2000s–present
Parker Hannifin acquired Commercial Intertech Corporation, a maker of hydraulic systems, in 2000.Commercial Intertech had previously acquired Oildyne Inc., a well known hydraulic manufacturer. Parker has an Oildyne division today.[20] With a cost of $366 million, this was at the time Parker Hannifin's biggest acquisition.[19]
In 2001, CEO Don Washkewicz introduced lean startup methods to company operations and has said that over the decade this reduced the time to obtain price quotes by 60% and cut product development lead times by 25%.[21][22]
In 2002 the company appointed Craig Maxwell as head of engineering; Maxwell brought a focus on innovation as well as rigor; he argued for and was given a $20M annual budget to fund blue sky inventions made by engineers and has given engineers time to pursue them; at the same time his team developed software that allows tracking each of the company's 1700 ongoing R&D projects graded by risk and potential reward, and closely managing their progress. In 2011 he hired Ryan Farris out of Vanderbilt University and licensed patents covering a powered exoskeleton that Farris had worked on at Vanderbilt. In 2015 the company opened an internal business incubator that Maxwell had proposed when he was first hired.[6]
The company won $2 billion in contracts to build fuel and hydraulic systems for Airbus A350 airliners in 2008[23] Two years later, its products were used in repairing the Deepwater Horizon oil rig.[7]
Thomas Williams took over the CEO role from Washkewicz in 2015.[24] In 2016, the company completed its largest acquisition to date, buying Clarcor, a filtration systems manufacturer, for $4.3 billion.[25][26] In 2019, Parker bought Lord Corporation for $3.7 billion and Kent, WA based Exotic Metals Forming Company for $1.7 billion.[27][28][29]
In August 2021, the company agreed to buy British aerospace and defense company Meggitt for £6.3 billion.[30] In July 2022, after making commitments to the UK government including increasing research and development spending in Britain, the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy approved the takeover without being referred for a full Competition and Markets Authority investigation.[31] The acquisition completed in September 2022.[32]
In May 2022, it was announced Parker Hannifin has sold its aircraft wheel and brake division to the Bloomfield-headquartered aerospace company, Kaman Corporation for US$440 million.[33]
In November 2025, Parker Hannifin announced a deal to buy Filtration Group—a privately held filtration-technologies manufacturer—for $9.25 billion. The deal is expected to create one of the largest industrial filtration businesses in the world.[34]
