General Methods Corporation (GEMCO)
Morton, IL 61550
History of Gemco
HISTORY
GEMCO
was originally a metal
machine shop established in 1944, as a subsidiary of Fleming-Potter.
Fleming-Potter was a printing company that was created after prohibition
to supply labels to Hiram Walker & Sons and other Peoria area
distillers since Peoria, IL was a hotbed for distillers. This was due
to the abundance of grain, the excellence of transportation facilities,
(trains, trucks, and barges) and because of the pure artesian well
water that maintained a 50 +/- 1 degree temperature year round.
General Methods original name was
General Metals Company. The World War II war effort cut off all
aluminum foil supplies, (much of the printing companies labels were made
of aluminum). General Metals was formed to create a machine that
would manufacture lead capsules, or secondary closures, for the bottle
necks of whiskey, wine, and champagne bottles. General Metals became a
tool and die/machine company whose primary customer was Caterpillar,
Inc. General Metals soon became General Methods/IBM or GEMCO/IBM. IBM
was International Banding Machines whose machines are placed within the
tobacco industry. GEMCO continues to provide parts to IBM's 1930 and
40's style machines now located in other countries, and maintains
original blueprints of these machines.
GEMCO concentrated in the 1960's
specializing in the design and manufacture of machines and delivery
systems for both two and three dimension products to solve special
requirements in the material handling, orientating, sequencing,
transportation and delivery confirmation of products. These machines
placed over 7 million Olympic coins into General Mills Boxes and
millions of coupons, toys, and candy into cereal boxes. Even machines
to cut, dispense, but also check each box for insertion was designed.
GEMCO's high speed coupon
dispensing equipment placed these 'sales aids' in containers such as
cereals, flour, canned and bottled and dry foods, and many personal car
products you used every day. This technology was designed to replace
labor intensive manual systems within efficient mechanical systems with
systems that focused on the required tasks and electronics to control,
track, sort and verify.
Our design experiences ranged from one of a kind to production quantity delivery systems that have met customer design specifications of run rates up to 200/minute and design lives up to hundreds of millions of cycles.
More examples of some of the machines and systems designed to meet special products delivery requirements include:
