In 1955, Joseph L. Souser established what was originally known as JL Souser with the company’s roots starting as a manufacturers representative firm. Upon taking the reigns of an already successful organization, current President/CEO, Craig A. Souser implemented his vision of becoming an industry leader in industrial automation. As the company began to expand, building a talented staff and out-growing several facilities, JLS quickly became the go-to resource for high performance motion control systems.
While Founder’s Day 2015 will appropriately serve as the actual 60th Anniversary, the entire year will be a celebration of the JLS’s leadership in industrial automation. In reflecting on the company’s history, President Craig A. Souser states: “My father used to say that at the end of the day, all you have is your reputation. We embrace the philosophy that you are only as good as what your customers say about you. You simply cannot be around as long as we have been without making sure that you add value and do what’s right for the customer. At times, that means an opportunity might not be right for you in the short-term.”
JLS has strategically reinvented itself over the years, but always maintained a focus on innovation and bringing new technologies to our customers. Those technologies range from motion control components to engineered drive and control systems and on to gantry robotics. For the last 12 years or so, the focus has been on robotic picking systems for the food industry. Souser adds: “Over the course of sixty years, we have seen a great deal of change with customers, including mergers and acquisitions, and some industries as a whole have evaporated. We felt confident that food production would remain strong in the US and that the need for primary and secondary packaging automation would grow. It certainly has grown and will continue to do so.”
Today, JLS supplies robotic packaging systems to several Fortune 500 consumer packaged goods companies and is an active member of the Packaging Machinery Manufacturers Institute (PMMI) and the Food Processing Suppliers Association (FPSA). In addition, JLS has been an ABB Robotics Preferred Partner for several years.
