Joy – the Man and the Company That Revolutionized Mining
                 
It would be hard to imagine, inventive though he was, that Joseph Francis Joy ever could have envisioned the success and the huge impact his company would have on the world’s underground mining industry.

Ninety years ago, in 1919 Joseph Joy (1883-1957) — an inventor with 190 patents to his name — gave birth to his company when he was granted patent number 1,306,064 for his mechanical gathering arm loading machine.

From his day to this day, Joy Mining Machinery has grown to become the world’s largest, most recognizable, and most highly respected manufacturer of underground mining equipment. With the exception of Antarctica, Joy’s equipment operates on every continent on the globe mining more coal, in more mines, in more countries than any other brand of underground mining equipment.

Joy Mining Machinery is the global leader in the development of new technology, providing the most advanced, most sophisticated, most highly productive mining machinery used in the extraction of coal and other bedded materials of gypsum, potash, salt and trona.

More than 90% of all JOY equipment operating in the world today is involved in the underground mining of coal, the largest single source of electric power generation worldwide.

From its very beginning in 1919, Joy has been the vanguard of new developments in the underground mining process and mining equipment, consistently introducing to the world mining industry ever more powerful, technologically advanced and consistently reliable equipment and controls. In the process, Joy has compiled a litany of industry firsts and literally has revolutionized the mining industry, taking it from its pick and shovel origins to the fully-mechanized, highly complex, and technologically advanced mining process it is today.

Nine decades ago, Joseph Joy saw the possibilities for mechanizing underground mining, replacing backbreaking labor with machinery and technology, and in the process, his company has transformed an industry. Because of its ability to not only respond to the needs of the industry but to anticipate those needs, over its 90-year history Joy has grown to a leading position in the coal industry, registering both industry first after industry first and introducing new technology after new technology.

It was Joy that designed, developed, and manufactured the world’s first successful continuous miner; that nurtured and brought forth the industry’s first integrated AC-powered haulage system for underground mining equipment, that introduced to the industry the first successful American-manufactured longwall shearing machine, and then the world’s first single-manufacturer of a complete longwall mining system.

Between the first mechanized loading machine and the world’s most advanced longwall systems, Joy established a number of milestones. In 1938, Joy shipped its first shuttle car to the industry, and in 1971 delivered its 10,000th shuttle car. Between those two events, Joy introduced the first truly successful continuous miner in 1948, and delivered its 1,000th 12CM in 1985 and 1000th 14CM in 1990 and then in 2001 reached the 5,000 mark for the total continuous miners. Also, in 1948, the company produced the first high-seam shuttle car and, in 1969, introduced the shuttle car designed for low-seam mining.

In 1972, Joy introduced both high and low-seam continuous miners and, in 1976, produced the JOY Flexible Conveyor Train (FCT) continuous haulage system. The year before, Joy produced its first longwall shearer, followed by a low-seam shearer in 1986 and the high-seam shearer in 1990. Bolters were added to the Joy lineup of underground mining equipment in 1995, the same year the company delivered its 5,000th JOY 10SC shuttle car.

Toward the close of the century, Joy offered its first high-seam, high-voltage continuous miner and then opened the new century with three new machines, including a high-voltage mid-seam continuous miner, followed by the thinnest variable frequency drive (VFD) shearer the following year.

In quick succession, from 2002 through 2008, Joy introduced to the underground mining industry the high production flexible conveyor train (FCT); launched OPTIDRIVE for use in shuttle cars and then, in 2004, shearers, continuous miners, and FCTs, along with the industry’s first successful machine to surface communications. In 2005, Joy produced the WETHEAD system for continuous miner cutterheads, followed by the addition of feeder-breakers, continuous haulage, and battery haulers with the acquisition of the Stamler Group. The JOY FACEBOSS control system came on-line in 2006 and, the following year, Joy delivered its 300th AC-VFD shuttle car.

In 2008, Joy delivered to Shenhua Energy Co. Ltd.’s Shendong Coal Branch in The Peoples Republic of China the world’s largest, most powerful longwall shearer, one capable of one-pass mining in seams as high as 20 feet (6 metres), an industry first. In its first year of operation at the Shang Wan Mine, the JOY 7LS7 shearer mined 10.3 million tons (9.3 million tonnes).

With the ever-increasing demand for larger and more powerful equipment, in 2009 Joy introduced to the industry its own line of high performance lubricants. According to Joy, as the steels, heat treatments, gear technologies, bearings, etc. are pushed to their maximum performance levels, the company determined what was needed was a line of lubricants specifically designed to meet today’s challenges.

Today, longwall mining accounts for more than half of all the coal mined underground in the U.S., and JOY longwall equipment accounts for more than 90% of that. While internationally — with an estimated 4,500 to 5,000 units working underground — Joy continues to hold a dominant position in all underground mining.

To keep pace with the constantly expanding global market, Joy has its global headquarters in Warrendale, Pennsylvania and significant facilities in the United States, the United Kingdom, South Africa, Australia and China, as well as sales offices and service facilities in India, Poland and Russia.

Joy’s breadth of underground mining equipment is unmatched in the industry, providing complete mining systems for both longwall and room & pillar mining. Joy manufacturers longwall shearers, roof supports, face conveyors, stageloaders, continuous miners, batch haulage vehicles (shuttle cars and battery haulers), continuous haulage systems (continuous chain haulage and flexile conveyor train), and bolting products (mobile, onboard and portable).

Joy’s CONTINENTAL product line provides highly engineered product and service solutions for a wide variety of surface and underground mining, and industrial applications. Products include CONTINENTAL conveyor systems and equipment, conveyor components and other speciality conveyor equipment. Joy’s STAMLER product lines, for surface and underground applications, include feeder-breakers, reclaim feeders, single and double roll crushers, and railroad car spotters.

These product lines can help mining operations become the safest, most productive mines in the world while operating at the lowest cost per unit.