How JPM Trailers increased throughput with a collaborative blast room installation

When trailer production depends on moving large fabrications through surface preparation quickly and reliably, blasting cannot afford to become a bottleneck.

That was the challenge facing JPM Trailers, a Northern Ireland manufacturer of agricultural and commercial trailers. The business needed a blast room installation that could process large trailer components within an existing building, without compromising layout, usability, or output.

The solution came through a collaborative partnership between JPM Trailers, JG Burns Ltd and SurfacePrep. By combining practical site knowledge, distribution support, engineering design expertise and installation capability, the project delivered a 15m x 5m acoustic blast room tailored to JPM’s building constraints and production needs.

The result is a more efficient surface preparation process that is already helping JPM improve throughput, reduce labour demands, and lower expected blast media wastage.

JPM Trailers is a well-established trailer manufacturer founded in 1997. The company produces a wide range of agricultural and commercial trailers, including low loaders, dump trailers, skip trailers, forestry trailers, and bespoke trailer builds.

Its reputation is built on durability, product quality, and the ability to adapt trailers to specific customer requirements. That makes finishing quality, production efficiency, and process reliability commercially important. When a manufacturer is building robust, hard-working equipment for demanding end use, every stage of production has to support consistency and throughput.

JPM Trailers needed a blast room that could fit within its existing building and handle trailer processing at the scale the business required.

The main constraint was not the room footprint itself. The real issue was the entrance height to the building.

That created a familiar industrial challenge. A blast room may look straightforward on paper, but if the system is not designed around the physical realities of the site, the installation can become compromised, disruptive, or unnecessarily expensive. For JPM, the risk was clear, invest in a new blasting system that either reduced functionality or failed to work efficiently within the available building.

Budget also mattered, so the solution had to be practical and cost-conscious as well as technically sound.

The final installation reflected close coordination between Mr Pat O’Neill, Managing Director of JPM Trailers, Paul Humphries of JG Burns, longstanding partner for Hodge Clemco in Northern Ireland and Surface Prep Distributors, and Mr Steve Staples, Design Engineer at SurfacePrep.

That early collaboration mattered. Rather than forcing a standard solution into a constrained site, the blast room was designed around the actual building conditions, operational requirements, and project budget.

The finished system was a 15m x 5m acoustic blast room complete with:

• Large insulated loading and unloading doors
• Rubber lining curtains protecting the walls and doors
• LED lighting throughout the room
• Calculated air inlet and outlet fabrications
• A sweep-in belt and bucket elevator recovery system
• Abrasive separator and twin outlet storage hopper
• Two IND2452 blast machine packages for twin-operator blasting
• A 17,000 m³/hr reverse pulse dust collector

The successful installation at JPM Trailers reflects more than a well-specified blast room. It reflects the value of partnership.

The relationship between JG Burns Ltd and Hodge Clemco, now part of SurfacePrep, represents a shared dedication to excellence within the surface preparation industry. By combining JG Burns Ltd’s hands-on industry knowledge with Hodge Clemco’s established equipment range and technical innovation, the partnership was able to deliver a solution tailored to the customer’s real requirements.

That combination strengthened the support around the project from design through to installation and helped ensure that JPM Trailers benefited from a practical, efficient and high-value result.

The value of the installation was not just in the specification. It was in what that specification enabled JPM to do more effectively.

Large access doors made it easier to move sizeable trailer fabrications in and out of the room.

Well-designed airflow and LED lighting improved visibility for operators and supported a cleaner, more controlled blasting environment.

The abrasive recovery and recycling system helped reduce waste by returning reusable media back into the process.

The twin-operator set-up gave JPM the ability to blast with two operators at the same time, helping the business increase throughput when production demand required it.

Taken together, those features created a better-fit surface preparation system for a manufacturer handling large fabricated products within a live production environment.

The project also required a practical approach to cost control.

To protect the roof and floor of the blast room, steel protection plates were designed as part of the solution. JPM fabricated and installed the floor plates itself, while SurfacePrep installed the roof protection.

That split in responsibilities was a sensible and commercially grounded decision. It helped keep the project aligned to budget while ensuring the installation stayed on programme and delivered the protection the system required.

The quality of the final result was also shaped by the exceptional dedication and work ethic of the installation engineers involved in the project.

Their commitment helped ensure the blast room was delivered to a high standard and that the collaboration between customer, distributor and design engineer translated successfully into a working production asset.

For industrial projects like this, that matters. Good design is only part of the answer. Delivery quality and coordination on site are what turn a specification into a result.

The outcome was more than a new item of equipment. It was a production asset designed to improve blasting throughput within an existing building.

According to JPM, the new blast room is already helping the business process more trailers with fewer man hours. It is also freeing the operator to carry out other tasks, improving the effective use of labour across the operation.

JPM also expects lower blast media wastage compared with the previous set-up, thanks to the improved recovery and recycling system.

For a trailer manufacturer producing robust, customer-specific equipment, that matters. Better throughput, better labour efficiency, and lower waste all support stronger operational performance.

Pat O’Neill at JPM Trailers described the service as excellent from start to finish and praised the way the design process was handled despite the need to coordinate with the company modifying the building.

He also highlighted the professionalism of the installation and commissioning team and the quality of the finished result:

For manufacturers working within existing buildings, this project is a strong example of what good blast room design and installation really looks like.

It is not just about choosing the right equipment. It is about solving real site constraints, protecting throughput, and delivering a practical installation that works in the context of production, budget and building limitations.

It is also a reminder that the best outcomes often come from strong collaboration. In this case, JPM Trailers, JG Burns Ltd and SurfacePrep combined their expertise to deliver a solution that worked for the site, the process and the commercial reality of the project.

If you are planning a blast room installation, reviewing your current blasting set-up, or trying to improve throughput within the space you already have, SurfacePrep can help.

Whether the challenge is building constraints, operator efficiency, abrasive recovery, dust extraction, or overall process performance, the first step is to assess what the site and production flow actually need.