New England Gear president and founder Jeff Barnes grew up as a gearhead. Today, the company he founded 30 years ago focuses on remanufacturing Fellows gear shapers.
“I was heavily involved with short track modified racing in the Northeast growing up as a kid with my dad,” Barnes said. “Basically, I was a mechanical guy. I was a gearhead. I had a lot of mechanical aptitude. That’s my real strength.”
Barnes has been in the gear business since he was a sophomore in high school in 1979, when he went to work for The T.M. Perry Company, which would later become Perry Technology, who is known for its technical expertise and willingness to take on difficult jobs. This is where Barnes gained his initial experience in the gear manufacturing industry.
Working at Perry Technology for 15 years gave him the experience and knowledge that would lead to the formation of New England Gear.
“It was just kind of a natural fit,” he said. “In the field that I was in, my natural mechanical ability allowed me to progress through the company. In 1994, I decided to break out on my own. Instead of running gear machines, I decided I wanted to start rebuilding gear machinery for resale. As time went on, we quickly began focusing on rebuilding Fellows gear shapers.”
“Initially we were just doing repairs, and by 1996 we were developing our first CNC electronic packages for the gear shapers,” Barnes said. “By 2002, all the 10-4s had FANUC 4-axis CNC controls. In addition to the Fellows 10-4 gear shaper, we also remanufacture the 20-4, 20-8, 50-8, and 50-12 Fellows gear shapers. Our mainstay is 100 percent remanufactured Fellows gear shapers. As time has gone by, we have become laser-focused on that brand of shaper for the gear industry.”
In addition to upgrading the machines with FANUC CNC controls, the New Britain, Connecticut-based company also sells new and used parts, as well as providing service.
“We own what we sell, and we know what we’re selling,” is not just the company’s slogan.
“We’re not a broker, we’re very technically competent in what we specialize in,” Barnes said. “And when we sell a machine, it’s a machine that we’ve rebuilt, and we know what it is. So, it’s fully warrantied, and we know that when we’re done with it, we can stand behind it.”
Market focus
Over the course of 30 years, New England Gear has evolved and grown with the industry.
“As technology has evolved, it’s allowed us to provide more advanced electrical packages and software on our machines,” Barnes said. “We use FANUC controls on everything. The motors have become smaller and stronger. It allows us to go direct drive with our retrofits. Instead of belts and pulleys, we’re now direct drive with many of the axes. On the Fellows 10-4, the ball screw in-feed, work table rotation, and cutter rotation are now direct drive with no motors exposed outside of the machine. This leads to a cleaner final product. As time goes on, what’s happened is we’ve been working with some of our customers so that their machines are more easily adaptable to robotic needs.”
New England Gear focuses on small-to-midsize job shops. This makes it easier to provide customers with exactly what they need.
“We tend to shy away from the big OEMs. We focus on a specific type of customer,” Barnes said. “We provide a solid, fast, reliable, accurate machine with a small footprint at a reasonable price.”
Decades of experience
“Customer relationships are vital to any company,” Barnes said. “Many of New England Gear’s customers are companies that have never cut a gear before. Probably 30 percent of our calls are companies that are manufacturing a part complete, except the gear teeth. These customers have to send their part out for the gear operation and then bring it back in house for completion. These companies are contacting me saying, ‘Look, Jeff, I want to do this whole part in house, and I need a gear shaper to do it. Can you help me?’ We provide them with the right machine, tooling, knowledge, and training for success.”
“At the end of the day, our customers are thrilled to be self-sufficient,” he said. “Once the customers can do the work in-house, they avoid the complications of shipping, and they eliminate shipping costs. The end result is they have 100-percent control.”
Over the years, Barnes has purchased a large inventory of used Fellows machines, with an eye on stocking up a supply for future use.
“We pull from that inventory when we’re rebuilding machines,” he said. “And currently, we still have 100 10-4 Fellows gear shapers in stock that need to be rebuilt. So, we’re a stocking company. We buy machines when they are available, not when we need them. This allows us to be more competitive with our pricing.”
Gearing up for the future
New England Gear’s future is already in the works, according to Barnes. Pawel Naporowski is vice president and has been with the company 20 years.
“He’s really got a tremendous amount of knowledge,” Barnes said. “As time creeps on, Pawel is dealing with customers more and more. He’s in line to take the company over and bring it to the next level. Pawel’s been here two decades and has worked his way up through the shop. Little by little, he’s taken over the everyday operations of the company.”
‘Talk to the guy that owns the place’
But Barnes is still on the company’s front line and the first point of contact.
“When anybody calls here, I try and feed them as much data as I can, whether they buy it here or they buy it somewhere else,” Barnes said. “We’re not a huge company. I’ve purposely kept the company small. We have six to eight employees. I want a manageable crew, and I want to be able to pick and choose who I work for. When a customer calls with a question or a technical problem, they can talk directly to me. They talk to the guy that owns the place. That’s got the knowledge.”
