helmel engineering products, inc. (hepi) is engaged in the design, manufacture, sales and service of coordinate measuring machines (cmm) and related software. cmms are built mainly for the manufacturing industry in the automotive, aerospace and business machine sector and for tool and die shops, moldmakers, machine and fabricating shops, stamping houses, etc. practically anyone having to verify a physical part to dimensions on a blueprint to a high degree of accuracy is a potential customer. the checkmaster is a manually operated machine, whereas the microstar, the pcmm and the newer rambo can be programmed for fully automatic operation. hepi is located at 6520 lockport road in the town of niagara, just outside of niagara falls, new york and a few miles from the canadian border. this location has strategic advantages since the three important industrial cities of rochester, buffalo and toronto can be reached within 1 ½ hours. the airports of toronto and buffalo provide easy access to any airport in north america and europe, important for sales and service. the thruway entrance is only two miles away. hepi occupies over 22,000 square feet of manufacturing and office space. the building sits on 5 acres of industrial property owned by the company. this facility is air conditioned with the exception of the storage and loading areas. the extensive machine tool park includes several fair sized machining centers and a large grinder. most operations to manufacture the above machines are performed in house i.e., milling, turning, drilling, welding, painting, measuring and assembly. the electronic cabinet, which is part of the motorized machine, is also assembled in house. surface grinding to a very high degree of straightness is a specialty of hepi and probably few, if any, companies could match this with the required consistency. measuring machines are calibrated with a laser before shipment. field installations and training are performed by in-house technicians and engineers. full employment in this facility is approximatly 26.