What's NewJP Corporation Expands in 2015!Our dear Mom – who reported to work every single day until she was 85 – finally retired on that birthday. Concurrently with that event – Charles K. Petty became our President and majority stock holder – and we are no longer a Woman-Owned Enterprise. Having wished to expand for awhile, Mom’s departure – while definitely melancholy – provided the opportunity to proceed. Between 4th quarter 2014 and all through 2015 – Charles and Mark Petty (brothers and 3rd gen family) – along with Zach Petty (4th gen) – worked hard to propel JP Corporation to a new and higher level. Here are details: A Third BuildingIn late 2014 we purchased the building adjacent to us on the east side. This is now our 3rd building; all of which are adjacent and which either already are – or can be – interconnected. With this purchase – we have now quadrupled our square footage – since our original purchase in 1978. We are moving all our "Dirty Ops" – Induction Heat Treating, Flame Hardening, Sawing, Welding, and Light Fabrication – into our new (to us) building. It will also contain our new Centerless Grinding operations; and eventually at least 1 Waterjet cutting machine. Material storage will also become consolidated here, as we continue to perform some needed upgrades to the building. Removing all these operations from our original building will allow us to remodel that for housing additional CNC Turning and Machining Centers. We have no further space for more CNC machines otherwise. We will also enjoy a cleaner and quieter overall work environment by having "Dirty Ops" moved to the 3rd building. Everything considered, our "new" building gives us a lot of flexibility – and perhaps best of all – it sits on enough land that it can be almost doubled in size – at some future date. New CNC MachinesSince 4th quarter of 2014, we have purchased 2 new CNC machines from Doosan. We augmented our milling department with Doosan’s DNM-400 II. Ours is equipped with a high-speed spindle, and dual probes. It is quiet, powerful, fast, and extremely accurate. More recently, we increased our CNC turning capability with Doosan’s Puma 400B. It is quite simply the biggest, baddest machine of any kind that we have ever purchased. It can successfully turn much larger, heavier pieces of steel than any other of our lathes. We are finding that it also has value to take-over some of the jobs our other lathes can do, by producing the part much faster. We seem destined to appreciate this machine more and more! Our Newest Process – Centerless GrindingWe have been intrigued by centerless grinding for quite awhile. We feel it could finish quite a few of the parts we make quicker and for less money, than what our CNC lathes can do. However, all grinding is extremely noisy and messy. We would not incorporate them into our business unless and until we could keep them isolated from our far more expensive CNC turning and machining centers. Because our "new" building is divided internally, we can stick these into the farthest corner, and our CNC machines will never know they are there. We were able to make a great deal on some vintage Cincinnati machines which are quite highly regarded, but no longer made. We bought 3 newer ones for production, and 3 older ones for parts. Additional Measuring EquipmentFeeling that our measuring equipment needs to be constantly upgraded, we just added a new Mitutoyo Optical Comparator; model PH-A14 – Series 172 – Profile Projector. As much as we have appreciated our Nikon 6C over the years, this new Mitutoyo is in a whole ‘nother league! Lastly, visit our new Employment Page if you think you might like to join our team! |
