JST buckets and attachments

FROM WORKSHOP TO FACTORY

With his journeyman‘s certificate as a blacksmith in hand, Niels Jørgensen decides to start an independent company in his father‘s former agricultural buildings. This is how the story of a machine factory just outside Velling in West Jutland in Denmark begins on March 1, 2002. Within a year, Niels converts all 500 m 2 of the barn into a workshop and the company name Jørgensens Smede og Maskinværksted is established. The tasks range from forging and service work to the construction of special machines. Niels works with steel, stainless steel and aluminum. Inspired by a tree planter from Canada The business idea from which the large range of buckets and attachments emerges is inspired by a machine station on a neighboring property. A tree planter imported from Canada gives Niels the idea of equipping excavators and loaders with many different attachments. However, the machine dealer pushes the price of the buckets down, and the quality does not meet the standard that Niels wants to deliver from his workshop. With new experiences and new knowledge about buckets, Niels develops a new product line that he can vouch for. This is how the first product catalogue with attachments for loaders is created. And this is the business idea on which Maskinfabrikken JST A/S is built to this day. In the following years, the demand for buckets grows and new customers are added to the portfolio. In 2007 there are more and more large and small customers. This year‘s annual

result turns out to be the best in the company‘s history, and JST focuses exclusively on the production of buckets and attachments for loaders and excavators. In 2008, the sole proprietorship is transformed into a joint stock company called Maskinfabrikken JST A/S. The financial crisis of 2008 In October 2008 the financial crisis breaks out and for the first time in five years the order book is empty. In order to recover from the financial crisis, Niels hires the company‘s first salesman in January 2009. This is the start of the organization as it is today. Jørgen Eriksen from Bjerringbro can sell just as well as Niels can produce. Jørgen expands the portfolio of 60 customers by 300 by the end of 2010, and the number of new products increases in line with the number of new customers. The Agromek trade fair takes place in Herning in November 2010. There is half a meter of snow around the fairgrounds, and Niels speaks to several customers at the fair who enquire about tractor snow ploughs. Niels designs a snow plough for production and within 14 days, he sells 10 snow ploughs. Before the winter is over, he has sold 41 snow ploughs, and to this day, snow ploughs are still in the range. Investing in the future In 2014, JST invests in two rolling machines and two press brakes for steel plate processing. The investment enables a design change in the product range, and over the next few years, the catalogue becomes increasingly extensive.

The company‘s buildings now amount to approx. 3,000m 2 , but space is tight. In May 2021, JST builds a 3,700m 2 production hall and a 500m 2 administration building. Since then, the new square metres have been put into use, and the last part of the former stable building is scheduled for a comprehensive renovation in 2023. The factory will then be a new and state-of-the-art forging company with 80 employees from many different countries and with different professional backgrounds. The organisation consists of a sales department, a marketing department, a design studio, an accounting department and, last but not least, a production department with almost 60 permanent skilled and unskilled blacksmiths and industrial technicians and has a close teamwork with local schools. Everything to secure a future for Maskinfabrikken JST A/S and other companies throughout the municipality of Ringkøbing-Skjern. workers from home and abroad. Maskinfabrikken JST A/S trains Maskinfabrikken JST A/S produced approx. 15,000 attachments for Denmark, the Faroe Islands, Greenland and Norway in 2022 and sees a future in other countries. 2022 was another year with record sales.

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