185 Crash Victim Identification". Annals Academy of Medicine 36 (10): 866. 2007. http://www.annals.edu.sg/pdf/36VolNo10Oct2007/V36N10p861.pdf. 
7. ^ "Airworthiness Directives; Boeing Model 737 Series Airplanes". FAA. http://www1.airweb.faa.gov/Regulatory_and_Guidance_Library/rgAD.nsf/0/2a37f5faba444a8086256c4b005a2884/$FILE/022007.pdf. Retrieved 2008-11-17. 

External links

• Parker Hannifin Corporation
• Parker Hannifin Corporation Investor Relations
• Information about Fluid Power is also available on the National Fluid Power Association web-site nfpa.com
• Parker Hannifin Instrumentation Group News Letter

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