Eagle Press & Equipment Co. Ltd. is a trusted source of custom press fabrication and mechanical engineering known to an exclusive set of Tier 1 and 2 automotive original equipment manufacturing customers across North America. The company is favoured for its guaranteed response time and some of the best presses in the world. As a result, its clients know that this team is their seamlessly integrated partner.
With the support of its parent company ISGEC—a multi-billion-dollar publicly traded corporation based in India—Eagle Press & Equipment has access to impressive research and development and artificial intelligence resources. “Some of the most brilliant people I have ever spoken to are part of that company,” says Ken Polewski, Sales Manager and professional engineer.
While Eagle Press & Equipment primarily serves the automotive industry with fine mechanical press technology, it is fast becoming increasingly popular with appliance, energy, and solar technology, as well as with defence manufacturers for the fine accuracy of its heavy-capacity hydraulic presses.
To maintain premium quality, the company ensures that its staff is well vetted before being appointed. A firm grasp of technical complexity and an aptitude for engineering are preferred in most hires as creating solutions here requires thinking like an engineer. This has led to the entirety of the sales and operational teams being mechanical engineers. The total team of about 70 is composed of machinists, assembly personnel, technicians, project managers, controls and mechanical engineers, an accounting team, and a sales department, all supported by an executive management team.
Operating from a 150,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art facility in Oldcastle, Ontario, Eagle Press & Equipment boasts ample assembly space and a fleet of equipment that includes CNC lathes and boring mills, four large horizontal boring mills, an assembly pit that can accommodate presses exceeding 40 feet in height coupled with more than 300,000 pounds of crane capacity, and much more. The company also offers a full-service facility next door to its main facility and a smaller welding outfit that takes care of smaller components.
As a proud member of the Professional Engineers of Ontario (PEO), The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), the Precision Metal Forming Association, the Canadian Tooling & Machining Association (CTMA), and other industry representatives, Eagle Press and Equipment is a key stakeholder in the Canadian mechanical engineering industry, helping to uphold its strict codes of conduct and standards in every project. The firm is also passionate about supporting and developing its local economy through its industrial endeavours.
The company’s commitment to quality and innovation has led to a number of successful projects, such as the recent commissioning of a turnkey Eagle press with a coil feed line and a press feed system at a Tier 1 automotive supplier’s Canadian facility. One of its winning products is a servo hemming press developed in collaboration with an automation group in Windsor, and this partnership has built around 40 such presses for Ford facilities in the United States and Canada. These machines are used to hem doors and other closure components for Ford’s F150, Mustang, and other models. Servo motors power the hemming press, joining the edges of two sheet metal panels by folding and compressing them into permanent bonds.
Another servo-based press features a microinch system in its mechanical trial press, a testing drivetrain used to test customers’ tools. The unit enables accurate contact between lower and upper tooling surfaces. This is coupled with a 400-tonne capacity pneumatic cushion, which supports accurate contact between the lower and upper die. “We have some cool tech built into it,” Polewski says.
Founded in 1959 by Ted Polewski Sr., the company was later managed by his sons and now by the third generation. Impressively, many longstanding members of the team are still on board, driving success through generational knowledge of press manufacturing and mechanical engineering that would be difficult to match without their expertise. Newer arrivals typically enjoy the opportunity to learn, and Eagle Press provides significant opportunities for professional development and training.
Polewski makes it clear that the company’s suppliers are just as crucial to its success, with a carefully selected group of trusted suppliers stretching from Toronto to Windsor providing Eagle Press & Equipment with the finest in hydraulics, gear machining and design, welding supplies, and more. “It’s the wealth of knowledge and expertise built over almost 70 years and our core supply base that has helped us build Eagle,” he adds.
Having its products vetted and analyzed by third-party engineers outside of the organization, the company is confident in the uncontested quality of its work. “I would consider our team as the best people in the world for machining and designing presses,” Polewski says, adding that the third-party engineers “have been blown away. Our quality comes out of years and years of experimentation, trial and error, learning, failing, recovering, and redesigning. We are at a point right now where we feel we have an unmatched product.”
Of course, the company is supported by rigorous quality management systems that span the full range of design, fabrication, and testing processes. “Over the years, we have developed very strict fabrication and welding testing and qualification procedures. We have also developed an in-house inspection and testing plan,” says Polewski.
The quality of Eagle Press’s steel is regulated as per the official ASTM International standards, which means that its materials, typically a minimum of A36 steel sheeting, are chemically and structurally sound and can be traced back to their exact location and date of manufacture, providing its customers with confidence in its base materials. This requires meticulous recordkeeping and full accountability. Moreover, the company’s welding is also guaranteed to be performed by Canadian-certified professionals in the field. The quality of its welding processes is verified by third-party, Canadian-certified, Level-3 welding inspectors according to CSA W59 standards—Canada’s strictest national standard for structural steel work in metal fabrication for sheeting exceeding 3mm in metal arc welding on dynamically loaded structures.
Equally rigorous testing and quality protocols pertain to design, press start-up machining, and assembly. As part of this, a press is run for 30,000 cycles to ensure absolute functionality over multiple days, and Polewski is particularly gratified by these rigorous testing protocols. “We push it to its limits to make sure that it is going to function on the customer’s floor,” he tells us.
Amidst its many accomplishments, the company continues to cultivate a reputation for providing top-notch training for both customers and employees. To this end, it regularly welcomes engineering students from Ontario’s University of Windsor, not only providing fresh professionals with hands-on experience but also introducing potential new employees to Eagle Press’s systems. The approach has been successful, with at least two such engineers having served the company for around six years.
Polewski makes clear that when it comes to achieving its goals, the company is and will remain centred on delivering customer satisfaction on every project, and so it goes to great lengths to ensure that it maintains and increases its capacity. To achieve this, Eagle Press has procured all the property around its facility with the goal of doubling capacity. It is also building larger teams in its service, assembly, hydraulics engineering, and controls engineering departments.
Customers benefit from these improvements in marked ways. With a dedicated press service team and network in place, help is only ever a phone call or a message away. “Press expertise and press technicians are few and far between now. I believe we have some of the best in the world here,” Polewski says. Beyond these in-house professionals, the company has established strong relationships with other industry professionals across the continent.
“We’ve developed a good network of people that we believe are qualified enough to go and service on behalf of Eagle Press,” he continues. This means that, no matter where in North America a customer’s press is located, a trusted service provider is always ready to assist in any needed physical maintenance or repair. Moreover, predictive maintenance technology allows the company to monitor press functionality remotely, within customers’ security limitations.
“The customer is the only reason we exist,” Polewski says. “In everybody’s minds here, the customer is always right. That’s rule number one. Rule number two? The customer is always right. That’s it.”
Thanks to Eagle Press & Equipment’s size, ability to respond to customer needs with individualized care, attention to detail, and premium machinery, its high-end offering holds its own against even the largest competitors in the market. “We want to be known as the best press builder in the world,” says Polewski, and attaining that honour appears close at hand. While it grows from building 12 to 15 presses annually to building 20 to 25 presses annually, Eagle Press & Equipment is fast on its way to becoming known as the best in its field.
