01
Tell the truth at quote
About the price, the date and the print. A low quote that ships late costs everybody more.
Home/About
Cutting metal
in Birmingham
since 1948.
Jordan Machine Company started as a Birmingham job shop in 1948. It grew, the machines changed, and in 1997 the employees bought the company.
The story
Still a job shop.
Just a much
bigger one.
In 1948 this was a typical small job shop for the era: machine work for the industrial customers around Birmingham, in a steel and pipe town.
In 1979, well before it was obvious, the company bought its first CNC machine. It was early, and it changed the kind of work we could take. CNC made complicated one-off work repeatable, and that opened up customers outside Birmingham.
Today Jordan Machine supplies steel and tubular producers, mineral processing equipment builders and heavy industrial operations across the country. Still in Birmingham, still taking the odd one-off and short-run work, but now on seventeen CNC machines with inspection records archived by run.
1948
A small job shop opens in Birmingham
Machine work for the industrial customers around Birmingham, back when customers brought the part in themselves.
1979
Early adopter of CNC
The company bought into computer-controlled machining years before most job shops did, and started writing its own programs, which it still does.
1997
The employees buy the company
Jordan Machine becomes an Employee Stock Ownership Plan company, owned by the people working in it.
NOW
A national industrial supplier
A 25,000 sq ft facility running seventeen CNC machines, in-house welding, keyseating, assembly and paint, plus managed secondary processes — shipping nationwide.
Employee ownership
Owners run
this floor.
The machinists here own the company. That shows up in how a bad part gets handled.
Scrap and late parts come out of our own pockets, and everybody here knows it. The person deciding whether that part is good enough owns a piece of the company, and of whether you call back next year.
It also shapes how we’re building the shop right now. A generation of our machinists has reached retirement age, and we’re training the next group ourselves, putting newer machinists on their own setups alongside the people who have been doing this the longest. It takes longer than hiring the work out, but the skill stays here.
Two divisions
A machine shop
and a machine
builder.
Jordan Machine Company is the contract machine shop — turning, milling, welding, assembly and the rework and rebuild of industrial components for customers across the country.
Jordan Reduction Solutions is our sister division, and it builds complete machines: industrial shredders, grinders and granulators for plants that have to reduce difficult material. Those machines are engineered, fabricated and machined in this same building.
It is an unusual combination and it works in both directions. Building the equipment teaches us what its wear components actually go through; running a job shop means the machine builder has a full CNC floor down the hall instead of a supplier lead time.
How we operate
Four things
we don’t bend on.
02
Own the whole part
Machining, fabrication, heat treat, plating, inspection, packaging. We manage the outside processes and ship the part finished.
03
Keep the knowledge
Models, programs, fixtures and inspection records stay on file. A repeat part should run easier and cheaper than the first one.
04
Answer the phone
When a line is down, you get somebody on the phone who can make the call.
By the numbers
Jordan Machine today
1948Year founded
1979First CNC machine
1997Employee owned
17CNC machines
102″Max travel
25,000Square feet
Come see the floor.
Customers are welcome at 355 Clow Lane. Call ahead and we’ll walk you through the shop.