Hypertherm designs, tests for reliability, and manufactures all of its products in its New Hampshire based facilities. The company is owned by all of its (around 1200) employees, who all share in profitability of the company in good times. During the recent economic downturn the business levels dropped rather dramatically, yet we made the corporate decision to not lay off a single employee...rather everyone shifted responsibilities to ensure that when the recession ended we would still be firing on all cylinders. Many production workers shifted into research and development department jobs, we increased spending in engineering and new system development. We took the downtime to improve our production facilities in terms of manufacturing equipment, test equipment, and production fixtures. Overtime of course was cut, but everyone was still employed! Those that traveled in sales and technical services positions traveled smarter, cheaper, and more efficiently.
When the downturn finally hit bottom and started back up....Hypertherm still had its fully trained and capable staff.....while many of our competitors had to hire new workers and had to retrain. We also had 4 or 5 newly released plasma cutting products.....our competitors had none. Hypertherm is very busy again, we are growing at rates much faster than others in our industry, our new product are selling at record rates, and all of our employees still have their jobs......as well as over 40 new jobs that have been added.
Over 60% of Hypertherms all USA built products are exported to other parts of the world, with China being one of our largest growing markets.
So, we are very proud of our company and products, and I think we have clearly proven that American factories can compete on a worldwide market with proper management. I have been with Hypertherm for 33 years....and if anyone ever ventures into New Hampshire (Hanover to be exact) contact me and I'd be glad to provide a tour of Hypertherms main facility where all of the plasma products are manufactured!
Jim Colt Hypertherm
Hi Jim
Love my Hypertherm Powermax 900 so far - haven't used it too much.
Curious about your reply on this thread. "US designed and built by employee owners". Could you elaborate on this please?
As one who does his best to always buy MADE IN THE U.S.A. (which is really tough these days), I'm wondering what Hypertherm is doing?
thanks and Happy New Year everyone.