Technology Development

Engineers were responsible for technological leadership in Lincoln Electrics welding.

Company spent 2% of its sales on R&D.
50% of equipment sales generated in 2005 were from welding machines introduced in

previous five years.

Company held many valuable patents primarily in arc welding.
Lincoln Electric focused on technology and product compared to its competitors who

diversified away from welding.

$20 million R&D facility David C. Lincoln Technological Centre was completed in

2001 ensuring leadership in product development.

Lincoln Electric had aggressive and competitive R&D programs in welding industry

all based in Cleveland.

Lincoln Electric had training and demonstration centres in Australia, Canada, Italy,

Mexico, Netherlands, Singapore and Spain.

In 2004 Lincoln Electric started building regional engineering development centres in

Shanghai and Poland

Lincoln Electric invested heavily in 1990s on automated welding products with its
Japanese supplier FANUC Robotics.

Present Scenario
1. In 2010, Lincoln Electric has set forth the 2020 vision and strategic financial
objectives with a single growth strategy focussed on innovation, operational
excellence and financial discipline with the following targets:
Maintaining the sales CAGR of 10% from 2009 to 2020
Adjusted operating income margin to be maintained at 15% as an average

from 2009 to 2020\

ROIC to be maintained at 15% average from 2009 to 2020
Achieving Average operating working capital ratio of 15% in 2020.

2. Although the company had devised the above strategies, the significant drop in oil and
commodity prices impacted volumes and along with a simultaneous strong USD
reduced the foreign exchange from international sales thereby impacting the revenue.
For these, the revenue in FY 2015 declined to $ 2.5 Billion from $ 2.8 Billion. To
address this environmental issues they operated safer and efficiently by superior price
management to achieve incremental sales growth of $ 60 million from their
acquisitions.

3. With innovation as their cornerstone in 2015 they increased their R&D investment by
9% and launched more than hundred new products globally increasing their new
product vitality index of total sales to 34%
4. Automation growth strategy continued to advance with the acquisition of Wolf
Robotics
$30 million in state of art welding technology centre.
New INFERNO by Harris uses the Perfect Flame technology to improve
process control and brazing time by 20%.