We have added a lot of new equipment at National Jet Company over the last few years for both manufacturing and inspection. This year we have added two different “firsts” for us.
We recently purchased our first 3D printer. (Those that know us know that we have manufactured nozzles for 3D printers and other industries for a long time.) We expect to use it primarily for fixtures, holding devices, and set up pieces for jobs. But as many of you know, once you get a new tool in house, you find so many other uses that you never originally considered. We are all pretty excited about this new piece and looking forward to all of the new avenues that it opens up for us.
We also purchased our first robot. This tool has already paid big dividends for us. We make a lot of high precision parts that require detailed inspections. This robot has already been on jobs that load a part onto an inspection machine, inspects it and then puts the part in the pass or fail bin. (As you would suspect, we also have some pretty high tech inspection equipment.) We already have other work lined up for this robot which we expect will really help us with our efforts to reduce lead times.
We continue to add not just to our capacity but also to our capabilities. We expect to add even more in the near future!