Page 42 - MetalForming May 2014

A Quick-Ship Prototype/Fabrication
Plan
Jamco Products Inc., South Beloit, IL, manufactures fully welded, heavy-duty industrial-grade prod- ucts—carts, cabinets, workbenches, work tables and safety cabinets cover- ing most material-handling needs. The firm fabricates more than 500 standard models, and offers customized prod- ucts, from steel and stainless steel.
Founded in 1996 in Rockford, IL, Jamco originally built a line of indus- trial forklift attachments, and then evolved into building industrial carts. Business has boomed, exemplified by seven facility expansions during the past 14 years. Each year the company has averaged 20 to 30 percent growth.
Today, 100 Jamco employees manu- facture its products from three facilities (160,000 sq. ft. total) in the South Beloit area.
According to Jason Redmon, vice president, engineering, deliveries his- torically throughout the industry for these products had been four to six weeks.
“Jamco brought to the industry what we call a quick-ship program,” Redmon says, “where customers can order any one of the models from our catalog with different configurations. There are thousands of SKUs in the catalog— customers can order any one of these SKUs in small quantities and we will
build and ship it in five days.”
Jamco fabricates mostly carbon steel and some stainless steel for its prod- ucts, focusing its efforts on manufac- turing the heaviest-duty products in
the market. Says Redmon:
“Our angles are 50-percent thicker
than those used by our competitors, and we use 12-gauge steel for our trays, 40 percent thicker the competitors’ 14- gauge trays.
Our carts can take a tremendous amount of abuse and still keep rolling.”
Modernizing Fabrication
Traditionally, Jamco stamped a majority of its products with unitized type tooling. “We always out- sourced laser-cutting and turret- punch press work,” explains Red- mon, “a substantial amount of
work.”
Everything changed when, in
October 2012, Myers Industries acquired Jamco and pledged to modernize its manufacturing
Flexibility, speed, accuracy and energy efficiency to boot—this Illinois OEM upgrades its inhouse metal-fabrication capabilities on the backs of new servo-electric punching and bending equipment.
Installed at Jamco in February 2013, the E6x combines energy
savings and ergonomics with accuracy and productivity. It can process full 60- by 120-in. sheets (maximum thickness is 0.315 in.) without repositioning, and features a 19-ton (US) ram force.
40 MetalForming/May 2014
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