Jewell Attachments Celebrates Grand Opening of New Facility

After 31 consecutive days of rain, the skies cleared for the
grand opening of Jewell Attachments’ new manufacturing facility in the Portland,
Ore., suburb of Tualatin. Offering more than 60,000 sq ft of manufacturing and
office space, the new facility takes the manufacturer of equipment and
attachments from extremely cramped quarters to a site that is spacious,
well-planned and truly world-class.

Attended over the course of the day by hundreds, including
customers, dealers, vendors, suppliers and key personnel from throughout the
ranks of parent company Paladin, the new facility drew unanimous raves.

From the ceremonial ribbon-cutting, shared by founder Jim
Kirkpatrick, general manager Dannie Smith and Paladin chairman Bill Van Sant, to
the plant tours conducted throughout the day, the overriding themes were those
of excitement and anticipation of things to come.

The new manufacturing, fabrication and assembly area, itself
more than 51,000 sq ft, is designed around 10 continuous flow work centers to
employ the efficiency-based principles of Lean Mfg. now in place at Jewell.
Key components include a 48-ft CNC controlled plasma burn center, multiple
machining centers, areas for fabrication, overhead cranes with 5- to 20-ton
capacities and enough floor space to accommodate a sizeable number of excavator
conversions, attachments or components simultaneously.

In addition to doing excavator conversions, Jewell makes
attachments for the forestry, construction, demolition and recycling markets and
will make all of those at this new location. The site is also capable of taking
in manufacturing from Paladin’s other companies, several of which provide
buckets, augers and other attachments for users of compact equipment.