According to AMFAS International’s Outlook for 2026, manufacturers’ operations are being redefined by nearshoring and reshoring programs, increased adoption of technology, and focused investment in high-value industries. While economic instability, tariffs, and labour limitations remain significant impediments, enterprises that embrace digitization, regional supply chains, and sophisticated manufacturing techniques are positioned for sustainable success. Chasing the lowest unit cost is no longer the focus of OEMs and Tier-1 suppliers; instead, building resilient, data-driven, and regionally balanced manufacturing ecosystems that can quickly scale, withstand shocks, and satisfy ever more complex technological needs is imperative.

For Canadian enterprises, reshoring often entails establishing or increasing Canadian manufacturing capacity, developing local Canadian suppliers, or transferring distribution and assembly operations back over the border, while for both Canadian and American businesses, nearshoring involves moving production or sourcing to a geographically close country; in this case, Mexico, the main nearshoring choice for the continent due to its strong industrial infrastructure, CUSMA free trade status, and relatively cheap manufacturing salaries, says AMFAS.

Advanced automation, electrification, sustainable energy, and high-precision manufacturing are the main areas of capital expenditure this year, with manufacturers giving priority to investments that increase flexibility and long-term competitiveness rather than randomly increasing capacity, while redundancy and transparency are now essential goals in the supply chain. Manufacturers are boosting visibility across tiers, deepening supplier qualification, and decreasing reliance on specific areas. Regional sourcing, dual-shore methods, and integrated logistics planning are becoming mainstream operating models.

The shift in global manufacturing geography that accelerated through 2020–2024 is now showing in how procurement teams approach supplier selection, adds Zara Akbar of Global Insight Wire, with North American manufacturing capacity expanding in several key categories.

The forces driving reshoring and nearshoring are structural, shaping how buyers should approach supplier qualification, lead time modelling, and total cost of ownership. In short, not all manufacturing categories are reshoring at the same rate, she says.

Semiconductors and electronics have seen the greatest investment motivated by policy, with significant announcements of fab development in Texas, Arizona, and Ohio. For consumers, this matters less at the component purchasing level than at the system design level—the supply chain for completed electronics still incorporates significant offshore content even when final assembly is domestic.

Industrial equipment and machinery have observed steady reshoring activity, motivated more by lead time concerns than by cost, with the working capital equation drastically altered by a custom conveyor system or industrial press that takes 14 to 20 weeks from an Asian manufacturer as opposed to eight to 10 weeks from a local fabricator, especially when demand forecasting is imprecise.

Building materials, notably those with high weight-to-value ratios, were never significantly offshore to begin with, as regional manufacturing dominated concrete goods, structural steel fabrication, and dimensional lumber, but automotive and transportation components remain the most intricate cases. Nearshoring, as opposed to reshoring, is represented by OEM supply chains that have been rebuilt around Mexican manufacturing (USMCA-compliant), and these supply chains are maturing rather than reversing.

Costs associated with logistics and freight have reset to a higher baseline. The abnormal freight costs of 2020 to 2022 have normalized, and they normalized at rates far above the pre-pandemic baseline, with the risk of port disruption and long-haul ocean freight factored into total landed cost calculations at levels that were previously absent from most procurement models, according to Akbar.

The labour arbitrage that formerly supported offshore sourcing for many product categories has shrunk due to wage rises in manufacturing-heavy offshore markets and investments in technology that lower direct labour content in North American facilities.

Nearshoring to Mexico under the USMCA has become the middle ground for many categories where full reshoring to U.S. or Canadian facilities is not cost-justified, adds Akbar. The model combines streamlined logistics, far quicker lead times than Asian manufacturing, and lower direct labour costs. Manufacturing in Mexico has advanced well beyond basic assembly processes, and aerospace machining, medical device production, electronics assembly, and industrial component fabrication are all well-established in industrial corridors around Monterrey, Juárez, and Tijuana.

The Supply Chain Alliance states that the intersection of U.S. tariffs on Canadian commodities, post-COVID supply chain fragility lessons, and growing costs in traditional Asian manufacturing markets has created a true strategic window for both reshoring and nearshoring. Businesses that take action now, when industrial space, labour power, and supplier capacity are reasonably accessible in both Canada and Mexico, will benefit in ways that those who wait might not be able to match.

Best-fit scenarios include short product lifecycles, high customization, products that require frequent design changes, and high mix/low-volume configurations—situations where rapid responsiveness to client demands benefits immensely from geographic proximity to Canadian customers and markets.

The labour premium of Canadian production is frequently more than compensated by logistics savings for heavy, bulky, or hazardous commodities when freight costs account for a significant amount of the overall landed cost, such as construction materials, chemicals, and major industrial components.

Additionally, Canada’s Scientific Research and Experimental Development (SR&ED) tax credit, Strategic Innovation Fund, and provincial industrial subsidies can considerably cut the effective labour cost of Canadian industry. Companies that engage in R&D or advanced manufacturing generally find the post-incentive cost gap with Mexico dramatically closed.

For products incorporating proprietary techniques, formulas, or technologies, the IP protection environment in Canada is much stronger. Companies with true IP risk may find the cost premium of Canadian production justified merely on a risk-adjusted basis.

“Reshoring isn’t a trend, it’s a correction,” according to sources from The Assembly, who note that Canada’s manufacturing industry has shed tens of thousands of jobs due to the pandemic, tariffs, and a disrupted supply chain, with the sector’s contribution to GDP declining from 18 percent in the early 2000s to about 10 percent now.

Consequently, Ottawa is making significant financial investments in reshoring. Federal procurements worth $25 million or more must give preference to Canadian vendors under the Buy Canadian Policy, which went into effect in December 2025. That cutoff fell to $5 million by June 2026. In the evaluation process, Canadian vendors are given a 10 percent price priority, with Canadian-based businesses having a structural advantage in the bidding process.

There’s also the Next Generation Manufacturing Canada’s (NGen’s) $87.5 million in advanced manufacturing financing, NRC IRAP’s new $244 million Defence Industry Assist initiative, and up to $2.1 million in refundable cash back offered annually through enhanced SR&ED credits. In order to make reshoring financially appealing, the federal government is stacking incentives.

According to surveys, Canadian customers will pay more for products made domestically if they can recognize them. For compliance, risk mitigation, and ESG reporting, B2B buyers are increasingly demanding Canadian content in their supply chains, meaning businesses that reshore today benefit from consumer preference, supply chain resiliency, government funding, and all the advantages of purchasing Canadian goods.

Infrastructure for government support is abundant with Canada’s combination of tax benefits, direct funding initiatives, and procurement favours for domestic production unmatched by any other G7 member. NGen, IRAP, SR&ED, ACOA, FedDev Ontario, PrairiesCan, PacifiCan, CanExport, and IDEaS all give direct financial support for enterprises that produce in Canada.

NGen finances advanced manufacturing technology projects, AI integration in manufacturing, and collaborative R&D. Projects must have at least two Canadian partners, with one being an SME (under 500 employees). It’s best for manufacturers investing in new production equipment, automation, or digital manufacturing capabilities as part of a reshoring push, with a completion deadline of January 31, 2028.

NRC IRAP (Industrial Research Assistance Program) assists with R&D initiatives, technology advancement, and process innovation open to Canadian SMEs incorporated and employing fewer than 500 people, paying for up to 80 percent of project expenses that qualify, with a range of funding of $50,000 to $1 million or more, and aimed at manufacturers involved in defence supply chains and SMEs innovating in their manufacturing operations, creating new manufacturing processes, or modifying production for reshoring goods.

The ACOA (Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency) provides funding for companies in Atlantic Canada (New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland and Labrador) in the areas of company development, manufacturing scale-up, and export preparedness, ideal for Atlantic province manufacturers increasing their reshoring production capability, prioritizing regional economic growth, and funding facility expansion, equipment acquisition, and workforce development.

As for the United States, government incentives are one of the most important variables affecting reshoring decisions, alongside the availability of trained labour, local sourcing, and infrastructure, says Harry Moser of The Association for Manufacturing Technology.

The $1.2 trillion Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill, the $280 billion Chips and Science Act, and the $369 billion Inflation Reduction Act are three investments in the country’s economic competitiveness, energy security, and national security. Some have referred to it as a “modern-day gold rush,” fueled by new technologies and incentives and the belief that semiconductor chips are the “new oil,” while both domestic and foreign businesses are increasing their investments in green energy in the United States.

Due in large part to three bills intended to stimulate growth, de-risk vulnerable supply chains, manage the threat of climate change, boost competitiveness, and create good-paying jobs for American workers, new investments in U.S. manufacturing by both domestic and foreign companies have accelerated even more than expected.

These same forces—nearshoring, reshoring, and rising investment in high-value industries—are reshaping manufacturers’ operations across the continent. Economic instability, tariffs, and labour limitations remain real headwinds, but enterprises that embrace digitization, regional supply chains, and advanced manufacturing techniques are positioned for sustainable success, with transformation rather than disruption characterizing the manufacturing picture for North America in 2026 and beyond.

While growth may not be consistent, it will be maintained in industries where accuracy, speed, and dependability are crucial. Nearshoring, data-driven decision-making, and smart manufacturing are not passing fads; rather, they are the cornerstones of contemporary industrial competitiveness, offering chances for manufacturers who are prepared to change to become more resilient, leaner, and better positioned for long-term success.

The post Coming Home<p class="company">North America’s Manufacturing Reset</p> appeared first on Manufacturing In Focus.

A digital twin is a virtual replica or representation of a physically existing product, system, or process. Its main function is to synchronize directly with the physical object through the use of real-time data (powered through IoT-enabled devices) and provide a more up-to-date status on it than a mere simulation. A digital twin can be defined under three sub-types: digital twin prototype (DTP), the various designs and processes that make up the physical product; digital twin instance (DTI), a digital replica for each instance of the finally-realized product; and digital twin aggregate (DTA), the collection of DTIs that can be used to further investigate information about the physical product.

Digital twin technology has roots that go all the way back to NASA’s Apollo program in the 1960s, when unprecedented incidents like that involving Apollo 13 necessitated up-to-date information on its various systems. The term “digital twin” was originated by NASA in 2010, although the concept slowly gained recognition and usage in the decades following the 1960s. The idea as it is understood today came to life in 2002, thanks to Dr. Michael Grieves at the University of Michigan who brought what would become the modern concept into public understanding.

Today, an idea decades in the making is fast becoming a new industry hot button. In a piece for IBM, Nick Gallagher says that digital twins are now seeing widespread industry adoption: “Roughly 75 percent of businesses employ [digital twins] in some capacity.” Furthermore, 92 percent of companies that use digital twins report returns above 10 percent, and over half report at least a 20 percent investment return, says Gallagher.

In the last two decades, the manufacturing industry began to extend the digital twin concept to fit the entirety of its processes. Today, digital twins can be used for the benefit of processes like inventory management, lean manufacturing, crash avoidance, preventative maintenance, and more.

Let’s take a closer look at some of the ways digital twin technology can excel in manufacturing companies, starting with predictive maintenance. Most digital twin systems offer as close to a real-time representation of a product as possible, which can go far in determining if any piece of a product is under-performing or in need of replacement. A blog post for Visual Components says that digital twins are a further extension of virtual commissioning, a process that allows manufacturers to catch issues before they become problems. “With a digital twin, virtual commissioning becomes an ongoing process rather than a one-time test,” the post says, because of its ability to allow for real-time monitoring, further enhancing the ability to anticipate and fix issues before they happen.

The benefits of digital twins for manufacturing do not stop there. According to a blog post for dataPARC, using a digital twin to take a proactive approach to product maintenance can not only reduce costs by avoiding repairs but also extend the usage of a piece of equipment, fine-tuning it for optimal performance. “Manufacturers can simulate different scenarios to identify the most efficient operational parameters,” says the post, which can lead to savings on energy and physical usage, and improvement in product quality.

Innovations like the digital twin can be used in tandem with workers to help them also become more effective. A digital twin can be used for training purposes, allowing newer employees to explore a product or aspect of a manufacturer’s business, even testing worst-case scenarios to better understand how to react to them. digitalParc also says that a manufacturer that spends money on a digital twin for its workplace can potentially even use the inclusion to market itself to prospective workers and to the general public, showing that it is firmly on the leading edge of current technology and willing to stand out in a crowded market.

There also seems to be a bright future when it comes to future iteration on digital twins. The Visual Components piece says that future trends will likely further incorporate AI systems in more robust ways, which will enhance its innate abilities to predict, fix, and monitor. AI models have the potential to increase optimization and productivity, thereby reducing waste and effectively meeting demand. Eventually, manufacturers may see the opportunity for digital twins of an entire factory layout, as well as further opportunities for more environmentally sustainable options available within the system.

Digital twin technology is fast becoming more accessible to smaller-to-medium-sized manufacturers and can indeed offer a lot of advantages to them, but as with most new technology, it’s an investment that should be entered into with as much information as possible. Digital twin implementation can cost anywhere from $10,000 to as much as several million dollars, depending on the size of the investment; typically, a standard investment will cost closer to the former figure. Many companies using the technology today (i.e. Siemens, Airbus, Tesla) report or suggest attractive ROIs after implementing the systems at various sizes and styles of onboarding.

The key for any company (but especially smaller-sized ones) considering adding a digital twin to its roster is to have a plan for it. In a piece for Acuvate, Gina Shaw suggests a few best practices for companies looking to invest in digital twin technology. These points boil down to clarity of purpose within the organization, as in what a digital twin will be used for and why, as well as choosing a scalable model that can grow with the firm’s goals. The volume of data to build an effective digital twin will be considerable, so utilizing machine learning and using relevant data sources is a must. “Clear goals will guide every aspect of your implementation,” says Shaw.

There is trepidation in some circles about the ability of new machines, especially those driven or enhanced by AI and machine learning, to supersede humans in the workplace. However, in the aforementioned examples, digital twins are only as useful as the human operators interfacing with them, meaning that human expertise is still the X-factor when it comes to making the technology ultimately useful. Unlike other kinds of new technology that might aim to improve on human effort in manufacturing, a digital twin is one that works hand-in-hand with human consideration.

More than ever, manufacturers are having to do a lot more work to stay ahead of the curve in the current business landscape. Digital twin technology is a part of an ongoing rise in bleeding-edge technological advancements and should not be taken lightly, both in its benefits and potential costs or challenges for a company. However, with thoughtful implementation and a willingness to learn, manufacturers could find themselves with an incredibly effective tool in the toolkit to optimize operations and make tomorrow’s products that much better.

The post Levelling Up<p class="company">The Digital Twin Revolution on the Shop Floor</p> appeared first on Manufacturing In Focus.

What began with the invention of the tube expander, a tool that helped make the boiler and locomotive industries safer, has grown into a full-scale American manufacturing operation with two facilities, an in-house engineering team, and a product line that now stretches well beyond its original tube tool roots.

That growth has taken Elliott from a single-product tube tool company into a manufacturer with a full catalog of tube installation, cleaning, testing, plug, and removal products, alongside a growing metal finishing division. Its team, based primarily in Dayton, Ohio, still designs and assembles most of its products in-house, a structure the company credits for its ability to keep pace with a manufacturing market that increasingly wants shorter lead times and more customized solutions.

Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Thomas Wagner, traces the company’s history back to its founding, when the tube expander “revolutionized the boiler and locomotive industry to make it much safer at the time.” That single invention set the tone for a business that, more than a century later, still designs and builds its tools under one roof in Dayton, Ohio.

Elliott’s independence is a relatively recent chapter in its long history. The company was originally owned by Elliott Turbo Machinery in Pennsylvania before a group of local employees purchased the Dayton operation and turned it into its own entity.

Supply Chain Manager, Dawn Luker, says the company became privately owned on December 18, 1996. “That was a game changer because it really allowed us to focus on what we wanted to do,” she says. “We were no longer under that corporate umbrella.” According to Luker, the three original owners used that independence to put new KPIs in place and invest in machines, people, and training, changes that have shaped Elliott’s operations for the better part of three decades.

Today, Elliott employs approximately 100 people across its two locations. The main manufacturing facility in Dayton houses design, manufacturing, supply chain, human resources, and finance functions, while a second facility in Texas City, Texas, supports the Gulf Coast market as a stocking and service location.

Elliott markets itself around the tagline, “Quality specialty tools for an ‘I need it yesterday’ world,” and Wagner says the company’s operations are built to back that up. Elliott runs a full ERP system to help it keep pace with customer demand, and it keeps as much of its supply chain local as possible.

“We are able to keep that local so we can still control 100 percent of our process through the design, build, manufacture, quality checks, and assembly,” Wagner says. “We do all of that right here under one roof here in Dayton. So, response time is typically what we pride ourselves on, being able to be very responsive to the customer as well as meet their challenging delivery demands.”

While Elliott’s tube tool line remains its foundation, its Precision Metal Finishing division represents a newer and fast-growing part of the business. Business Development Manager, Michael Bitsko, explains that Elliott relaunched the division as a wholly owned part of the company in 2024, after previously relying on an outside source to manage that product line.

The Precision Metal Finishing line is built around three core product groups: mechanical joining tools for swaging applications; internal recessing unit (IRU) cutters; and burnishing tools. The IRU line is designed to cut down machining time on parts like hydraulic valves.

“There are specific machining requirements for those valves that take a lot of time with conventional tooling,” Bitsko explains. “What this tool does is it creates an application where somebody may spend minutes in doing the machining, where this tool will do it in three to five seconds.” He adds that unlike conventional tooling, which is often discarded after use, Elliott’s cutting tools can be reground and reused multiple times, an efficiency that Bitsko says resonates with higher-volume customers.

Burnishing, meanwhile, gives manufacturers a way to achieve tight surface finishes without slowing down production. Elliott’s burnishing tools are adjustable in tenths of an inch and cover a wide range of hole sizes, from an eighth of an inch up to 18 to 20 inches in diameter. Where conventional cutting tools often force a shop to slow its process down to hit a single-digit surface finish, burnishing turns that multi-minute step into a matter of seconds without sacrificing consistency across a production run.

The IRU line has been part of Elliott’s lineup for some time, but the company has recently put a heavier focus on getting the word out to a market still catching up on what this tool can do. “We’re trying to spread the word in the market that we are innovating against the challenges folks are bringing to us,” says Bitsko.

The mechanical joining line rounds out the division, using expansion to create secure mechanical joints across a range of applications. Wagner describes the internal recessing unit to consolidate what might otherwise be a multi-step process. Where a shop using interpolated milling might need to run the same operation six separate times, Wagner says Elliott’s tooling can complete it in one pass and in a matter of seconds, a distinction the team plans to emphasize heavily on the show floor at IMTS.

Elliott has historically shown its tube tool products at trade shows, but its upcoming appearance at IMTS marks a shift toward showcasing the Precision Metal Finishing line to a broader manufacturing audience. This event gives the team a chance to build awareness with customers who may not be familiar with Elliott’s specialty tooling.

“The great thing is, you get these face-to-face conversations,” Bitsko says. “You don’t have that ability when you’re talking to somebody on the phone. You’re going to have that time to be able to discuss particular applications, things they maybe haven’t even thought of, in understanding what their processes are and what their applications are.”

That kind of in-person conversation also helps Elliott get past the surface-level questions that tend to dominate phone calls. In the company’s experience, what a customer initially describes as the problem is not always the true source of the issue, and face-to-face time gives the team room to dig deeper. Those extended conversations at trade shows allow Elliott to more accurately match customers, both current and new, with the right tooling for their actual pain points.

Wagner sees the show as an opportunity to grow a division that still operates in the shadow of Elliott’s larger, more established tube tool business. He says Elliott has already delivered measurable savings for customers in industries such as aerospace, defense, hydraulics, and data centers, and that IMTS offers the chance to extend that reach.

“As shops really start to automate, the premium is really shifting to consistency and doing more with less skilled labor,” Wagner says. “That plays directly into a lot of the precision finishing.” He adds that the shift extends to complex valve bodies and precision mechanical joints alike, describing Elliott’s approach as a process rather than a single tool.

Beyond its product lines, the company is also focused on the workforce challenges facing manufacturers more broadly. Manufacturing Manager, Christopher Woosley, says the company has run an internship program for the past three years in partnership with a local career center and has hired two of its interns full-time.

“I would say an apprenticeship or an internship of some sort is key, because if we’re preparing the road for the next generation and there’s nobody behind us to take the torch, well, then we’ve practically wasted our time,” Woosley says. He encourages other manufacturers to build relationships with local trade schools and community colleges, noting that career changers—not just recent graduates—are increasingly drawn to manufacturing as a stable career path.

Elliott’s internship program runs in partnership with the Greene County Career Center, along with connections to at least one local community college. Woosley says the program has given the company a reliable pipeline of new talent while providing students with hands-on exposure to a manufacturing career path many may not have otherwise considered. For a company built on precision and process, that early investment in people is treated as its own form of quality control, ensuring the next generation of machinists and engineers understands Elliott’s standards from the start.

Wagner says Elliott is taking a measured approach to artificial intelligence internally, describing the company’s strategy as “deploying responsible AI.” Rather than adopting new technology for its own sake, the company is evaluating where AI tools could improve response times or quoting accuracy as part of a broader implementation roadmap.

At the same time, Bitsko points to AI as a force reshaping demand for Elliott’s tools from the outside in. The buildout of AI server farms and data center infrastructure is driving new demand for metal finishing and increased surface density on the components that go into them, and Elliott has seen a rise in applications tied specifically to that infrastructure boom.

Bitsko also points to a shift underway in defense manufacturing, where government contracts are pushing companies to automate munitions production that has traditionally relied on manual labor. He says Elliott’s role has expanded from simply supplying a tool to supplying a piece of the automated manufacturing cells used to scale up that production.

Between the AI infrastructure buildout and the push to automate munitions production, Bitsko says Elliott’s Precision Metal Finishing division is being pulled into two of the fastest-moving corners of American manufacturing at once. Both trends, he says, point toward the same underlying shift: customers need tooling that can hold up to higher volumes and tighter tolerances, without adding more manual labor to the process.

For all its growth, Elliott’s leadership team is mindful to frame the company as a problem-solving partner rather than a supplier moving tools off a shelf. Wagner says Elliott wants customers to see it as a manufacturing expert with a dedicated team behind it, one that helps customers dial in their processes for long-term savings and efficiency gains.

Bitsko echoes that sentiment, noting that Elliott’s internal database of specialty, one-off tools built for individual customer applications is larger than its published catalog. He says that gap reflects the core of Elliott’s business model: rather than asking customers to adapt to an off-the-shelf product, Elliott’s engineering team designs a tool around the application a customer brings in. Luker sums up the philosophy simply: Elliott is in the business of solving customers’ problems.

With more than 130 years behind it, a newly relaunched Precision Metal Finishing division, and an upcoming appearance at IMTS, Elliott Tool Technologies is positioning itself for its next chapter of growth while staying true to the responsiveness that has defined it since 1892.

The post 130 Years in the Making<p class="company">Elliott Tool Technologies</p> appeared first on Manufacturing In Focus.

This contouring head is integrated into the machine, allowing both turning and milling to be completed in the same setup. The new contouring head basically inverts the lathe by holding the part being turned stationary while the tool moves around it, machining contours, grooves, threads, tapers, and other fine details into components as heavy as 2,425 pounds.

Project Manager Tyler deMontigny is understandably excited about the machine’s next-generation capabilities. “You use a simple M-code, and it activates the facing head [in about 10 seconds]. It’s a lot more rigid and lasts a lot longer,” he says of the technology, which allows for greatly improved machining quality on oversized, typically difficult-to-balance parts.

Trevisan’s machines offer dual capabilities, typically featuring two spindles—the integrated contouring head for turning work and a milling spindle for rotational action on cutting tools. As a result, only one machine and one operator are needed instead of two, helping to reduce overhead, especially for larger companies, deMontigny points out. Favored for their power and rigidity, Trevisan’s machines are popular in the aerospace, oil and gas, and renewable energy spaces.

As optimum product performance and longevity drive engineering, investments in Trevisan machines ultimately become investments in and for the future. Founded in 1963 by visionary Girolamo Trevisan, the company would become an innovative, next-generation trendsetter and fabricator of machining equipment that became known across the globe in less than half a century. Today, Trevisan Macchine Utensili S.p.A. is about more than building precision custom equipment, however. Forged on close customer relationships and a talent for pleasing customers, its reach now spans around 100 countries, with over 2000 units operational in the field.

As the next generation of Trevisan’s trusty workhorse, the DS300, which is known to last two to three decades, the GT350 boasts significant improvements and flexibility. Featuring more compact engineering, the unit is now smaller and far easier to hook into automated systems like complete flexible manufacturing and robotics systems. And, by popular demand, Trevisan also added high-performance spindle taper systems used in CNC machines to add more flexibility and options of cutting tools for customers.

These feature Capto and HSK spindle tapers. Moreover, the GT350 boasts much-improved technical specifications. The rapid rates were improved by 250 percent, and revolutions per minute were increased by 50 percent thanks to cooling systems on the bearings and automatic lubrication. The machine envelope increased by 20 percent as previously wasted space was put to better use in the latest iteration. Additionally, because busy outfits find it tough to find downtime for maintenance, much of that is automated now.

“Some of that maintenance is done automatically now instead of manually,” deMontigny explains. “So the machines are higher quality and they last longer because people can’t forget to maintain them.”

Trevisan’s North American team and partner teams handle sales, service, and support across the United States and Canada. Originally founded in Italy, where its parent company and fabrication facilities still reside, Trevisan Machine Tool ascribes much of its American success to its partner, Tomel Machine Tool Services, which has handled core after-sales service aspects since 2001—even before Trevisan had established its sales footprint here.

“Our partnership with Tomel Machine Tool Services in the U.S. is extremely important because after-sales service is possibly the most important part of our ongoing partnership with our customers,” deMontigny continues.

As a family business welcoming its most recent generation, Trevisan is driven by relentless improvement that delivers exactly what customers require. The company’s powerful growth has built its presence in new industries both at home and abroad. Located in Suffield, Connecticut, the business has spent the past decade and a half putting itself at the forefront of innovation and fabrication in its field. The strategy has been successful, with longtime customers remaining loyal to the company for breaking the mold on modern engineering, its drive to innovate giving it a significant edge over the competition in terms of speed, sophistication, efficiency, and overall quality.

Listening to Dan Bucknam, Service Manager at Tomel Machine Tool Services, it quickly becomes clear why the companies are such good partners. “We take care of service from the time we first start talking to customers about the machine and the installation right through setup, installation, training, and servicing for the life of the machine,” he says. The company’s commitment to providing annual preventative maintenance programs also means there is lower demand for reactive maintenance during the year. Even so, the company remains on standby at all times, with expert staff able to assist callers by providing knowledgeable, real-time support. “The person answering the phone usually can help the customer with their problem,” Bucknam adds.

To this end, Trevisan also stocks an enormous inventory of spare parts in the United States, which means it can largely dispatch orders from local suppliers in the rare event that a component reaches the end of its life cycle, for instance. Tomel also communicates with customer machines remotely to further expedite the repair and servicing process. And that service is next-level; every technician passes training at the company’s head office in Italy before returning to serve the American and Canadian markets.

Engineered for unique performance advantages, Trevisan’s machines provide customers with the edge they need to outperform ordinary technology and as a result, the company is known for forward-thinking innovation that ushers in changes rather than following trends. “For over 60 years, we have challenged ourselves to innovate and build a machine that is unique and gives our customers an advantage in machining efficiency and overall product quality,” deMontigny says. As a result, machine longevity and performance make Trevisan an even easier sell.

To maintain its high level of generational knowledge, the firm is known for promoting team members from within. In this way, it allows its people to thrive, giving them what they need to grow personally and professionally by being respected contributors to its success. “Being a family company, we have a team that truly cares about the quality and integrity of the company and our reputation with our customers,” deMontigny says.

Looking to continue building its legacy on family values and strong relationships, the company is also slowly beginning to serve the construction, agriculture, and alternative energy markets with its outstanding machinery. deMontigny is clear about the company’s mission, which appears deceptively simple. “We’ll keep bringing that different mindset and different specialty machines to new industries, shaking things up.”

The post Machine Tooling the Future<p class="company">Trevisan Machine Tool</p> appeared first on Manufacturing In Focus.

Aved—as part of the Lithion Battery family, a North American business that produces state-of-the-art battery packs, cells, and energy storage devices, and provides high-performance solutions for critical applications worldwide—designs and produces custom battery packs, cable assemblies, and electro-mechanical systems for medical diagnostic, therapeutic, and surgical equipment, along with high-reliability solutions for robots, security systems, and military operations. Additionally, every Lithion brand can expand, adapt, and meet shifting market demands thanks to its Henderson, Nevada, plant’s fully automated pack production line, prismatic cell manufacture, and internal design, testing, and engineering expertise.

Leading the way in electro-mechanical integration, complex cable construction, and customized battery systems created specifically for humanoid and next-generation robotics, Aved helps robotics inventors bring their ambitious ideas to life, from early prototype development to scalable production. Humanoids can move, think, and operate with precision and endurance thanks to the sophisticated, reliable power and connectivity technologies developed by Aved’s technical experts.

Embracing the quality, safety, repeatability, and dependability so crucial to humanoid robotics, Aved’s innovations include spearheading the creation of intelligent humanoid systems built to operate, adapt, and endure. Recently, the company has been expanding its presence in surgical navigation, robotics, and next-generation medical technologies.

“The medical technology industry is undergoing a remarkable transformation,” says Erick Lee Young, Senior Director, Sales, explaining that advances in surgical navigation, robotic-assisted procedures, portable diagnostics, connected healthcare devices, and artificial intelligence are redefining how care is delivered and improving outcomes for patients around the world. “At Aved Electronics, we see this evolution not only as an opportunity, but as a responsibility to help bring these life-changing technologies to market with the quality, reliability, and precision they demand.”

Medical devices have become increasingly sophisticated over the past decade, and today’s systems integrate advanced electronics, intelligent software, sensors, wireless connectivity, and complex power architectures into compact, highly reliable platforms. Whether supporting surgical navigation systems, robotic-assisted surgery, portable imaging equipment, or wearable medical devices, manufacturers require partners that understand the unique challenges associated with developing and producing products intended for critical healthcare environments.

“One of Aved’s greatest strengths is our commitment to quality,” says Young. “As an ISO 13485-certified manufacturer, we operate under one of the most stringent quality management standards in the world.”

ISO 13485 was specifically developed for medical device manufacturing and places rigorous requirements on risk management, traceability, process control, documentation, validation, and continuous improvement. For medical OEMs, compliance with this standard provides confidence that products are being manufactured within a framework specifically designed to support patient safety and regulatory expectations.

More than a contract manufacturer, Aved positions itself as a strategic partner throughout the product lifecycle. Its value proposition is centered on helping customers reduce risk, accelerate development, and maintain uninterrupted supply from concept through production. By engaging early in the design process, Aved combines engineering expertise, transparent pricing, disciplined program management, and advanced manufacturing capabilities to help customers bring complex products to market faster while minimizing technical and supply chain challenges.

“This commitment to quality has enabled Aved to become a trusted manufacturing partner to some of the most respected names in medical technology,” Young stresses. “From early concept development through full-scale production, we become an extension of our customers’ engineering, supply chain, and operations teams. Our objective is not simply to manufacture products, but to help customers solve complex technical challenges, reduce program risk, and successfully commercialize innovative technologies.”

Among the most exciting areas of growth within healthcare is the continued expansion of surgical robotics and navigation systems. These technologies are enabling greater procedural accuracy, reduced recovery times, and improved patient outcomes, and as adoption increases, the supporting electronics and power systems become increasingly critical. “Reliability is not simply a design objective; it is an absolute requirement,” says Young.

In addition to its growing presence within medical technology, Aved is collaborating with several leading developers of next generation humanoid robotic systems. “These partnerships include supporting advanced battery technologies, power systems, and complex electronic assemblies that enable robots to operate safely, efficiently, and reliably. While humanoid robotics remains an emerging industry, the pace of innovation is extraordinary, and we believe many of the engineering principles developed within medical devices will directly influence the future of intelligent robotics,” Young shares.

“Our partnership with Lithion Battery provides customers with a unique level of vertical integration. By combining custom battery design, advanced electronics manufacturing, cable assemblies, electromechanical integration, testing, and scalable production under one organization, Aved is able to simplify development, reduce risk, and accelerate time to market.”

As medical devices and robotic systems become increasingly mobile, intelligent, and autonomous, energy storage and power management will continue to play a central role in enabling innovation. “Looking ahead, we believe the future of healthcare will be defined by greater connectivity, increased automation, advanced robotics, and more personalized patient care,” he adds.

To that end, Aved remains committed to investing in the capabilities, technologies, and partnerships necessary to support that future. “By combining stringent medical quality standards with advanced manufacturing expertise, we are helping customers bring the next generation of medical technologies from concept to reality—ultimately improving lives and advancing healthcare worldwide.”

Behind every successful product launch is a manufacturing partner capable of scaling alongside its customers. Whether supporting prototype builds, design verification, regulatory testing, or high volume production, Aved’s engineering and manufacturing teams work collaboratively to ensure products transition efficiently through every stage of development while maintaining the quality and traceability demanded by high reliability markets.

Other services include high-reliability battery applications, custom battery pack manufacturing, testing and compliance expertise, contract technicians, O- lithium-ion regulatory compliance submissions, design for manufacturability (DFM Review), and pack integration.

For accurate battery module and pack testing, Aved employs a number of Chroma 17020 systems, as well as a variety of automated wire processing machinery with sizes ranging from 30 AWG to 4/0. Aved uses a wide variety of connector methods and is fully equipped with almost all termination alternatives, along with utilizing serialized controlled Cirrus, Chroma, and bespoke test stands as needed to test and certify all of its products.

In terms of the critical role of intelligent battery pack design in modern medical and portable device development, the company takes its position seriously, with custom battery packs, cable assemblies, and electro-mechanical systems for medical diagnostic, therapeutic, and surgical equipment.

In order to maximize performance and packaging requirements for medical and mobility applications, the company has offered custom-engineered battery packs made in accordance with OEM specifications with the cell type and battery chemistry of its medical and high-reliability battery packs optimized in terms of voltage, cycles, pulse rates, capacity, charging, temperature, and packaging, as needed. Aved also performs end-of-line verification, simulates battery usage, records performance data, characterizes the battery, and provides resolute, serialized test data for each battery pack, making it perfect for critical care applications.

These specialized battery packs are FDA and IEC 62133 compliant self-aware smart packs with strong electronics and quick charge times of one hour to 85 percent when needed. Depending on the application, they can run between -30°C and +20°C, give clean voltage with an average deviation of less than five percent, operate at 1000 cycles or more, produce high pulses up to 100 A, and have capacities ranging from 24 V to 200 V (10 A/hr to 100 A/hr) and 4 kW.

When it comes to driving strategic growth through innovation, advanced manufacturing, and expansion into high-reliability markets, Aved’s vision is clear. Growth in today’s manufacturing environment is no longer driven solely by capacity or cost competitiveness; increasingly, it is driven by the ability to support complex technologies, navigate evolving supply chains, and help customers successfully bring products from concept to commercialization. At Aved Electronics, this philosophy is central to its growth strategy.

Over the past several years, the company has intentionally expanded its focus toward high-reliability markets where quality, performance, and consistency are critical. Industries such as medical devices, robotics, defense, and industrial automation continue to advance rapidly, creating demand for manufacturing partners capable of supporting increasingly sophisticated products and technologies.

Of course, a key component of Aved’s strategy is identifying emerging technologies early and building relationships with the companies developing them. Advancements in electrification, battery technology, artificial intelligence, and automation are creating new opportunities across multiple industries and driving demand for integrated electronic assemblies and custom power solutions.

“Equally important is our commitment to long-term partnerships,” says Young. “The strongest customer relationships begin well before production starts. Aved’s value proposition is rooted in helping customers reduce risk, accelerate development, and maintain uninterrupted supply throughout the product lifecycle. By engaging early, we combine engineering expertise, transparent pricing, disciplined program management, advanced manufacturing capabilities, and a resilient supply chain to support customers from design through full-scale production. Rather than acting solely as a contract manufacturer, we become an extension of our customers’ engineering and operations teams, helping solve challenges before they become obstacles.”

As medical technology, robotics, artificial intelligence, and advanced automation continue to evolve, manufacturers will increasingly seek partners capable of delivering more than production capacity. They will need organizations that can provide engineering insight, supply chain resilience, regulatory expertise, and scalable manufacturing solutions. By continuing to invest in advanced capabilities, strategic partnerships, and high-reliability markets, Aved is well positioned to help customers transform innovative ideas into commercially successful products while creating long-term value for the industries it serves.

The post Quality, Opportunity, Responsibility<p class="company">Aved Electronics</p> appeared first on Manufacturing In Focus.

Headquartered in Saint-Bruno-de-Montarville, Québec, Alstom is Canada’s only domestic train manufacturer. A global leader in smart, sustainable mobility solutions, Alstom has about 87,000 employees worldwide, including nearly 5,200 in Canada, and is helping shape the future of transportation while creating opportunities for the next generation of talent.

Many new graduates in fields such as engineering have a say in which sectors they wish to work, and companies like Alstom, with a strong emphasis on creating a greener, cleaner world, often come out on top.

“We are transforming cities for tomorrow and creating economic opportunities by addressing congestion issues in urban centres like Toronto and Montréal,” says Olivier Marcil, Vice President of Public Affairs and Communications at Alstom Canada. “Our passenger rail solutions are modern, automated and very sophisticated. Our employees are contributing to tackling climate change, because they are working at a company that offers clean mobility solutions. Our trains are green,” he explains.

Being part of a business that focuses on sustainability and produces trains powered by electricity, hydrogen, and batteries, is an extremely attractive value proposition.

“It is really appealing for the next generation, and our main challenge is to make it known specifically in North America, where there is a strong car culture and less focus on transit than in Europe or Asia,” adds Marcil. “Our goal is really to make this company, and this sector, familiar to the next generation.”

A leader in sustainable mobility solutions, Alstom remains focused on the future of transportation across North America and worldwide. In 2021, Bombardier Transportation (a division of Bombardier Inc.) was acquired by French multinational Alstom, further strengthening its decades-long presence in North America and accelerating its growth ambitions. The acquisition was followed by the creation of a brand-new Innovation Centre in 2022.

At Alstom’s Americas headquarters on the outskirts of Montreal, the Innovation Centre leads the development of “future platforms for green hybrid, battery, or hydrogen propulsion technologies specifically tailored to the North American rail freight and passenger market, and in doing so meet the sector’s decarbonization needs,” according to the company. This includes dedicated prototyping, augmented reality equipment, and collaborations with key industry players and universities across the country.

In 2023, Alstom conducted a demonstration of the first hydrogen-propulsed train in North America intended for commercial service, a demo driven by the Innovation Centre. To date, the Centre continues to work in areas such as batteries, manufacturing processes, robotics, braking, propulsion, and artificial intelligence.

Decades of experience
French multinational rail systems manufacturer Alstom SA, originally known as Alsthom, was created in 1928 through the merger of Société Alsacienne de Constructions Mécaniques’ (Als) electrical engineering division, and Compagnie Française Thomson-Houston (thom). The following years were marked by acquisitions and international expansion, including the establishment of a longstanding presence in Canada. This expansion sped up following the 2021 Bombardier acquisition, which positioned Alstom as the country’s sole rolling stock manufacturer.

Bombardier Inc. was well established as its own respected global powerhouse. Largely known today for aerospace and manufacturing business jets like the Challenger 650 and Global 8000, the company also built its reputation as a maker of snowmobiles and railway trains. By 2021, the rail industry was increasingly moving toward consolidation.

“There was a lot of discussion across the industry regarding the need for a global player with the size, scope, and capabilities to compete on every continent, and equipped to face competition coming from China,” Marcil explains.

Although there had been previous attempts to consolidate the market, none succeeded until the combination of Alstom and Bombardier in 2021, which created the largest pure rail player in the Western world. The two merging companies were of roughly equal size, employing approximately 35,000 people each worldwide, but differed in their product portfolio and market presence.

The strength of the transaction lay in the complementary nature of the two businesses. Because the companies had established leadership positions in different markets, they were not direct competitors. Bombardier was well-known in North America, the United Kingdom, and Germany, while Alstom had a strong position in France, India, and Brazil. Merging the two companies saw expanded access to different markets.

Similarly, Bombardier was notably known in commuter rail and operation and maintenance, while Alstom was recognized for its strength in high-speed rail. “Merging the two created a very large portfolio of products, services, and technologies, and access to the market, which has allowed us to better serve our clients with a 360° portfolio offer and a multi-local manufacturing strategy,” says Marcil. “That’s been a literal game changer for the industry, and for Alstom employees of course.”

Positioned for growth
Many associate Alstom with rolling stock, but the company also has a strong offering in operations and maintenance and signaling. Depending on the project, maintenance contracts can extend for 25 to 30 years, allowing Alstom to support customers throughout the lifecycle of their transportation systems.

Across Canada and the U.S., Alstom has been integral to many new transit systems. In Toronto, for example, Alstom employees maintain and operate the GO Transit network. They also deliver these services in Los Angeles, Edmonton, and Montreal. The company also handles the operation of Automated People Movers (APMs), automated trains at airports moving millions of passengers between terminals every year.

“We provide, maintain, and operate those trains for nine out of the 10 largest U.S. airports; the airport is our customer. On top of that, we handle everything that is digital, like AI and cybersecurity,” says Marcil. “It depends on the customer and their specific needs.” Some contracts see Alstom solely providing rolling stock, while others include operation and maintenance, signaling, or systems.

“Our ambition is to grow in every market where we operate, and Canada and the United States are very strategic to us. We see tremendous opportunities, both because of the evolution of the cities and the breadth of our offerings.”

Compared to Europe, Canada and the United States continue to evolve rapidly, with significant growth taking place across many mid-sized urban centres. This is resulting in many cities moving from 100 percent bus systems to rail systems.

Last January, Alstom was awarded a $2.3 billion contract with the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) to manufacture a 70-car New Subway Train (NST) fleet for Toronto’s subway. The six-car Metropolis metro trains will replace the TTC’s aging Line 2 vehicles and serve on subway extension projects.

“This new fleet of metro trains will be designed and engineered here in Canada, assembled in our Thunder Bay site, supported by an expanded network of local suppliers, and tested in our Kingston site,” said Michael Keroullé, President of Alstom Americas, in a media release. The contract will generate up to 945 direct, well-paying jobs in Canada, and over 1,700 indirect jobs.

“We are pursuing every opportunity that we have in Canada,” says Marcil. “It’s important for us to be there, to be present. We have a bright future in front of us.”

With transit expansion at every turn, Alstom is part of numerous multi-billion-dollar projects to replace and modernize mass transit. These include manufacturing Toronto’s distinctive new red streetcars and being a part of the Eglinton LRT line and the upcoming 18-kilometre Hazel McCallion Line (Hurontario LRT). These projects draw on its expertise in electrification, systems integration, engineering, manufacturing, signaling, operations, and maintenance.

“We keep growing in Toronto, and it’s one of our largest markets,” says Marcil. “Metrolinx and the TTC are among the most important clients we have in the world.” Projects of this scale require close collaboration among multiple partners, with Alstom working alongside companies specializing in civil engineering and other disciplines.

The Alstom Foundation
A strong believer in giving back, Alstom supports communities around the world through the Alstom Foundation, which operates worldwide, supporting several causes and charities.

“For us, it is the idea that we should give back to our community and contribute to a better world,” states Marcil. “It is part of our corporate citizenship commitment.” Since 2007, the Foundation has focused on four key areas: economic and social development, environmental protection, access to mobility, and access to energy and water.

“Our core business is to facilitate the movement of people and goods. There are cities and ecosystems less equipped to do that, so we support access to mobility and projects related to poverty, energy, or water access.”

The Foundation’s success is driven by the engagement of Alstom employees. Every project must be sponsored by an employee, who essentially carries the project to the Foundation. Once a year, project proposals are reviewed by a committee and funding is allocated. To date, the Alstom Foundation has supported over 330 projects worldwide. “Alstom is in over 60 countries around the world, and we are proud to support projects that make a tangible difference in those communities,” says Marcil. “Providing opportunities like these is an important part of our commitment to corporate responsibility and creating lasting positive impact worldwide.”

On track for a bright future
With a shift toward rail in many cities, the future of Alstom Canada is bright. At its Americas headquarters, the company announced plans to fill between 160 and 200 positions, reflecting both the company’s growth ambitions and the increasing demand for sustainable transportation solutions. This growth will enable Alstom to continue playing a pivotal role in helping urban centres expand and accelerate the transition to greener mobility. “It’s a great industry to work in, and trending north,” adds Marcil. “When you look at mega-trends—pollution, urbanization, demographics—all this in the future will favour cities to adopt more passenger rail projects, so we will be very well-positioned in Canada, the United States, and across the Americas to capture that.”

Alstom is the national player in passenger rail manufacturing in Canada, the only with manufacturing capabilities and facilities in the country. With four manufacturing sites, an engineering centre, and a privately owned 2.1-kilometer test track in Kingston, Ontario, Alstom is active across the entire rail value chain—from design and manufacturing to systems, signaling, operations, and maintenance.

“All this positions us as Canada’s number one provider of passenger rail solutions, as demonstrated by our strong presence in Montréal, Toronto, Vancouver, Edmonton, Ottawa, Waterloo, and soon in Quebec City. Looking ahead, the opportunities are significant. High-speed rail is coming to Canada, VIA Rail will renew its long distance fleet, and cities across the country continue to modernize and expand transit. With our footprint, expertise, and capabilities, Alstom is uniquely positioned to help deliver the next generation of transportation projects.”

The post Powering the Green Transportation Transition<p class="company">Alstom Canada</p> appeared first on Manufacturing In Focus.

He started an O-ring distribution business with his brother, and when a customer asked about gaskets, he did what engineers do: he figured it out. He bought die-cutting equipment and began making them. The manufacturing business took hold, Joe bought out his brother, and the distribution side faded away. What remained was the foundation for what is now JBC Technologies: a precision die-cutting and flexible materials converting company headquartered in North Ridgeville, Ohio.

More than three decades later, JBC Technologies has grown into a multi-facility operation with 185 employees, 16 degreed engineers on staff, and a client base spanning medical, aerospace and defense, battery energy storage, automotive, HVAC, and appliance markets.

Todd Wright, the company’s Chief Executive Officer, joined JBC after the founder partnered with a private equity firm in 2020. Joe Bliss remains an investor and sits on the board, but Wright now leads the business, and he leads it with the same problem-solving ethos that built it.

“Joe is very passionate about solving problems and overcoming challenges,” Wright says. “He really sought out customers and companies that had a need for something to be solved and then went to work to solve that. If that involved additional equipment, Joe went out and bought that equipment. If it involved different types of materials, he went out and learned about the materials.”

That founding mindset, what Wright calls an “engineered solutions” philosophy, has shaped everything about JBC Technologies, from its staffing model to its market strategy. 16 degreed engineers is a remarkable figure for a company of its size, and Wright is candid about its significance: competitors, even larger ones, rarely carry that kind of engineering depth in-house. But for JBC, it is not a point of pride so much as a competitive prerequisite.

To understand what JBC Technologies does, it helps to understand what flexible material converting involves. At its most basic, converting means taking raw flexible materials, foams, films, adhesives, and non-wovens and cutting them into precise shapes for use in manufactured products. A simple product might involve laminating an adhesive to a foam to create an adhesive-backed gasket. Most converters can handle that.

Where JBC Technologies distinguishes itself is in complexity. When customers need multiple substrates brought together in intricate geometries, or when they need parts delivered in a format compatible with automated assembly on their own production line, the technical bar rises sharply and that is where JBC’s engineering staff excels.

Wright points to a standing program for a major medical customer as a clear illustration of the company’s capabilities. The customer required fetal heart monitoring pads built from a five-layer stack-up of materials in complex geometries. Previously, five separate parts were assembled manually, a slow, labor-intensive process with inherent quality variability. The customer came to JBC to see whether the entire assembly could be accomplished in a single press pass. Other converters had attempted it, but none had succeeded.

“We went through our normal engineering design process and were able to solve the issue and get them a completely fully automated solution,” Wright says. “We supply, and have for the last several years, about 50,000 of those parts a week. We visually inspect those parts, which is rather unique in our industry. We are able to provide them with a complex part for their automation with 100 percent inspected parts so that they have zero defects and have for the last three years.”

That combination of engineering-led problem-solving, high-volume production, and 100 percent visual inspection is the kind of outcome that builds long-term partnerships. Wright frames the company’s ideal customer relationship not as a supplier arrangement but as an extension of the customer’s own design team—involved early, contributing to design for manufacturability, and managing inventory solutions in tandem.

JBC Technologies operates across three facilities. Its headquarters sits just west of Cleveland in North Ridgeville, Ohio. A second facility in Denver, Colorado came through an acquisition in December 2021. A third location in Madison, Wisconsin serves the upper Midwest customer base. All three facilities carry ISO 9001 certification, providing customers with a consistent quality baseline across the network regardless of which location is producing their parts. The company previously maintained a smaller site in Elk Grove, Illinois, but rapid growth in its medical business caused it to outgrow that footprint, and it was consolidated into the Ohio and Denver facilities, with the Ohio site gaining expanded clean room space in the process.

That clean room expansion reflects a deliberate strategic shift. Over the last three to four years, JBC Technologies has moved away from the industry-agnostic, broadly diversified model of its founding era toward what Wright describes as a focus on three “premium markets”: medical, aerospace and defense, and battery energy storage. Legacy business in HVAC, automotive, and appliance continues to grow, but the company’s front-end commercial energy is concentrated on those three segments.

The reasoning is straightforward; in each of the three premium markets, engineered solutions carry genuine value, agile product development is expected, and the competitive field of converters capable of meeting those demands is thin.

Medical is the most heavily regulated of the three, and JBC Technologies holds ISO 13485 certification, is FDA registered, and operates multiple ISO Class 8 clean rooms across its facilities. The combination allows the company to supply fully certified medical components to customers across the sector, from wearable diagnostic devices to wound care and IV dressings.

Within the aerospace and defense category, it is the emerging commercial space market, satellites and rockets specifically, where Wright sees the most compelling growth trajectory. JBC Technologies has built a significant position in this segment over the last three to four years, and Wright says the company is now the market leader in flexible materials and converted products for satellite components.

What makes the new space market distinctive is not just the technical complexity of the materials involved, but the pace at which customers need to move. Satellite and rocket programs run on launch schedules, and those schedules do not flex for supply chain delays.

“Lead times really are measured in days instead of weeks or months,” Wright says. “We will get a request for a new part today, and the customer very likely will need us to deliver that in the next week or two to be able to meet their launch schedule. That is something that not everyone is equipped to handle.”

Meeting this challenge requires an inventory strategy built for speed, a broad equipment base with available capacity, and an organizational culture wired for rapid response. JBC Technologies has spent the last two to three years restructuring its operations with that responsiveness as the design brief. Wright is clear that technical knowledge of the exotic materials used in space applications, while important and growing, is secondary to that capability: without the agility, the expertise alone would not be enough to win or retain business in this segment.

Organizations that thrive in high-pressure, high-complexity environments tend to share certain cultural traits. At JBC Technologies, two of the company’s core values, “don’t ever quit” and “multifaceted” reflect exactly the demands its premium markets place on the business and the people who run it. “Around here, people understand that they are going to be asked to do many different things throughout the day and throughout the week, some that are directly related to their job description and probably many that are not, in order to meet the customer’s needs and timing,” Wright shares.

That culture flows directly from JBC’s founder. Joe Bliss built the business by refusing to treat a challenge as a reason to walk away, and that disposition has been institutionalized across 185 employees in three states. Wright sees it as inseparable from the company’s commercial success: in the medical and new space segments, a supplier that hesitates or hits its limits is quickly replaced by one that does not.

JBC Technologies is also investing in capabilities that extend its value further into the customer’s own production process. The company uses robotics to automate assembly steps, applying plastic components to die-cut adhesive parts, for example, on behalf of customers, handling work that would otherwise occur on the customer’s own floor. Engineers visit customer facilities, observe how parts are used in the assembly process, and return with proposals for how JBC can absorb additional steps and deliver a more complete, ready-to-assemble component.

“When we really can bring value and where our customers really can see the worth in what we’re doing, is when we have those deep partnerships, where we are working together to ensure that both sides are more efficient,” Wright explains.

Today, JBC Technologies occupies a specific and defensible position in the flexible materials converting market. The company is large enough to sustain significant engineering depth, run high-volume automated programs, and operate across multiple certified facilities. It is focused enough on three premium markets with outsized needs for engineered solutions to develop genuine expertise rather than spread capabilities too thin. Indeed, the company Joe Bliss started with a set of O-rings and a desire to work for himself has become a specialist manufacturer at the leading edge of medical device components, satellite supply chains, and emerging energy storage technology.

Wright and his team are betting that the characteristics that made JBC attractive to its earliest customers—engineering rigor and a willingness to take on problems others have given up on—are precisely what its next chapter of growth demands.

The post Engineering Solutions at Every Layer<p class="company">JBC Technologies</p> appeared first on Manufacturing In Focus.

Driven by an engineering-first mindset, this Elkhart, Indiana-based manufacturer seeks to improve accessibility in the market, providing not only accessibility-forward vehicles, but the choice of alternative engines with its low-floor offering.

Though Optimal’s expertise begins with electric, the engineering backbone of the company has enabled it to pivot with market conditions to expand its original purpose through the addition of alternate fuels to ensure buyers can have full confidence in the product and its range.

Optimizing automotive
Behind Optimal Electric Vehicles is parent company Optimal, which was founded in 1986 by Dr. Song L. Young, widely recognized across the world for his pioneering breakthroughs in the areas of computer-aided engineering (CAE), vehicle optimization, and simulation-driven product development.

His work has changed the very nature of how modern OEMs design, engineer, and validate vehicles, and as a result, he saw an opportunity to break into the market himself with a niche product offering that leveraged his expertise. This enabled Optimal, as well as its clients, to accelerate innovation, optimize performance, and reduce development costs through Dr. Young’s sophisticated methodologies.

Optimal, aptly named, was established as an engineering services company that supported Detroit automakers and evolved alongside the sector. While the company remains true to its original purpose—accessible electric vehicles, chiefly the low-floor shuttle model—the means has shifted with market demand, which is fueled not only by shifting legislation but also consumer confidence in the range of electric, which Optimal seeks to overcome with its solutions.

“The original designs were all about accessibility and serving an underserved community in a dignified kind of way. So that’s really what we focus on,” explains Executive Vice President, Jeff Hiatt.

“Given the recent changes in administration and the recent changes in focus on EVs in general, we’ve announced that we’re testing and validating a gas version of our vehicle that will also allow for us to do CNG and propane, so it will be a complete product offering that covers not only no-emission vehicles, but low-emission vehicles as well,” he adds.

Further to having the choice of engine/fuel type, customers enjoy the confidence of knowing that the vehicles have been built on years of testing and validation for quality and performance. “The last three years have really been focused on serial production, marketing, brand building, and all those activities to get the business in a growth stage,” Hiatt shares.

The company’s history of offering lightweighting, CAE, and other engineering services to premier automakers illustrates capabilities that translate well into electric and alternate fuel applications. “We’ve had three years of full production and bringing the product to market, as well as, along the way, developing a conversion technology whereby we can take existing vehicles or new vehicles, gas vehicles, and convert them to just a standard-floor type vehicle,” says Hiatt.

He explains that, by using a Ford E450 donor chassis stripped of all its components, Optimal can modify the frame to support custom builds with EV components and the resulting body.

“Because of the business’s expertise in engineering, especially in the world of CAE, and being able to model and test different iterations of the bus, it really kept a lot of our development time and cost down to be able to do what we do today with converting the vehicle,” Hiatt explains of the product, purpose-built from the ground up.

What especially sets the vehicle apart is its low floor, which addresses a market segment that has long been underserved. “Low-floor shuttle buses have a lot of advantages,” says Hiatt, noting that they don’t require a lift. “We have a ramp design that’s close to the ground so people in a wheelchair can actually get themselves in and out of the vehicle, so it’s a much better design, much cleaner design, and it provides a level of dignity for people.”

A winning business model
Strategically located in the cradle of RV country, which gives it a good supply base, Optimal Electric Vehicles is well positioned to monitor and anticipate future trends, engineering its products in response to the data collected and continuing to do good for an underserved market.

By adding alternate fuel types that operate to the same standard of performance of its EVs, Optimal addresses the persistent anxiety that exists within consumer sentiment around the range of electric vehicles, and thus the company continues to take advantage of market opportunity. The market is particularly strong in Canada and the U.S., which is where Optimal will focus going forward, continuing to secure market share and consumer confidence through its trusted dealer network.

“We’re constantly working with our dealer network to educate them and train them on the product, any new enhancements we make to the products,” Hiatt explains, to give its supporting players all of the tools necessary to be successful.

Ultimately, Optimal is driven by a culture of giving back and ensuring that it can grow its impact to serve the greater good through greater accessibility to accessibility. It’s a simple, yet noble, undertaking.

“The sum is greater than the parts within our business—leveraging the technical expertise coupled with practical expertise in the company and combining those to really create the value that we need for our customers,” is what Hiatt feels drives the culture.

Whether it is the growth of its EV line or alternate fuel platforms, the next 18 to 24 months are going to be exciting for the company and something for the market to watch, particularly those who are interested in a highly innovative company that is doing good work from all angles.

“We did the hardest thing first: we created an electric vehicle. Now we’re going back and creating variants of that that are much simpler to engineer to bring to market, so we’re positioned well for the future,” Hiatt notes of the company’s outlook.

Over the near term, the market can expect that Optimal will continue to bring new products and innovations to the fore, doing so with a small, lean team of industry experts that bring unmatched experience and capacity so it can have a significant impact without overextending itself. And long term, always steadfast to its original purpose and goal, Optimal will continue to find ways to improve the performance of its offerings to ensure that accessibility is accessible to a greater number of people.

The post Optimizing Automotive Accessibility<p class="company">Optimal Electric Vehicles</p> appeared first on Manufacturing In Focus.

Headquartered in Saint-Hyacinthe, Quebec since 1999, the company prides itself on adding value to its customers’ operations with practical solutions and well-considered, overall improvement strategies. This, of course, explains its impressive customer retention rate. Ben-Mor’s drive for speed and efficiency also provides its client partners with reliable, comprehensive services, further driving significant expansion of its Canadian presence over the past three decades.

Growing largely through acquisition has catapulted the business to more than 10 times its original revenue in the last 15 years. In the past year alone, Ben-Mor acquired three new companies without external funding, bringing its current number of locations in North America to 17. This is just one example of its outstanding fiscal sturdiness and purchasing prowess.

Now that the company has established and integrated its Canadian presence, complete with Canada’s highest-capacity test beds at its Winnipeg and Edmonton facilities, Ben-Mor is crossing the proverbial Rubicon by introducing its first U.S. facility, currently under construction in Indiana and planned to open in the fall of 2027. This state-of-the-art facility will feature a 1.2-million-pound test bed, significantly expanding Ben-Mor’s testing and certification capabilities. The Indiana operation will also provide the capacity to manufacture cable assemblies and lifting slings while maintaining a large inventory of products to ensure rapid delivery and exceptional service to customers across the United States. Its growth continues even now.

At Ben-Mor, every acquisition brings improvement, whether in logistics, distribution, technology, or engineering. Recent additions included this preliminary foray into the United States with the purchase of an international leader in custom cable assemblies and accessories, Fortune Rope and Metal, in 2023. The company came with locations in Jacksonville, Florida; Bristol, Rhode Island; and Bensenville, Illinois.

Other recent acquisitions include Faucher Industries, a 175-year-old Canadian transportation and industrial hardware supplier with a location in the United States of America and six locations throughout Canada. Faucher joined Ben-Mor last year. This year’s acquisitions include the power and hand tool distributor Boomerang Tools/Rouge Import from Boucherville, Quebec, as well as Titan Supply, a big name in Alberta for lifting, hauling, and excavation for the rigging industry.

Chief Executive Officer, Mélanie Frappier, is exceedingly positive about what each new addition brings to Ben-Mor’s overall capabilities. “Acquisition has become part of our DNA,” she says.

Born into the family business and starting work in the company as a youngster, this dynamic leader has served the company full-time for just over a decade and a half. Working her way up from quality assessment and administration to managing the sales team, her leadership position came into effect five years ago, alongside Louis Tétreault during the first phase of her father’s succession plan. The second part of this two-phase process will be announced soon.

Ben-Mor was founded by Mélanie’s father in 1992. Working as a sales representative for a firm that fabricated silo cable assemblies for the agricultural sector, Benoit Frappier decided to strike out on his own, working from his carport in Sainte-Marie-Madeleine, Quebec. With his wife’s support—and secure in the trust of a single supplier in Rhode Island who offered him an open credit limit, alongside the support of two or three loyal customers—Benoit started the company, initially fabricating cable for fitness equipment. Ben-Mor finally acquired this original supplier in 2022.

Today, Mélanie Frappier ascribes her father’s success to building and maintaining healthy relationships throughout his career. Ever committed to stability, the enterprising leader spent the first decade building strong foundations. Developing its product offering and garnering market share, the company mainly relied on organic growth during that time. Today, it boasts an integrated sales team and a head office as the central hub for its management and operational teams.

A custom, standardized enterprise resource planning (ERP) system ensures synergy across all Ben-Mor’s facilities and processes. One outcome of this investment is product consistency across all its facilities, and this enables Ben-Mor to fulfill large orders by leveraging its full fabrication power while remaining responsive to customer expectations and requirements. This creates a winning system—orders are completed faster while all teams actively contribute to customers’ success.

It is not only customers who benefit from this lateral approach to business, however. Deeply committed to investing in its people, Ben-Mor’s leadership is excited to staff its Indiana footprint with locals who are a cultural fit. “Yes, we have products. But everyone can sell chain slings. [For us] it’s about the quality, the service, and yes, the people, the culture, and the values we want to bring to the U.S.,” Frappier explains.

Maintaining unity among its teams across North America remains a key priority, and as part of this mission, leaders aim to visit their facilities regularly. Online gatherings further maintain synergy. Frappier describes her team as high achievers who do not overdo things but rather maintain a healthy work-life balance. “I like that we have that balance, but that we are still able to achieve great things together,” she adds. “Most of them are very ambitious. They see a solution to every challenge. They’re goal-oriented. I love them all. I could talk about them all day,” she laughs.

This genuine care is evident across the organization. With a number of female leaders, Frappier is proud of the fresh perspectives they contribute to the organization. Committed to the development of its nimble and adaptable team, Ben-Mor offers advancement from within while providing a human-centric work environment where people and their personal and professional advancement really matter.

While the company is now admittedly large, being privately held translates into expedited decision-making, and this makes for a highly motivated, results-driven team with a warm, personal touch. Frappier is full of praise for the team’s fine sense of organization and their agility that lends to operational efficiency. “The last acquisition we did in March. We… integrated this company in 90 days. It’s incredible,” she continues, highlighting the phenomenal speed the team works at. “We make decisions fast because we can. It’s our company,” she says with a smile.

While Frappier is open about Ben-Mor’s position as a premium supplier, she confirms that its long-term prosperity is vested in improving customers’ businesses and bottom lines through quality service and cost savings. “We partner with our customers to grow their businesses,” she says.

To this end, maintaining close customer relationships helps keep the Ben-Mor team in stride with every process and order throughout its lifecycle. With an IT team of 12, the company is in the process of upscaling its capabilities. As part of that mission, it is building an in-house AI system. “We’re continuously investing so that we automate our processes. It’s not necessarily always with AI, but if it is the best solution, then we invest in AI as well,” Frappier shares.

Ben-Mor’s next big goal is doubling its size over the next five years. Continuing to further cultivate a winning acquisition model, the company is set to perpetuate its North American expansions. Alongside this growth, it will advance its abilities to provide administrative and other support to each new outfit it integrates into its ranks.

For Frappier, a favourite aspect of this sustained growth will always remain the opportunities Ben-Mor provides its employees, and which in turn enable families to enjoy a good living. And so the company continues to build on Benoit Frappier’s fine legacy by maintaining his benchmarks, remarkable standards, and efficiency, all while providing customers with a range of cable technologies—from those used in the fitness industry to high-performance wire ropes designed for cranes and heavy-duty applications, and everything in between.

The post Rigged for Growth<p class="company">Ben-Mor</p> appeared first on Manufacturing In Focus.

Based in northeast Edmonton, Alberta, QPP is a 100 percent Canadian-owned manufacturer of polyurethane pipeline pigs and pigging accessories. Its product range spans sizes from compact-diameter water and chemical lines right up to the large-diameter transmission pipelines that cross North America. The company serves customers in oil and gas, mining, water and wastewater, and industrial process sectors. And since 2016, it has operated as a subsidiary of Suncast Polytech Inc., a strategic acquisition that changed the scope of what QPP is capable of, and what it aspires to be.

What’s in a name?
The name raises eyebrows in boardrooms and on job sites alike. Tim Canete, President of Quality Polly Pig Ltd., is used to the question. “A pipeline pig is essentially a device that travels inside a pipeline, pushed along by the flowing product or by water or air, to do a job,” he says. “The main function is cleaning the inside of the pipe during new construction, for ongoing maintenance, and for prepping lines ahead of inspection.”

Beyond cleaning, pigs serve two other primary roles. Batching pigs separate different products travelling through the same pipeline so a transmission operator can move bitumen down the line one day and switch to a different fluid the next, with a pig acting as a physical buffer between the two. Foam swabs, meanwhile, are used to dewater newly constructed lines before they enter service.

QPP manufactures its pigs exclusively in polyurethane (PUR), in both solid-cast and medium-density foam configurations. The choice of material is deliberate—polyurethane is a family of materials whose properties can be tuned by adjusting prepolymers, curatives, and processing conditions.

QPP engineers select and blend formulations to suit specific duties including harder compositions for aggressive mechanical scraping, softer ones for sealing inside slightly out-of-round pipe, more chemically resistant grades for refined product lines, and highly abrasion-resistant versions for slurry applications in mining.

“Polyurethane provides the combination of properties that pigging demands,” Canete says. “It needs to be soft and flexible enough to conform to the pipe yet tough and durable enough to clean the pipe.”

Partners in success
QPP began operations in 1996. For its first two decades it operated as a focused pig manufacturer, building a reputation for quality across the Canadian oil and gas sector. The transformative moment came in 2016, when Suncast Polytech Inc., an Edmonton-based manufacturer of large-scale polyurethane wear parts for mining, oil sands, industrial, construction, and forestry applications, acquired QPP and brought it under its roof.

Suncast itself had been founded in 1998, driven by a technology it developed in-house, ReCast™. The premise of ReCast is straightforward in concept and technically demanding in execution. New polyurethane is bonded directly to worn, cured polyurethane, rebuilding the original part to its design specifications. The result is a restored component that performs like new. Suncast spent years perfecting this process in some of the harshest industrial environments on the planet, including the oil sands operations of northern Alberta.

“Suncast has been doing ReCast since around 2000,” Canete says. “Initially it was focused on pipeline pig components for Suncor, then it expanded into larger wear parts. The 2016 acquisition of QPP was really about spreading that technology into the broader pigging world.”

Today, QPP and Suncast share a single 22,000-square-foot facility on 3.3 acres in northeast Edmonton. Under one roof sit five automated pour machines, multiple curing ovens, lathes, a coordinate measuring machine (CMM), and a large-format 3D printer added in recent years for rapid prototyping. The combined team numbers around 15 people, small by industrial standards, but deep in expertise.

What the acquisition gave QPP was access to Suncast’s accumulated materials science. Where QPP once operated with a handful of polyurethane formulations, the combined operation now works with approximately 30 distinct recipes, each developed through years of real-world application.

“We’ve gone from a three-recipe company to 30-plus recipes,” Canete says. “All of that knowledge in materials, processing, and parts design, goes into every QPP product.”

The role of ReCast™
In most industrial contexts, a worn polyurethane part follows a familiar path: removal, disposal, replacement. A pig cup that begins its working life with a sharp, precisely dimensioned sealing edge gradually rounds with use. Traditionally, the logical endpoint is the landfill.

ReCast interrupts that cycle. The worn component becomes a core onto which new PUR is cast, creating a permanent bond between the new and cured material. The rebuilt part is restored to full specification dimensions and, based on more than two decades of oil sands service history, performs equivalently to a new component.

The numbers behind the program are significant. Suncast has processed more than 3.5 million pounds of polyurethane since 2000, with nearly half of that volume accounted for by ReCast rebuilds. The program has, by the company’s calculation, kept over one million pounds of polyurethane out of landfill, and ReCast parts cost approximately 30 percent less than new equivalents.

Until recently, however, ReCast remained largely unknown outside of the oil sands sector. “We have a proven rebuilding technology with decades of empirical evidence behind it in one of the toughest industrial environments in the world,” Canete says. “Sustainability is moving from a talking point to an actual procurement criterion in a lot of sectors. ReCast is well positioned for that shift, and we want to get the message out.”

The timing appears right. Canete observes that pipeline operators are increasingly incorporating lifecycle emissions, recycled content, and end-of-life material handling into supplier evaluations. What was once a value-add is becoming a differentiator that procurement teams actively seek.

Home-grown expertise
One of the less visible dimensions of what QPP and Suncast have built is the depth of manufacturing knowledge held within their team and the degree to which that knowledge had to be developed from scratch.

Polyurethane manufacturing for industrial wear applications is a niche with no formal training pathway. There are no degrees in pipeline pig formulation, no certification programs for oil sands-grade PUR wear parts. Everything QPP and Suncast know about the craft—every formulation, every processing technique—has been developed internally over nearly three decades. “There aren’t schools you can pull from. It’s all on-the-job development, and some of our people have been processing urethane parts for more than 20 years,” Canete says.

That institutional depth has a practical consequence and QPP now operates as a recognized engineering house, not merely a manufacturer. Its team uses advanced 3D modelling software for part and mould design and can either develop custom engineered solutions independently or collaborate directly with customer engineering teams. The large-format 3D printer added in recent years compresses the prototyping cycle significantly; where custom pig development once took months of design iteration, the team can now have prototypes in hand within a day in some cases.

The quality assurance program reflects the same discipline. QPP maintains strict vetting criteria for material suppliers, recognizing that formulation consistency starts at the raw ingredient level. Every finished part is inspected against customer specification before it leaves the facility.

The 3.3-acre Edmonton site sits on the CANAMEX trade corridor, with direct rail access via CN’s intermodal yard to the Port of Vancouver and the Port of Prince Rupert, connecting QPP and Suncast to Asia-Pacific markets. The corridor runs south to the U.S. border, giving the operation efficient access to its largest export market.

Canete frames the location in terms of what it makes possible with raw materials arriving from global suppliers and finished and rebuilt PUR parts moving out to customers across Canada, the United States, and international markets. The facility, which QPP and Suncast moved into in 2023, expanded the combined manufacturing footprint and production capacity at a time of growing demand.

The proximity to the oil sands region of northern Alberta, particularly the Municipality of Wood Buffalo, is equally deliberate. Suncast has supplied Suncor and other oil sands producers as an OEM polyurethane supplier for over two decades, and QPP, for its part, manufactures approximately 12,000 pipeline pigs and components annually, most of which are deployed within Alberta’s pipeline network.

For Canadian operators, the 100 percent Canadian ownership of QPP and Suncast carries supply chain implications that have become more salient in recent years. For U.S. and international customers, it represents a stable, allied-jurisdiction supplier with no cross-border complexity.

An industry in transition
The pipeline industry is in the middle of a period of convergence as aging municipal infrastructure is reaching design-life limits, smart pig technology is generating new demand for clean lines ahead of inline inspection, and emerging applications including hydrogen pipelines and CO₂ transport for carbon capture are creating requirements that no established pig formulation was designed to meet. Canete sees all of these as QPP and Suncast territory. “Companies that own their materials capability will be able to respond quickly. That’s exactly where we sit,” he says.

On the product side, QPP manufactures a complete range of solid-cast pigs including Utradisc, Powerdisc, Ball pig, Bell-cup, Dyna-flex, Multi-cup, and Pig-valve configurations; foam pigs including balls, squeegees, and swabs; component pigs for batching, bidirectional, construction, and brush-cleaning applications; and a full accessories program covering brushes, magnets, pigging poles, and transmitters. The intent is that a pipeline operator can source a complete pigging package from a single supplier.

Longer-term priorities include broadening the ReCast program to cover a wider range of pig components, expanding into water and wastewater applications where aging municipal infrastructure is generating increasing maintenance activity, and continuing to invest in the Edmonton facility as both product demand and technology capabilities evolve.

When Canete is asked what he most wants readers to take away from QPP’s story, he steers away from the product and toward the foundation underneath it. “When you buy a QPP pig, you are tapping into 30 years of urethane materials science, an Edmonton-based engineering team that solves real-world wear problems, and a sustainability story, through ReCast, that costs less and wastes less than the alternative. We are not trying to be the biggest pig company in the world. We are the company you call when the challenge is difficult.”

It is a precise articulation of a deliberately focused position. QPP and Suncast occupy a narrow slice of the industrial world—Canadian-owned, built on materials expertise accumulated over three decades without a textbook in sight. The pipeline operators, mining companies, and municipal water authorities that rely on QPP’s products are betting, ultimately, on the depth of knowledge behind each pig that leaves that 22,000-square-foot facility. By most measures, it is a solid bet.

The post Pigs, Polyurethane, and Purpose<p class="company">Quality Polly Pig Ltd.</p> appeared first on Manufacturing In Focus.