About
The Nelson Company’s trained machinists machine parts that are sent worldwide to be used in the assembly of mostly agriculture-related equipment – a big difference compared to the manufacturer’s humble beginning.By 1986, the company had grown from one employee to 35 and from one customer to 50, and its sales that year were near the $2 million mark. The manufacturing company moved again in 1993 to its 88,000 square foot building.The work The Nelson Company does now isn’t very different than the work it started with more than 30 years ago. We buy aluminum; ductile iron and gray iron castings and machine them into usable parts. We can assist customers in placing their tooling with the appropriate foundry to best suit their needs. We deal with several different foundries who specialize in different foundry needs, IE size of casting or special metallurgy requirements. One of those foundries is the local Fairfield Castings – the former Dexter Company.The Nelson Company machines the raw castings to print specifications to make them usable parts.The company is continually updating machinery and taking advantage of incorporating old and new machines into machining cells. Our newest and biggest machine, acquired in April 2013 is a vertical lathe. The machine is our first vertical lathe owned; other lathes are horizontal. The new lathe can handle bigger, heavier castings – up to 31 inches and 800 – 1000 pounds and even do the job a little faster.The manufacturing process also includes balancing the machined parts to specification.Additional services include painting, plating with materials like zinc or chrome, and heat treatment all to print specs.Most of the parts machined at Nelson’s are agriculture related parts, parts that are used in the assembly of planters, combines and tractors. We do have the capability of doing parts outside of agriculture, and we’re always looking for opportunities in other markets.Opening new doors for Nelson’s is its ISO 9001:2008 certification in 2011. ISO is a worldwide quality standard administered by the International Organization based in Switzerland and used by nearly 1 million organizations around the world. It is intended to establish, document and maintain a system to ensure the output of a quality product.We are an equal opportunity employer hiring both full and part-time workers for two shift operation.The Nelson Company became an ESOP with Pete’s Nelson’s retirement in 2000 so all of our employees can share in the ownership of the company by acquiring stock based on years of service and hours worked. Shares are sold back to the company and dispersed upon employee leaving company. Pete has stayed involved with the company as Chairman of the board.With current President John Weissheier and Vice President Clint Hardin, the company is seeing growth and is continuously getting new jobs.
