In 1914, electrical engineer Francis Joseph Lamb established F. Joseph Lamb Co., to make electrical products. In the 1920s they began making metal products and dial index machines (a machine used for assembly-line manufacturing with a series of stations around a rotary table). In the 1950s the company began making machine tools for the automotive industry, and this became the mainstay business for Lamb.

In 1982 the company name was changed to Lamb Technicon. By that time shakeups were underway in both the machine tool and automobile industries, and despite attempts to diversify away from the auto industry, the company struggled. In 1987 they let themselves be acquired by Litton Industries, Inc., in a stock swap, and by 1998 was in the hands of a Litton spinoff, Unova Manufacturing Technologies Inc., which, in 2003, combined Cincinnati Milling Machine Co. and Lamb Technicon to create Cincinnati Lamb Inc.

Information Sources

• 2005 book, International Directory of Company Histories.

  ...Unova also owned another company involved in the machine tool industry, Lamb Technicon Corp. It was founded in 1914 as F. Jos. Lamb Company by electrical engineer Francis Joseph Lamb. It started out making electrical products, then in the 1920s began to make metal components and dial index machines, which were used to retool dial machines. The company established itself in the automotive industry in the early 1950s when it won a General Motors contract to rebuild 60 grinders damaged by fire. Lamb enjoyed strong growth in the 1960s and over the next 20 years introduced a number of technologies and products to assist in material handling, machine controls, and computer-based monitoring systems. To better reflect its diversity, the company adopted the Lamb Technicon name in 1982. Lamb's sales reached $370 million in 1981, but with the advent of a recession, sales fell off, dipping to $200 million in 1983. Revenues began to rebound in the mid-1980s and the company took steps to be less dependent on the automotive industry, but privately held Lamb was not immune to the shakeout under way in the machine tool industry. In 1987 the company faced another sales slump, caused by decreasing demand for equipment by automakers, and it agreed to be acquired by Litton Industries Inc., a Beverly Hills, California-based defense contractor, in a stock-swap valued at $100 million.

  In 1994 Lamb became part of Western Atlas, a company spun off by Litton, and four years later, in 1998, Western Atlas spun off Unova, the same year that Cincinnati Machine was acquired. It was also the beginning of a difficult period for the machine tool industry. With softening demand, Cincinnati Machine cut jobs, and in 2000 Unova hired Credit Suisse First Boston to consider strategic alternatives, which included selling off the company. But Cincinnati Machine was a part of Unova's Industrial Automation Systems division and involved in joint projects with Lamb and sister unit Landis Grinding Systems. Some plants were shuttered but the unit was kept intact. The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, took their toll, however, as air travel slumped and had a ripple effect on the aerospace industry and Cincinnati Machine, which was very much dependent on the composite manufacturing systems it sold for aircraft production.

  In 2002 Unova decided to combine the business operations of Cincinnati Machine and Lamb, a plan that took effect in late 2003. The hope was to cut overhead costs and improve efficiencies. The merged operation took the name of Cincinnati Lamb, with its headquarters relocated to suburban Detroit. The Oakley facility, the longtime home of Cincinnati Mills, was slowly shut down, with operations either moved to Michigan or across the Ohio River to a facility in Hebron, Kentucky. Business in the meantime began to pick up in the aerospace industry, and management was hopeful that with the consolidation of its operation and the investment in new aerospace technologies, Cincinnati Lamb was well positioned to compete in the long run.

• 2005-03-21 Cincinnati Business Courier: Unova to sell Cincinnati Lamb for $60M. "Unova Inc. plans to sell its Cincinnati Lamb Group to MAG Industrial Automation Systems LLC in a deal valued at $60 million.... Unova (NYSE: UNA) said the transaction is expected to close in the next 30 days, pending closing conditions. The Everett, Wash.-based company also is looking to sell its Landis Grinding division, which comprises the rest of Unova's industrial automation business."
• 2005-04-19 Metalworking Insiders' Report.

  Unova Inc. (Everett, Wash.) and Maxcor, Inc. (New York, N.Y.) announced they've completed the sale of Unova's Cincinnati Lamb machine-tool unit to a Maxcor entity known as MAG Industrial Automation Systems L.L.C.

  As negotiated in the sales agreement, consideration consisted of $16-million in cash, $10-million in notes, and the assumption of liabilities of about $34-million, mostly relating to pensions and post-retirement obligations.

  Cincinnati Lamb had formed the bulk of Unova's Industrial Automation Systems (IAS) business unit, contributing an estimated $340-million out of IAS's total sales volume of $470-million last year and showing a loss for the last two years.

  The other portion of the former Unova manufacturing-technology segment is Landis Gardner (Waynesboro, Pa.), which produces Igrinders and related equipment. It remains with Unova while negotiations for its sale are underway. At the end of fiscal 2004, Unova reclassified its entire IAS as "discontinued operations," thus comitting to its divestiture.

  A new management team has been named: Bernard Theisen is president of MAG Industrial Automation Systems; he was finance VP at Cincinnati Lamb. Daniel Janka is president of Cincinnati Machine, a post he held prior to the merger of Cincinnati with Lamb. And Steve Arksey is president of Lamb Technicon.

• A history at fundinguniverse.com—identical to that given above from the book International Directory of Company Histories—was an early source for much of the history given above.