May 23, 2007 -- Strong growth from a large customer is fueling a $2.3 million investment at JB Tool Die & Engineering Inc., the company announced. The money will be spent to buy new manufacturing and information-technology equipment over the next six to eight months, and the company will add eight jobs.

Dave Bear, president of JB Tool, said the investment is the result of strong growth from the company’s largest customer, Owens-Illinois Inc., based in Perrysburg, Ohio, and makes various glass and plastic products. The new equipment will allow JB Tool to continue to meet Owens-Illinois’ needs.

"We want to be virtually a sole supplier for them," Bear said. JB Tool manufactures tools and dies for various industries from plastics and glass to automotive and electronics. Bear said the company has about 135 customers. The new equipment, which includes mills and grinders, CNC lathes, new computers and monitors, will mostly be an expansion of current operations, Bear said.

About 110 people currently work at JB Tool’s three-building, 60,000-square-foot operation at 1509 Dividend Road in north Fort Wayne, according to a statement the Fort Wayne-Allen County Economic Development Alliance released Tuesday. Bear said he plans to add two or three apprentices as well as skilled machinists, engineers and die makers.

Top wages at the plant are $25 an hour, and apprentices start at $12.50 an hour, Bear said. "We are pleased to see strong investments being made in the advanced manufacturing industry cluster," Mayor Graham Richard said in the statement from the alliance. According to the company’s Web site, JB Tool was founded in Fort Wayne in 1962 and started with five employees.

Source: Fort Wayne Journal Gazette
Source: Factiva