[5] The company has 27 locations worldwide, including five manufacturing facilities in North America, as well as plants in Bengaluru in India, Nanjing in China and Veldhoven in The Netherlands.

In the 1920s, company engineers developed the coated welding rod which they used in manufacturing until 1965, as well as the world's first fully automated automobile frame factory, with the capability of making a frame every eight seconds, until 1958, the first arc-welded, high-pressure vessel used to refine oil, which the company produced until 1963, and oil supply line pipes, until 1972.

In 1933, the company used the process of fusing glass to steel to make a large single-piece glass-lined brewery tank.

Three years later, it began mass-producing residential water heaters, but shifted all production to war-time use during World War II.

In the early 1960s, the company opened a commercial water heater and boiler plant in Stratford, Ontario, Canada.

By the early 1980s, the Automotive Products unit had manufactured over 100 million passenger car frames, and 50 million truck frames, in Milwaukee, and soon after the company opened its first electric motor assembly operations in Ciudad Juárez and Ciudad Acuña, Mexico.

In 1995, they acquired Peabody TecTank of Parsons, Kansas, allowing A. O. Smith to enter the bulk dry storage market.

In 1997, they acquired UPPCO, Inc., making A. O Smith the world's leading manufacturer of C-frame subfractional horsepower motors.

By the end of the decade, Water Products Company had bought out its joint venture partner in Asia, and had opened a plant in Nanjing, China.

In the 2000s, A. O. Smith made a number of acquisitions, by acquiring State Industries, Inc., and its subsidiary APCOM Inc., Shenzhen Speeda Industrial Co. Ltd., and Athens Products, a supplier of hermetic motors for scroll compressor applications, as well as The Changheng Group of Changzhou, China, a manufacturer of fractional horsepower motors for HVAC applications, Taicang Special Motor Company, Ltd., of Suzhou, China, Yueyang Zhongmin Special Electrical Machinery Co. Ltd., Lochinvar Corporation, a manufacturer of high efficiency condensing boilers for hot water and hydronic heating applications, and in 2006, GSW Inc. a water heaters manufacturer for the Canadian market, and The American Water Heater Company, the exclusive supplier of water heaters to Lowe's, carrying the Whirlpool brand.

[6] A. O. Smith Corporation manufactures the following types of water heaters for residential uses: gas and propane, hybrid, electric, tankless, and solar.

The company manufactures the following types of water heaters for commercial uses: oil-fired, gas and electric, as well as boilers, storage tanks, and skid systems.