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J&M Trading Continues a Heritage of Engineering Excellence

by Jean B. Grillo, Reporter | October 29, 2007
J&M Trading are the
go-to people when
diagnostic systems worth
anywhere from $10,000
to $350,000 break down.

J&M Trading, whose main business is providing refurbished parts for major diagnostic systems (CT scanners, MRIs, Ultrasound, Nuclear and X-Ray), truly began as the quintessential mom & pop company, created in 1991 by Juanita and Maurice, parents of Mary D. Lampley, its current vice president.

"My father was an X-Ray engineer for GE for 30 years," Lampley recalls, adding, "They started with three employees, themselves and my brother. Today, we have 13 employees, 50,000 square feet of inventory and are one of the few diagnostic parts providers ISO 9001 certified."

The latter is no small deal. In order to pass the FDA regulated process, J&M Trading, Inc. is audited for stringent quality control and procedural regulations. "Not many companies have this," Lampley says with some justifiable pride, noting the ISO certification truly sets her company apart.

J&M Trading are the go-to people when diagnostic systems worth anywhere from $10,000 to $350,000 break down. While J&M's biggest clients are the diagnostic equipment end-users, they also sell to sourcing companies. Her clients are brokers looking for a part, along with end-user hospitals and clinics.

"The funny thing about this equipment," Lampley explains, "one or two parts consistently fail. Our company takes those broken parts and totally re-furbishes them and sells them back."

J&M Trading, as the name implies, insists on getting the "bad" part in exchange for a re-furbished replacement, which they then take and turn around. Using many test bays to oversee quality control, J&M totally cleans up and replaces every component before selling it back to a system in need.

"One of the biggest trends in part replacement we see are the big amount of sourcing companies that acquire parts from other vendors at one site then sell them to end users," she says. "Because they are a centralized source, you pay a little more," but, she notes, "we sell to them as well so they are both our competitors and our clients."

About 75 percent of her clients are based in the US, but J&M has a growing international market--25 percent of her business and growing.

"These diagnostic systems are extremely valuable and, if a piece breaks down, you're either going to try and fix it or you'll sell the system as is," Lampley explains. Those systems sent out to "pasture" are rounded-up at auctions and hospital visits by J&M staff.

"DOTmed is extremely helpful to us in acquiring new vendors," Lampley adds. "We've been included on DOTmed's Parts Hunter and it's very helpful that DOTmed users can rate us and let us know how we can improve."