The old adage ‘if you are not growing, you are shrinking’ is not lost on Jones Metal. Successful growth requires change and at Jones Metal we are excited to reveal some bright changes. It’s especially important for manufacturing businesses to stay relevant as technology progresses, markets shift, demands grow and team members continue to look for positive career benefits and challenges.

We’ve earned our position as a leader in metal fabrication because of our innovation, agility, and precision. For more than 80 years, our family-owned, female-led business continues to stand the test of time by staying rooted in family values, exploring new opportunities, and bringing value to our partners by listening to their needs and supplying solutions.

Three of our latest strategic moves illustrate how we continue to innovate for our partners and team members. With a refreshed and elevated brand, an industry-leading robotic welding system, and a new business venture that will help power the future of communities, Jones Metal has energy and is driving change.

#1 Elevating Our Brand to Meet the Moment

If you know anything about Jones Metal, it’s clear that boldness is in our blood. It began with our founder, Mildred M. Jones in 1942 who chose red and a unique brush script for the original logo. Red stood out in the manufacturing industry and remained our signature color of strength for decades.

In 2014, an extensive rebranding shifted us back to our family roots in Wales. We adopted the vibrant blue that matched the family tartan and developed a logo featuring the Welsh dragon to represent strength. We put the mission, vision, and values that have always governed us into words and shared them with employees to improve our culture and grow ownership.

Our newly redesigned website and brand elements unveiled this month further elevates us and generates momentum. The addition of black and white with dynamic shapes that imitate sheet metal, create movement and sophistication to match the experience of working with Jones Metal.

We are in the process of integrating our refreshed brand throughout our offices and manufacturing floor by graphically communicating our core values of kindness, grit, positivity, ownership and helpfulness front and center for our team to see and live by. These graphics will make it clear to anyone who requests a quote or walks through the door how important our Jones family is. You can learn more about those core values on our new website.

#2 Going Big with Robotic Welding.

We’re not afraid to go big to meet the needs of our partners. When one approached us with a new opportunity that would push our capacity, we knew it was time to invest. Jones Metal is now home to a unique robotic welding system. It is the largest in Minnesota for custom metal fabrication, designed by Acieta.

Known by our team as BigBot, this cutting-edge welder rides along a 75 ft. rail and has the ability, at minimum, to quadruple our production capacity without sacrificing quality. It takes up six times the space of a typical robotic welder but can complete work across three bays in a fraction of the time. Plus, the style of the welding head and its flexibility makes even the most challenging job reaches easier to execute and repeat.

The best part is it makes our people even better. Instead of allocating hours to a project, our experts can program jobs to run in minutes at the touch of a button. They spend time managing the robot through programming, coding, and inspecting. It’s even challenged our engineers to explore ways to develop new fixtures to hold weldments that provide more efficiency and flexibility. It allows us to utilize the technical and creative abilities of our people to go further for our partners.

It’s a pathway we are committed to—growing with our people leading the way for quality production through state-of-the-art technology.

#3. Stepping Up Power Generation with ENVALT

Power and power generation is already in high demand. Solar and wind are good alternative solutions, but the power isn’t easily transitioned to the grid. Power companies continue to bury power lines and upgrade transformers to generate more and increase reliability. This translates to more pressure on the transformer manufacturers to build more, faster. The supply chain is stressed with lead times from two to four years for new and refurbished transformers.

ENVALT is our solution to help small to mid-sized transformer companies step up to meet this need with 12-gauge steel, leakproof transformer cases. Our new product line offers single phase and three-phase pad mount enclosures to the transformer producers. These standardized boxes provide quality and consistency to help protect and power communities into the future.

Right now, ENVALT is part of the Jones Metal family of products with big plans to transition to a new location next door as a standalone company. It’s just another way we’re serving industries and customers with solutions they can count on.

One thing is for certain, when you work with Jones Metal, you’re working with people that appreciate legacy but are fully invested in the future. We believe in doing things differently, doing things better and investing in our team and technology to be the modern fabricator of choice for our partners.