Our stop in North Canton, Ohio was our third visit with The Timken Company, a leader in advanced motion technology that designs and manufactures highly engineered systems and components. In 2024, we visited two Timken manufacturing facilities in the Carolinas. This year, the AEM Manufacturing Express is paying a visit to their corporate headquarters in the Buckeye State.
Timken is famous for its bearings, the part that lets a machine turn without grinding itself apart. The company began in 1898, 127 years ago, when Henry Timken patented his bearing while working out how to make carriage wheels turn easier. During the 2000s, the portfolio expanded into chain, couplings, and linear motion. Today, Timken engineers specialized solutions for all things that move – from the assembly lines that process food to the equipment that builds roads and the systems that keep the lights on.
At their North Canton office, there are 800 employees across different departments, including finance, quality, supply chain, design application, procurement and more. Eric Saffran leads Timken’s commodity management and supply assurance teams, a role that keeps him moving between departments every day. Asked about his favorite part of working in manufacturing, he pointed to the people,”The teams that we get to work with on a daily basis, not only here at corporate, but working in problem solving with the plants as well as in this role, more so on the supplier side, being able to work with different organizations that also take pride in their American manufacturers.”
That team was on full display at the event. The Manufacturing Express pulled up in front of the office, as Timken employees came out to play games, win prizes, and celebrate the important role their office plays in keeping a manufacturing company like Timken as successful as it is.
Most equipment manufacturers can point to the machines that help to build, power, and feed America. But Timken tells a broader story through its philanthropy that reaches well beyond the factory floor, into the communities where its people live and work.
This especially shapes how Timken shows up in Canton, where the company’s philanthropy focuses on supporting those in need and providing access to STEM education for young people. Every year the company pays for two Habitat for Humanity homes and sends its own employees to build them, having built 39 houses since 1999. On the STEM front, Timken funds FIRST Robotics teams so local students have the materials to compete, and one local team even reached the World Championship in Houston.
One of their proudest partnerships is with the Girl Scouts of Northeast Ohio. Timken sponsors manufacturing camps with the organization, even covering scholarships for young girls who otherwise would not be able to afford to attend. The camp teaches young girls 3D printing, building molds and putting them together. Timken believes passionately in encouraging young girls to pursue their interests in STEM, bringing them to meet the women engineers who work at Timken who can show them how it’s done.
Timken’s products are instrumental to the successes of modern manufacturing. Without the bearings they manufacture, it would be impossible for equipment manufacturers to build functioning machines. But the impact here goes far beyond equipment manufacturing. Timken plays an important role in surgery, transportation, food and beverage, and countless other parts of society. Thankfully, the world can rely on the expertise of the world-class team here at Timken to get the job done.
