Jamestown plant purchases new equipment

The electro welded tube mill was purchased from Germany and is a sister machine with the TitanX facility in Sweden. Welded aluminum tubes are a product that TitanX has been purchasing for 15 years from the around the world. However, now because of the new purchase, TitanX will be able to offer its customers locally manufactured quality tubes at a competitive cost, said Matt Moore, TitanX president.


''We even sent some of our employees over to Sweden to be trained on the machine,'' Moore said. ''They spent three weeks there learning about the machine. Also, people from Sweden will be coming here to continue that help.''
A multi-functional project team, managed by Jamestown native Steve Fisk, with Tom Sampson, lead engineer, have been responsible for this 15-month project. His team includes engineers, purchasing agents and our valuable suppliers in addition to the employees that will operate the mill.
The semi-automated radiator stacker is the largest truck radiator stacker ever purchased by TitanX. The machine will increase the maximum size of a radiator that can be produced in Jamestown from 40 by 40 inches to 67 by 67 inches. The new equipment will also allow TitanX to produce its next generation super high performance radiator, which has a 10 percent performance improvement over current technology. The purchase of this equipment was coordinated by the company's manufacturing engineer, Harold Mong, and purchasing agent, Charlie Yeskey. Moore said these radiators are a key component to the green technology for the next generation Navistar trucks.
One of the company's key milestones this year was the contract award from Navistar for its 2010 Heavy Duty cooling systems. Moore said the contract not only insures growth in the Jamestown facility, but challenged TitanX to engineer and design the most advanced cooling systems.
The investments will allow TitanX to support new customer, but also has set the base for cost competitive production for years to come. Moore said the new equipment and business expansion will allow the company to return employees that had been laid off by the company earlier this year.
''We here at TitanX are looking forward to 2010 and the launch of the 2010 Navistar product line,'' Moore said. ''This will be the culminating point of nearly 18 months of hard development work. This equipment and these contracts should allow TitanX to meet it's goal of returning to 2008 employment levels during calendar 2010. We appreciate both the trust of our owners, customers and especially the local employees who in a very difficult time have exceeded expectations.''