Bird Machine Company was a company founded in the early 1900s making machines for paper making and then developing into other types of equipment. Bird Machine Company was acquired by

Baker Hughes Baker Hughes Company is an American global energy technology company co-headquartered in Houston, Texas and London, UK. As one of the world's largest oil field services, industrial and energy technology companies, it provides products and serv ...

, Incorporated in 1989.

Origin

Bird Machine Company can trace its origin to a partnership established by Charles Sumner Bird in the early 1900s. The first product, the BIRD Rotary Paper Screen, was a major contribution in the advancement for stock cleaning in

paper mills A paper mill is a factory devoted to making paper from vegetable fibres such as wood pulp, old rags, and other ingredients. Prior to the invention and adoption of the Fourdrinier machine and other types of paper machine that use an endless belt, ...

. The Company was incorporated in 1909. Bird soon expanded to a broad line of equipment for stock preparation and cleaning in the

pulp and paper industry The pulp and paper industry comprises companies that use wood, specifically pulpwood, as raw material and produce pulp, paper, paperboard, and other cellulose-based products. Manufacturing process In the manufacturing process, pulp is intr ...

, as well as significant accessory equipment used in the making and finishing of

paper Paper is a thin sheet material produced by mechanically or chemically processing cellulose fibres derived from wood, Textile, rags, poaceae, grasses, Feces#Other uses, herbivore dung, or other vegetable sources in water. Once the water is dra ...

and

paperboard Paperboard is a thick paper-based material. While there is no rigid differentiation between paper and paperboard, paperboard is generally thicker (usually over 0.30 mm, 0.012 in, or 12 Inch#Equivalents, points) than paper and has certain superior ...

. The Company established a broad line of centrifugal and filtration equipment for liquid/solids separation in 1932. The significant development was the

patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an sufficiency of disclosure, enabling discl ...

ed design of the first

planetary gear An epicyclic gear train (also known as a planetary gearset) is a Reduction drive, gear reduction assembly consisting of two gears mounted so that the center of one gear (the "planet") revolves around the center of the other (the "sun"). A carri ...

unit applied to centrifugal equipment. This patent was issued in June, 1934 and formed the foundation for the design utilized in the BIRD Solid Bowl and Screen Bowl

Centrifuge A centrifuge is a device that uses centrifugal force to subject a specimen to a specified constant force - for example, to separate various components of a fluid. This is achieved by spinning the fluid at high speed within a container, thereby ...

s and paved the way for the development and application of decanter centrifuges into the process industry. In the early 1940s, Frank Young of Bird Machine Company patented the BIRD-Young

Filter Filtration is a physical process that separates solid matter and fluid from a mixture. Filter, filtering, filters or filtration may also refer to: Science and technology Computing * Filter (higher-order function), in functional programming * Fil ...

. This fast, efficient filter quickly found applications in the chemical and pharmaceutical markets. The BIRD-Young Filter can efficiently separate and wash solids in a machine that is a fraction of the size of conventional Rotary vacuum-drum filter. In 1964, the Company launched a major program of plant and facilities expansion at South Walpole, Massachusetts, USA headquarters. This policy of providing new facilities and equipment has continued. Today, this headquarters facility includes a complete analytical and pilot scale laboratory, a customer and employee training complex, offices and manufacturing. The manufacturing complex includes

CNC Computer numerical control (CNC) or CNC machining is the automated control of machine tools by a computer. It is an evolution of numerical control (NC), where machine tools are directly managed by data storage media such as punched cards or ...

machine tools, fabrication, assembly and test resources. In 1965, Bird Machine Company of Canada, Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of Bird Machine Company, was activated in

Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

. As the Canadian operation grew, the Company expanded further by relocating the manufacturing plant to

Saskatoon Saskatoon () is the largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Saskatchewan. It straddles a bend in the South Saskatchewan River in the central region of the province. It is located along the Trans-Canada Hig ...

in 1967. During the 1970s, Bird initiated an aggressive program of providing local sales, service and manufacturing to support its customers. The Bird Companies Charitable Foundation was a supporter of Northeastern University and a plaque honoring them for their contributions can be found in Dodge Hall on the main Boston campus.

Purchase

In 1989, Bird Machine Company was acquired by

, Incorporated, a diversified oil field services company based in Houston, Texas. In 1996, Ketema Process Equipment Company of Santee, California was purchased by Baker Hughes and merged into Bird Machine Company. The acquisition of Ketema provided Bird with an entrée into the pharmaceutical and fine chemical market segments with batch products such as the TOLHURST and MARK III Centrifuges, PROCESS 2000 Vertical Peeler Centrifuge, and NIAGARA and MAVADISC Filters. On July 7, 1997, Baker Hughes, Incorporated announced the completion of the acquisition of the Environmental Technology Division of

Deutz AG Deutz AG is a German internal combustion engine manufacturer, based in Porz, Cologne, Germany. History The company was founded by Nicolaus Otto, the inventor of the four-stroke internal combustion engine, and his partner Eugen Langen on 3 ...

that consisted of the KHD (today ''Deutz AG'') centrifuge, filtration and thermal product line located in

Cologne Cologne ( ; ; ) is the largest city of the States of Germany, German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with nearly 1.1 million inhabitants in the city pr ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

, and the R&B

filter press An industrial filter press is a tool used in separation processes, specifically to separate solids and liquids. The machine stacks many filter elements and allows the filter to be easily opened to remove the filtered solids, and allows easy cleani ...

operation based in Wuppertal. Although the product lines of Bird and KHD were similar (KHD was a former licensee of Bird), this acquisition provided Bird with a significant market share in the worldwide municipal market, a much stronger presence in Europe and Southern Africa as well as the premier filter press product line. Shortly after the acquisition, the R&B operation was relocated to Cologne. In October 1998, Bird Machine Company combined resources with two other Baker Hughes companies to form Baker Process. In June 2001, Baker Process was realigned into the three former legacy companies. In October 2003, Bird Machine was acquired by

Andritz AG Andritz AG is an international technology group, offering plants, equipment, systems and services for various industries. The group's headquarters are in Graz, Austria. The group gets its name from the district of Andritz (Graz), Andritz in whi ...

.www.corporate-ir.net
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References

{{reflist Companies based in Massachusetts Manufacturing companies established in 1906 1906 establishments in Massachusetts 1989 mergers and acquisitions