120 years of technological leadership

The history of ABB goes back to the late nineteenth century, and is a long and illustrious record of innovation and technological leadership in many industries. Having helped countries all over the world to build, develop and maintain their infrastructures, ABB has in recent years gone over from large-scale solutions to alternative energy and the advanced products and technologies in power and automation that constitute its Industrial IT offering.

Click in the history left menu for a few of the many innovations that ABB has brought to the world in the past 120 years.

We manage our business based on a divisional structure. Our business comprises five divisions: Power Products, Power Systems, Discrete Automation and Motion, Low Voltage Products, and Process Automation. R&D fuels innovation at ABB

Investment in R&D was $1.3 billion in 2009, 4.1 percent of revenues: product launches include a new solar inverter, drives for water industry, rail converters, HVDC systems with higher capacity, a compact robot, moulded-case circuit breakers XT series, SACE Formula circuit breakers, a new generation of first-class specialized control and protection devices and the remote switch unit S800-RSU for solar applications (which has won the Intersolar AWARD 2010 at the world’s largest exhibition for the solar industry in Munich).

We have seven research centers, 6,000 researchers and developers, and 70 university collaborations across the world.

The ABB group currently manages around 4,780 active patent families and about 19,890 active patent applications.

All three ensure that we create value by fulfilling our commitments to our customers, our employees and the communities and societies in which we operate, acting in accordance with sound corporate values.

Assuming responsibility, and acting with respect and determination makes it possible to nurture ABB’s traditional strengths – our technology leadership, our pioneering spirit and our ability to be at home everywhere. That is our legacy, and our future. The key to success lies in how well all of us understand and apply the business principles – demonstrating personal, professional and corporate responsibility, showing respect for the views and needs of others and applying our shared determination to win.

Responsibility

• Taking responsibility
  Taking our own professional development and the ABB strategy seriously
• Adhering to regulations
  Legal responsibility and compliance to best practice in all countries
• Doing a professional job
  Being accountable and ‘walking the talk’
• Delivering on our promises
  A moral responsibility to do what we say we will do

Respect

• Celebrating differences
  Being open to other cultures and seeing all ABB employees as equals
• Discussing, challenging and listening
  Supporting and challenging others whilst remaining open minded
• Integrity
  Showing fairness and honesty. Earning respect by respecting others
• Personal regard for employees and environment

Determination

• Providing a win-win outcome for all stakeholders
  Being innovative for our customer, efficient for our organization and achieving for ourselves
• Continuity
  Staying the course and sticking with it, through good times and bad
• Results driven
  Wanting to win for ABB and performing at our personal best
• Commitment
  Acting on decisions and showing clear leadership

ABB's mission

• Improve performance: ABB helps customers improve their operating performance, grid reliability and productivity whilst saving energy and lowering environmental impact.
• Drive innovation: Innovation and quality are key characteristics of our product, systems and service offering.
• Attract talent: ABB is committed to attracting and retaining dedicated and skilled people and offering employees an attractive, global work environment.
• Act responsibly: Sustainability, lowering environmental impact and business ethics are at the core of our market offering and our own operations.

ABB's vision

As one of the world’s leading engineering companies, we help our customers to use electrical power efficiently, to increase industrial productivity and to lower environmental impact in a sustainable way. Power and productivity for a better world