JR Mfg. expanding Fort plant

Work is underway on a 15,000-square-foot expansion of Fort Recovery’s JR Manufacturing plant at 900 Industrial Drive.
Some additional jobs are expected to be created by the expansion.
The company’s Fort Recovery plant already employs 300. It also has plants in Manchester, Tennessee and Aguascalientes, Mexico.
JR Manufacturing produces automotive headrests, seat frames, and other metal car parts.
Its Fort Recovery plant builds its own machinery for use in mass production, according to a company press release.

Workshops planned
The East Central Indiana Small Business Development Center is offering a “launch your own business” workshop on Friday, Oct. 23, from 9 a.m. to noon at city hall in Hartford City.
The cost is $25, which helps cover the cost of a workbook.
The same workshop will be offered on Thursday, Nov. 5, at the Innovation Connector, 1208 W. White River Blvd., Muncie.
A “small business fix-it” roundtable for new and established business owners is set for Tuesday, Oct. 20, from noon to 1 p.m. at the Downtown Business Connector, 420 S. High St., Muncie. The roundtable provides an opportunity to address and answer common questions. There is no cost to attend, but participants are required to submit a question when registering.

Breaking up?
The possible break-up of Yum Brands, parent company of Pizza Hut, KFC, and Taco Bell, may be getting closer.
An activist investor named Keith Meister, who has previously outlined a plan for breaking up the company, joined Yum’s board of directors Friday.
Meister of Corvex Capital is Yum’s largest hedge fund shareholder with more than 15.28 million shares. In May, he outlined a plan to spin off the company’s operations in China as a separate entity. Yum’s China venture has been underperforming and has had an impact on the company’s stock price.

Using waste
POET Biorefining’s Chancellor, S.D., plant is now using wood waste as a power source.
“We are a fuel-switching plant where we can switch to the most economical type of fuel,” plant general manger Dean Fredericton told Ethanol Producer Magazine this week. In addition to wood waste, the plant uses methane from wells drilled in the Sioux Falls landfill.
POET Biorefining is the parent company of Portland’s ethanol plant.
The magazine reported that the Chancellor plant installed a solid fuel boiler in 2006 to offset the cost of fossil fuels.
Natural gas is used as a back-up energy source.
Ash from the burning of wood waste is recycled.

New offices
Tyson Foods, parent company of Tyson Mexican Original of Portland, has announced plans for a new, two-story, 44,000-square-foot office building in downtown Springdale, Arkansas. The offices will house about 250 of the company’s corporate staff.

Plan opposed
Vectren Corp.’s energy efficiency plan should be rejected, Indiana’s utility consumer counselor says, because it would charge customers more than necessary.
The Evansville-based utility provides natural gas service to parts of western Jay County.
A law approved by the Indiana General Assembly this year calls for utilities to seek approval from the Indiana utility Regulatory Commission for energy efficiency programs by the end of 2017. Utilities can then recover the costs of the programs through rate increases.
Meanwhile, Vectren is predicting that its natural gas customers will see their heating bills drop by more than 20 percent this winter.