History
Since 1745 JDN has been manufacturing lifting equipment, now in the seventh generation.
In 1745 our ancestor Johann Diederich Neuhaus was found worthy to be listed as an "industrialist" in the "Sprockhoevelschen Factory Register" and to be accepted in a kind of "Commercial Co-Operative". We have been manufacturing "JDN Hoists" ever since and are now in the seventh generation.
At first we mainly produced jacks with wooden shanks and no carter wanted to travel without these jacks because of the terrible road conditions and the continuous wheel and axle damages.
We still manufacture jacks today but many basic principles have changed. The "Significant Date" for this was in 1952 when we had the idea to put a pneumatic motor to a so far manually operated pulley block.
Main customer of our pneumatic hoists was the coal mining industry where a product has to be robust and reliable if it wants to prove itself.
Towards the end of the 60`s we developed special pneumatic hoists for industrial applications: the JDN Air Hoists "PROFI" series. They can be used wherever there is a danger of explosion or where loads have to be moved very sensitively. For the ship building industry we developed a "PROFI" with a carrying capacity of 100 t.
As the first company in the material handling industry we received the Certificate for Quality Assurance in 1991. In the same year we widened our delivery programme to become a universal supplier of complete crane installations.
In 1998 we launched the compact air hoist of the mini series.
J. Diederich Neuhaus
(29.1.1925 – 9.7.2010)
In 1952 his son J. Diederich Neuhaus entered the company as a young engineer after having gained his initial work experiences in other companies. J. Diederich Neuhaus had the idea to replace the manual operation of JDN hoists by an air driven motor.
This was a most welcome innovation for the main consumer of our hoists, the underground mining industry. These new air driven hoists enabled lifting operations to be carried out with less effort, in reduced time and more safely. For J. Diederich Neuhaus this was the beginning of an enormous economic upswing. In the same manner J. Diederich Neuhaus recognised that his products could also be used in a variety of other industries worldwide. Consequently in the early sixties JDN developed the first air driven hoists for general industrial applications JDN Hoists of the "PROFI" series.
These hoist units are used in areas where there is a danger of explosion, hostile conditions or where loads have to be moved very sensitively. For the shipbuilding industry we designed a "PROFI" with a carrying capacity of 100 tons.
Due to the commitment of J. Diederich Neuhaus the company grew to become one of the worldwide leading manufacturers of compressed air driven hoists. Particular attention was paid to the firm´s culture and J. Diederich Neuhaus built a Hoist Museum where the development from the lever of the Stone Age to the modern air hoist can be seen. Not only visitors from allied industries but also members of the public can learn how traditional skills were used to manufacture various kinds of winches and hoists for diversified applications.
This commitment to the care of tradition was specially honoured in 1975 during the Federal competition "Industrie in der Landschaft" (industry in the landscape) and J.D. Neuhaus was awarded a Gold Medal.
In February 2000 J. Diederich Neuhaus was awarded by the President the "Verdienstkreuz am Bande des Verdienstordens der Bundesrepublik Deutschland" (Order of Merit on Ribbon of the Distinguished Order of the Federal Republic of Germany) for his merits as an entrepreneur and for his social and cultural commitment. At the same time he also received the Silberne Ehrennadel (Silver Needle of Honour) from his home town Witten.