The company’s products are popular for good reason. Inspired by Toyota’s lean manufacturing principles, which eliminate waste to optimize end-user benefit, Southland Trailers’ heavy industrial and livestock trailers run as far afield as Russia, Hawaii, and Australia, with dealers across Canada and the United States.

In an industry that is not necessarily known for being on the cutting edge, Southland Trailers is a thought leader known for pushing the limits of trailer engineering. Owners Jason, Ryan, and Scott Sailer are passionate about driving evolution and always being available to their team and customers. Scott Sailer is open about the company’s position on industry evolution. “The understanding of what a trailer is needs to change. We’re trying to change the perception of what a trailer should do,” he says.

What makes Southland’s products so special? The secret to its next-generation trailers is deceptively simple. By recognizing the waste of fuel and steel in outdated traditional trailers on the end-user’s side, the company’s engineering team has modernized its durable, high-performance trailer units in ways that competitors have been unable to match. Southland is therefore actively revolutionizing how people perceive trailers by building products that are significantly lighter than traditional trailers, yet every bit as strong and durable.

If it is not yet clear, Southland Trailers is by no means just another industrial fabricator. The company fulfils its mission with a refreshingly advanced approach to creative freedom, focus, and fun—a rare combination in a tough industry. While minimizing waste and the use of materials in its products, its design ethos relies on built-in strength and durability by maintaining high-level efficiency and non-negotiable quality.

One case in point is its engineered sill design, Southland’s most game-changing feature to date. “We’ve built, I believe, the best dump trailer in the market. We’ve had every competitor basically try to copy it. Most have failed because they didn’t copy it properly and didn’t do things properly,” says Scott Sailer, Director of Operations. And as expected, this next-generation innovation has been selling itself.

“The key is that this one can haul more, and you’re going to make more money with our [trailers]. You’re going to put more money in your pocket because you’re going to be pulling a lighter trailer, which is more fuel-efficient for you,” Sailer says of the efficiencies these trailers provide. And the benefits do not end there. “You’re going to be able to put more product into that trailer because it’s lighter, so you can put more onto the axles,” he adds.

The weight allowance on axles after the trailer weight is subtracted can limit transportation volumes when employing old-fashioned, heavy trailers. That means that Southland allows for larger haulage volumes and better earnings and returns on investment.

The company even takes its paint finishes seriously. In using liquid paint instead of powder coating, as it is easier to maintain and repair, electrostatic paint booths prevent waste by drawing paint directly onto the metal, without the tremendous waste typical of old-fashioned methods. These are just a few of the ways in which Southland Trailers is committed to delivering better quality and value in every way possible.

As the largest employer in Lethbridge, Alberta, Southland’s outstanding professionals have more to do with its success than most may realize. Growing from a team of 70 a decade ago to a team of 600 today is no small feat, and the company is continuing to hire. And, if it is no ordinary fabricator, it is certainly no ordinary workplace, either.

With an ownership team whose acute understanding of creativity allows for all employees to contribute, the company’s approach continues to reap astounding results that have secured its reputation for excellence for the long haul. As such, the team is proud of the millions of dollars it has invested in its local Alberta communities thanks to its success.

It also does its best to be environmentally responsible wherever possible, with sustainability efforts including recycling materials like plastic, cardboard, aluminum, and steel. “I do wish there were better programs within Canada to help recycle cardboard and plastics and better facilities to take it away,” Sailer shares. “There are definitely some roadblocks getting that material taken out of our facility once it’s all banded up, but we’re trying to do our part, that’s for sure.”

The company was founded by Sailer’s parents, Shelly and Monty, in 1980. Their three sons worked their way up from the bottom, changing brakes, working on axles, driving forklifts, and selling trailers. When the time eventually came for the next generation to take the business over, around 2008, the pair were initially concerned about the large changes the siblings started implementing. From improving production flows to changing the building’s layout, it took some serious courage on their part to give the youngsters the space they needed to take the company to the next level. Their patience and trust paid off in a big way.

As business goes, taking the company their parents built over many years to the next level was not without its challenges. But Jason, Ryan, and Scott persevered, growing their leadership skills alongside the company. Today, Southland Trailers has a work environment that is every bit as lively and positive as the Sailer brothers themselves.

They have created a high-energy spirit in their facility, complete with large sound systems and the team’s favourite music setting the pace. Always forward-thinking, the company has proven that a four-day work week can be every bit as beneficial to its bottom line as a five-day work week—if not more so—so its weekly fabrication schedule runs from Monday to Thursday from 6 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., with an occasional Friday as needed to wrap up large projects.

Other incentives abound, including on-site cafeterias and top-end health and wellness benefits. Social gatherings are also common, with people having the option to join the social club. Sometimes families are included, and other times it is just the Southlanders bowling, eating pizza, and having a few beers and laughs together.

This strong sense of camaraderie is what gives the team its strength to build BHAGs (big, hairy, audacious goals, in case you were wondering). Around 2014, the group committed to start working toward expanding its output from 800 to 1000 trailers annually to 25,000 units per year. Now that goal is in sight, with the company rolling out around 15,000 trailers last year.

To ensure that it secures the workforce needed to continue scaling, the company goes out of its way to show youngsters that fabrication is not the dingy, sweaty nightmare it was in the previous century. Beyond working in considerably improved facilities, earnings are high and people are empowered to share their points of view and ideas. The company has seen a tremendously positive response to its efforts. “We just built a weld shop for the high school here in town, and they had over 100 students already sign up to come into the welding program to learn how to weld,” Sailer tells us.

Such students are typically also free to weld at Southland’s facility to get a feel for the job. Because, while technology has allowed the company to scale, it has by no means taken jobs from people. On the contrary. As Sailer puts it, “the robots need to be fed.”

The outcome of this is that Southland employs four new people for every robot it installs—a far cry from the general perception of what happens following the arrival of high-tech resources in fabrication facilities. A decade ago, when its first robots arrived, there was nobody available locally to program them. Creative as ever, its leadership invited all lovers of video games in its ranks to join the programming training. And they did.

Since then, the company has not looked back. Today, it employs around a dozen top-notch robotics technicians as a result of that first initiative. These machines run on Intuitive software, while Aratum is harnessed for enterprise resource planning. And as the team investigates how best to integrate AI, Sailer is clear on the fact that it, too, will not be replacing people. “Is it going to replace everybody and eliminate all these jobs? No, I think it’s going to buckle up right beside them and help them,” he confirms, highlighting that the added support can only further improve efficiency and, ultimately, customer satisfaction.

What is also clear is that this leader adores his team. “Without them, we wouldn’t be able to do anything,” he says, highlighting the sincerity with which each team member is welcomed into the family.

Looking at its immediate future, Sailer is clear on the company’s commitment to maintaining a genuine relationship with every customer. There are certainly no plans of selling out, either. Instead, maintaining vertical integration and steady growth toward its 25,000-unit goal is where its motivation remains for now. In the meantime, its team of around 15 creative engineers continues coming up with product improvements while driving innovation. They lead with autonomy, lateral thinking, and a quintessentially free approach to hatching Southland Trailers’ next great industry disruptor.

The post Built Lean, Built Strong<p class="company">Southland Trailers</p> appeared first on Manufacturing In Focus.

After 115 years of helping to connect Canadians by forging premium, mission-critical transmission, distribution, and communication infrastructure and hardware, Slacan Industries Inc. has built a fine reputation for excellence and trustworthiness. The company has achieved this through commitment, reliability, tight quality control, and in-house fabrication, producing even its smallest parts in its own facility.

Standing apart
Here, product longevity and resilience guide a daily mission to be Canada’s best in its industry. As a result, continuous investment in technology has brought Slacan’s count of next-generation machinery to 10 units—and that number is growing. During a recent visit of around 20 engineers, all from a prospective client company, the company’s value proposition once again became as clear as ever. The longevity of its products and its capabilities speak for themselves.

Slacan Industries is not only known for service and hardware excellence, however. The company is also the proud owner of a vast cache of historic dies and hardware worth a few million dollars, which it maintains to continue servicing older infrastructure. In the process, the team serves most of Canada’s largest utility providers through distribution partners; some have been customers for the past half-century, while another giant served by Slacan is Bell, one of Canada’s leading telecommunications providers. And with in-house processes including Steel Forging, Hot & Cold Stampings, and Casting, among others, the team is able to serve a variety of other markets as well, including OEM, Agricultural, and Mining.

The company is in fact so robust in its capabilities that it asks clients removing spent parts from their old infrastructure—anywhere from 30 to 70 years old—to return worn parts to Slacan’s factory for in-depth study and further product development and improvement. With fully-fledged engineering design and product engineering teams, the company takes both pride and pleasure in improving on earlier designs, and with a collection of around 30,000 products, it receives requests to reproduce about 10,000 of these annually.

While it is common amongst competitors to source raw materials, engineering, and fabrication from foreign suppliers, Slacan is proud to source most of its raw materials for forging on Canadian soil. Because here, price and product are not the only important considerations. Slacan’s legacy, quality, generational knowledge, and product guarantees are as much a part of its value proposition as its engineering prowess, and these attributes are not necessarily the case when working with offshore facilities.

Service above all
Located in a 200,000-square-foot facility on a 14-acre property in Brantford, Ontario, with both Toronto, Ontario and Buffalo, New York just 70 miles away, Slacan Industries is perfectly situated to serve customers across an impressive footprint. Serving the breadth of Canada from coast to coast, its superpower resides in having developed the foundational elements of many of these service providers’ hardware components itself.

Trading in this industry at such a high level is an expensive endeavour, however, as many of the tools needed to maintain such lines cost in the region of $30,000 to $40,000. For this reason, Slacan historically outsourced its large tooling while making its own smaller tools. But that recently changed when it invested in acquiring the appropriate equipment to become self-sufficient in all its tooling needs. Now, when customers call in with the name of a broken line under its care, replacing old hardware with new hardware—no matter how long ago it was installed—has become significantly easier.

Once, when a client called in to request repairs on towers that collapsed under six inches of ice during an extreme weather event, the team was able to go back to its records, find the original part designs, and then locate the dies in its die store. “They had helicopters landing on our 14 acres here to pick up parts because they were so desperate. There was no power there at all,” shares Director of Sales and Marketing, Tom Lepera. “We’re not just here to sell; we’re more of a partner. We take the good with the bad,” he adds, describing the company’s approach to loyalty.

Lepera notes that some clients arrive with requests for small-volume, high-cost component fabrication. Fulfilling such orders is expensive, but the company takes the work on anyway, even when it takes four to five hours to set up the machines needed to fabricate the parts. This is just one way in which it demonstrates its commitment to its customers’ success.

A top team
Of course, none of this would be possible without the people behind its success. “We have a tremendous amount of respect for our people as we realize how hard they work in our factory, especially as temperatures get hot and they are working in a very hot forging environment with very heavy steel parts,” Lepera says. For this reason, the company has invested in exoskeletons to minimize physical fatigue for team members stationed at its forging hammers. As this is a heavy and laborious industry, Slacan ensures that the team’s health and safety are protected as much as possible in the workplace by maintaining high standards.

It also honours legacy staff. To this end, the company took the opportunity to invite a number of former team members who had been retired for some time on a tour to show them its latest transformation. Most of them had started working for the company 50 years before the major overhaul, which, of course, now includes extensive automation and robotics.

“It was thanks to them as the pioneers that led the way to perfecting the quality and operation of our processes that led us to build what we have today,” Lepera says, noting how much the company’s owner also appreciated the letter of thanks that followed their visit.

The road ahead
With roads and other infrastructure being installed to service Canada’s Ring of Fire, the famous mineral-rich area in James Bay’s lowlands of Northern Ontario, Slacan will be providing poleline hardware to which it also holds the patents.

Moreover, as the demand for utilities drives U.S. companies to reach out to poleline hardware fabricators in Canada, Slacan Industries is ready to expand its presence across the border. Currently, the projected expansion includes a possible new fabrication facility in the Chicagoland area. The strategy will allow for U.S.-made products alongside its existing Canadian-made ranges to serve a wider audience.

The time is ripe for such expansion; the past few years have seen Slacan making significant capital investments, bringing its collection of large, updated automation machines to about 10. Preparing for the inevitable has meant tripling its capacity over the past half-decade and securing supply chains.

“We will continue to make huge investments in equipment and people as well as alternate facilities to support our growth in both Canada and the USA,” Lepera tells us. “There is and will continue to be huge projects across North America in the next 15 years with electrical infrastructure of 340KV to 765KV, which will put massive demand on all products associated with transmission towers and our high-quality hardware,” he continues. Such Extra-High Voltage (EHV) infrastructure is responsible for minimal energy loss when transmitting large volumes of electricity over impressive expanses of land.

By positioning itself as a high-quality engineer and fabricator serving the critical utilities market across the United States and Canada, Slacan Industries is committed to remaining relevant in the high-voltage market over the next century. Once prospective customers visit its facilities and understand the level of long-term quality and top safety standards its products provide, any quibbling about price goes out the window. And a new customer walks in the door.

The post Forging Bonds: Hardware Solutions for Canada and the United States<p class="company">SLACAN Industries Inc.</p> appeared first on Manufacturing In Focus.

For LIVIO Building Systems, the answer lies in rethinking how these facilities are delivered. Through its LIVIO AI Data Center Factory (LAIF) platform, the company has positioned itself at the vanguard of rapid AI infrastructure deployment, enabling developers to transform land and power into operational AI compute capacity in a fraction of the time traditionally required.

At its core, LAIF is a pre-engineered, multi-trade panelized building system designed specifically for AI data centers. The approach combines LIVIO’s modular wall and roof panels with integrated electrical and plumbing infrastructure, allowing structures to be assembled on site with remarkable speed. The system is designed to support scalable modules ranging from 20 megawatts to more than a gigawatt of capacity, accommodating the massive computing loads required by modern AI systems.

In practical terms, the LAIF approach condenses what would typically be a multi-year development cycle into mere months. Using standardized components shipped directly to the project site and assembled in a LEGO® brick-like manner, the building shell can be delivered in roughly 45 days, with hardware and rack installation following shortly thereafter. A complete AI data center can be converted from “land to compute” in as little as 99 days.

Engineering the next generation of AI infrastructure
The concept builds on LIVIO’s established panelized construction system, which has been evolving rapidly in recent years. In fact, since the company was last featured in Construction in Focus in 2024, two new generations of its building system have been introduced.

Generation 2.0 enhanced LIVIO’s original panelized platform by integrating structural sheathing into wall assemblies and incorporating plumbing and electrical infrastructure directly into the panels themselves. Founder and CEO Navneet Aron says the upgrade dramatically increased the completeness of the company’s off-site manufactured components.

Shortly afterward, Generation 3.0 launched as a fully closed-wall system designed to arrive on site essentially ready for finishing. With the interior surfaces prepared for painting and exterior surfaces ready to accept dry cladding systems, customers can move almost immediately from installation into the finishing phase.

These improvements laid the groundwork for LAIF, which adapts the same manufacturing philosophy specifically for high-performance AI data center environments.

“AI infrastructure is one of the fastest-growing construction segments in the world,” Aron explains. “The challenge is that traditional construction timelines simply cannot keep up with the demand for compute capacity.”

Solving the bottleneck
The surge in generative AI and large-scale machine learning has triggered unprecedented investment in digital infrastructure. Hyperscale technology companies and specialized developers are pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into new facilities, yet the pace of construction remains a major constraint. For many developers, the building itself—not the chips or cooling systems—has become the biggest bottleneck.

This is precisely where LAIF can make an impact. By fabricating building components off-site and assembling them quickly on location, LIVIO’s system dramatically reduces the labor requirements and construction time typically associated with large-scale data centers.

In one recent project in Ohio, LIVIO and its partners demonstrated the potential of this approach, delivering a fully operational AI data center facility within weeks of the project’s initiation. The speed and efficiency of that deployment led the developer to commit to using LIVIO systems across its broader project portfolio.

The LAIF platform also incorporates design features tailored to AI workloads, including compatibility with high-density racks, advanced cooling systems, and integrated infrastructure for power distribution and monitoring.

A platform built for global scale
While AI infrastructure has become the company’s most prominent offering, LIVIO’s building systems continue to serve a diverse range of applications, from residential and commercial developments to specialized structures with enhanced security features. Still, the explosive growth of AI computing is shaping the company’s global strategy. In recent months, LIVIO has seen strong demand not only across the United States but also from developers in the Middle East and other emerging markets eager to build new infrastructure quickly. Saudi Arabia has been one of the first regions where the company has engaged with major development groups, while opportunities are also emerging in parts of Africa and Asia.

As word spreads about the efficiency of its systems, Aron says developers are increasingly drawn to the company’s combination of precision, speed, and cost control.

“A developer anywhere in the world wants the same thing,” he says. “They want to build accurately, quickly, and predictably. Our system makes that possible.”

Reimagining how the world builds
Beyond speed, the company’s technology addresses several structural challenges facing the construction sector. Labor shortages continue to affect markets worldwide, while traditional building methods often struggle with delays, cost overruns, and inconsistent quality. LIVIO’s panelized system reduces on-site labor requirements by as much as 80 to 90 percent while delivering construction accuracy within one-eighth of an inch, Aron says.

“Our mission has been to reduce reliance on a highly skilled labor force on the job site,” he explains. “If we can simplify the process and make it more predictable, we can fundamentally improve how buildings are delivered.”

To help achieve that goal, LIVIO systems are designed to be intuitive to assemble, with clearly labeled components and step-by-step installation guidance.

The road ahead
As the global AI infrastructure boom accelerates, LIVIO expects its LAIF platform to become an increasingly central part of its business. The company is already preparing future generations of its building system, which will introduce additional pre-installed elements such as roofing assemblies, interior doors, and expanded finishing options.

The ultimate goal is to push the boundaries of how quickly complete structures—particularly complex facilities like AI data centers—can be delivered.

“We will continue to deliver to our current customers and expand our markets here nationally and globally,” Aron says. “AI infrastructure is only going to grow, and we believe our technology will play a major role in enabling that growth.”

The post Leveraging Technology for Global Success<p class="company">LIVIO Building Systems</p> appeared first on Manufacturing In Focus.

“We focus on philosophy in design first, so we can then enhance products in the very dynamic office world that we’ve lived in since immediately pre-and post-COVID,” explains President and CEO, Bill Melnik. “Our goal has always been to build safe, sustainable, healthy, and productive environmental products.”

Tayco is upfront about promoting its key values, including inclusivity, sustainability, and fostering a strong employee culture. For three years in a row, Tayco has been certified by the Great Place to Work® Institute Canada and remains widely admired for its levels of inclusivity, equity, personal satisfaction, and employee engagement.

Strong leadership
In October 2022, Bill Melnik became Tayco’s CEO, succeeding Kevin Philips. Originally founded in 1976 by Kevin’s father, Phil, the company started producing value-conscious, space-dividing office furniture panels. A recent immigrant at the time, Phil brought the concept of local-supply, Canadian-made craftsmanship to the market.

“Their early success was based on building strong customer relationships, almost direct to customers and resellers,” says Melnik. “That culture still exists and is defining for Tayco today. We produce locally made Canadian products and ship them around the world. We value our strong customer relationships, which are a core element of our success. And of course, our craftsmanship helps keep that legacy alive.”

Adapting to market needs
The office environment has transformed over the decades, and Tayco continues to create and modify products to meet evolving needs. In the ’70s and ’80s, office panels were heavy and featured wood trim, but as time went on, Tayco introduced more value-added products to the market. Hiring additional workers with new skill sets, the company created office panels using materials like aluminum and steel. These changes saw the development of Tayco’s modernized Cosmo Integrated Panel System, which is customizable, features a highly functional tilt-and-frame design, and utilizes modern finishes such as glass, acrylic, metal, fabric, and laminate.

“Now that same panel—with a different kind of engineering structure and a different design—can have a wood bottom,” says Melnik. “It can have two kinds of different fabric on the top, and on the other side, it can have a completely different mix of fabric and/or other materials as well. So that’s where the advances have taken us.” Today’s panels are highly design-focused, suit a range of price points, and are customizable.

The company’s original panelling line was one of the pillars of its success and remained in production until around 2011. Tayco continued to build robust lines from 1976 to 2012, including Metro, previously known as Metropolis. The private Metro line is sleek and elegant, and includes storage, desking, and Tayco’s Volley Height Adjustable Tables casegoods furniture.

Recent years have seen the company greatly enhance its product lines to meet today’s office and home office demands, calling for features like ergonomic and height-adjustable solutions, provisions for power and communication, enhancements to original panelling products for privacy, and noise reduction.

Tayco continues to work closely with customers to create flexible, modular, long-life products with clean aesthetics that are highly adaptable and prioritize functionality. But Melnik observes that the sector is far from static. “I think it’s accurate to say that, since the COVID years, the office environment has been a truly dynamic market, particularly in furnishings,” he shares.

The office environment is indeed constantly changing, with younger people entering the market who may work solely in offices, solely at home, or a combination of both. “Our products focus on solutions for all those kinds of markets,” says Melnik.

A great place to work
Along with its superior office products, one of the first things Melnik noticed when he became Tayco’s CEO was the company’s outstanding workplace culture. As he said in 2022, “The entire team champions the brand and is passionate about providing the ultimate products and services to our customers. The Tayco culture truly demonstrates how a positive workforce directly correlates to employee engagement. I am proud to represent an organization with such a strong culture and enjoyable atmosphere, and look forward to watching it continue to blossom.”

The many skill sets of Tayco workers include welding, steel working, upholstery, fabric assembly, and applications to produce custom and semi-custom products. Some staff have been a part of Tayco since the ’70s and can share their wealth of knowledge with younger employees, a dedication that is a testament to the company’s culture. “That word’s really thrown around these days, but there is a culture of respect for our employees and customers, and respect for all aspects of doing business. Employees are valued for their input, feel comfortable, and are part of a long-term, safe culture,” Melnik says.

Indeed, Tayco regularly reaffirms its core values to its team and others: ownership, progressive [mindset], enjoyable experiences, and efficiency. These values have led to Tayco’s consistently being named to the Best Workplaces™ in Manufacturing list, based on direct employee feedback and an independent analysis by Great Place to Work®.

Along with its employees and customers, Tayco is also proud of its robust dealer partner network and independent representatives across North America. In the past few years, the company has stepped up efforts to sell products to clients not just in Canada and the United States but also in Mexico, the Caribbean, emerging markets in the Middle East, and key countries in South America.

“Our clients are the Who’s Who of the business clientele of any city and any country,” says Melnik. “But ultimately, they are our partners. They include corporate and commercial office spaces, from banks to legal firms and insurance companies. This broadly includes education, financial sectors, automotive sectors, and any and all levels of government,” he explains.

Ethical and sustainable
In today’s world, sourcing and buying Canadian-made products is more important than ever, and Tayco buys local materials to use in production whenever possible.

“Canada can be very proud of itself,” comments Melnik. “We are leaders in wood and panel products, bar none.” Purchasing most of its steel products locally, the company processes them internally in its own steel facilities, resulting in added value directly from Tayco and good, solid jobs for employees. “It is a strong selling point that we are a North American-based company,” says Melnik. “Our Canadian customers appreciate that we are Canadian and a Canadian-focused manufacturer.”

In January 2024, Tayco released a document on Fighting Against Forced Labour and Child Labour in Supply Chains detailing the company’s commitment to ridding its supply chains of every incidence of forced labour and child labour. Such vigilance means continually monitoring its supply chain, structure, and activities for any occurrence, or even the slightest warning signal, of these activities.

Melnik notes that sometimes there is a “wilful blindness” about the purchases we make—including a shallow view of the cost: if something doesn’t cost much, it can be replaced in the future, and it doesn’t really matter where it comes from. “This flies in the face of the value statement Tayco has, as well as its core values,” he stresses. Tayco expects its suppliers and others to be consistent with their reporting and to adhere to guidelines against forced labour. “It is tragic to think that, in the world we live in today, children would have to be exploited for the benefit of some cost-savings in North America,” he says. “For me, it would be a personal slight to think we are selling something because a child made it, that they could be exploited because it is made in another country. And if we brought it into our own country and profited on it, this goes against us as a company, as Canadians, and against me personally, to think that is something we would tolerate. I say no.”

50 years of success
To succeed in business for half a century is a major milestone. This year, Tayco will celebrate its dedicated employees with a focus on the generations of families who have worked there, along with acknowledging customers and representatives who have been with the company for decades. This will see different marketing campaigns with a focus on voices that have made the company the success it is today.

“Our employees do truly live and breathe our core values every single day,” says Emily Boland-Slinn, Director of Marketing and Communications. “In turn, that helps our dealer partners—the people we sell to, our resellers—live and breathe those core values as well, and have trust in us. So we will be acknowledging that through social media, different marketing initiatives, and events throughout the entire year.” And to acknowledge its milestone, Tayco will release a special new 50^th anniversary logo.

Today, the Tayco team includes about 240 staff members and around 30 reselling and independent agents. And while roles vary widely from the factory floor to the office, they all have one thing in common: continually striving to produce the best, sustainably made, ethically produced office furniture on the market.

“When you think about 50 years, it’s not just a corporation that has survived over 50 years; it’s a corporation that has significantly grown, changed, and is continuing to do exactly that after 50 years,” says Melnik. “It represents 50 years of substantially 100 percent Canadian jobs. Although some of our selling partners and agents are elsewhere in the world, there is a substantial Canadian job component. There are 50 years of trust, and I don’t think you stay in business that long without developing trust,” he says.

“If we were not consistent and trustworthy and did not have a progressive mindset, we wouldn’t be selling to customers after 50 years, nor to people who buy our products and resell them. They would just move elsewhere. It’s 50 years of showing up—consistently coming back and being there for all of our customers, all our resellers. So here we are. We are not looking back on 50 years, but focusing on setting the stage for the next 50 years. We are proud of that, we are thankful, and we congratulate the whole team for the momentum we’ve created.”

The post Quality People and Products Make Quality Years—50 of Them<p class="company">Tayco</p> appeared first on Manufacturing In Focus.

Except for food and medicine, then-President John. F. Kennedy banned trade with Cuba in February 1962. By March, the U.S. was preparing “a new intervention against Cuba,” with additional bans put in place on all Cuban-made goods. Tensions increased, ultimately culminating in October’s Cuban Missile Crisis.

It was against this backdrop of global uncertainty that German businessman and entrepreneur Ortwin Stieber decided to diversify. Founder of the Munich-based transmission company Heynau Antriebtechnik, Stieber began investigating other countries in which to do business, including Canada. Invited by the Kitchener Chamber of Commerce to visit the Ontario city, Stieber soon purchased an industrial property and founded a gear manufacturing business, calling it Ontario Drive & Gear Limited (ODG).

“The reason he called it Ontario Drive & Gear was so that he knew where it was and what they did,” says ODG’s Director of Program Management, Stephen Brown.

ARGO
In 1967, the year of Canada’s centennial, the company moved to New Hamburg, Ontario. ODG was manufacturing steering transmissions for an amphibious all-terrain vehicle company when that business failed. ODG was left with a number of transmissions and no customer. This led to Stieber’s building his own amphibious all-terrain vehicle named ARGO.

Continuously refined over the decades, ARGO remains, according to the company, “the world’s most successful amphibious vehicle” in terms of units produced. Other models were introduced, including Centaur (known as ARGO’s big brother), the three-wheel ATV Taurus, and Artemis, a robotic concept rover for exploring the Moon and Mars.

For a time, Ontario Drive & Gear and ARGO were under one roof. The ARGO business was cyclical, explains Brown—busy in spring and fall with hunting and fishing, but slowing down over the winter months. Not wanting to lose skilled labour, the company began looking for outside customers. “Over the years, the machine shop side of the business started to grow and grow,” says Brown. “In 2000, we built the gear division building, because we grew both the ARGO side and the gear side of the business beyond the walls of the one building. Today, ARGO makes up about 15 percent of our manufacturing capacity; 85 percent of what we do is work other than ARGO.”

In the gear division, the company builds transmissions and some mechanical components for ARGO, while the rest of the vehicle is made and assembled in another building. While some materials, like tires and engines, are purchased, ODG does everything else, including vacuum forming of the upper and lower vehicle bodies, welding the frame, powder coating and painting, final assembly, and shipping directly to dealers from the factory.

A different breed of machinist
Family-run for many years and under the long-time leadership of Ortwin’s son, Joerg Stieber, ODG is today under its second private equity ownership. With a dedicated team of about 200 staff members between its two facilities, ODG’s work demands a different breed of machinist. “Although it’s manufacturing gears, the type of machining is different,” says Brown. “Knowledge requirements for gear manufacturing is specialized, and the equipment itself is highly specialized as well.”

Like many other companies employing highly skilled professionals, Ontario Drive & Gear is facing challenges arising from retiring workers. To address this, the company is striving “to bring knowledge to the next generation,” says Brown. “It’s not something where you can sit in a boardroom and come out being a gear expert, but developed over a long period. It’s a learning exercise—hands-on, working on machines—and requires a lot of investment in people. Since few educational institutes teach gear manufacturing, a lot of what we do is develop good machinists into good gear manufacturers. There’s a lot of in-house training, and we rely on some of our machine manufacturers to provide some training.”

The recently renamed Motion and Power Manufacturers Alliance (MPMA)—formerly the American Gear Manufacturers Association (AGMA)—provides some training as well. “We have to grow our own talent in many respects,” says Brown.

Local business, worldwide reach
Through its global dealer network, the company ships to customers across North America, South America, and Europe. Customers choose to work with ODG for many reasons, including the company’s outstanding work, customer service, and reduced lead and travel time. “We are a very high-quality, high-skilled manufacturing facility, where the product we put out the door is the best quality,” Brown says. “If there is a problem, we are very responsive. If there is a design change requirement, we are very responsive. And if there is a demand change—whether they need to expedite or draw back—we are very responsive. We can be on site with most of our customers within 24 hours if need be.”

Sometime, customers come to ODG with finished drawings; other times, they arrive with just an idea. In either case, the professionals at ODG can help. “We manufacture to print or help develop a concept,” says Brown of the company and its in-house design capabilities. “It just depends on the scope and size of the project. We like to call it design, manufacture, assemble, and test. We are a custom gear shop, small to medium production volume. We are niche, and we do very high-precision work and lower volume than most gear manufacturers do.”

Decades of gear knowledge, a high level of service, in-house engineering and design, and the ability to pinpoint potential issues puts ODG at an advantage. Sometimes customers come to the company with an existing design that just doesn’t work. Other times, the design works, but not as efficiently or quietly as it could. In those cases, ODG’s talented engineers can take a client’s existing design, perform a gear analysis or assembly analysis, and suggest small changes to the gear geometry could take the decibels down to an acceptable level.

“It really depends on what the customer needs,” Brown explains. “Is it weight savings? Is it cost savings? Is it noise concerns? And that’s where we lean on our design expertise, our capabilities, our talented team members, over 60 years of manufacturing experience, and some of the latest equipment to develop a better product for an existing customer.”

As a production facility, ODG typically pursues production volumes, or projects that will have a future in production. This can range from as few as one or two pieces in the prototyping and pre-production phases up to about 100,000 pieces a year, depending on the product, market, and customer needs. “Much of what we do today is lot sizes from 50 pieces up to 3,500 pieces a lot, and annual volumes ranging up to 35,000 is fairly common,” says Brown.

Gears range in size from 6mm to 500mm in diameter. Although most are made from ferrous or non-ferrous alloys which are case-hardened, ODG will also handle plastics, bronze, and brass. “Gearing is about carrying torque and power, so really soft materials are rare in the gear industry—it would be niche applications for actuators. The vast majority, probably 98 percent of what we do, is ferrous metals that can be case-hardened,” explains Brendan Purcell, Business Development Manager.

The solutions customers are seeking
Ontario Drive & Gear considers itself a ‘Customer first’ business, Brown tells us. “We like to be a solutions provider, and realistically, if it’s outside of our scope of internal expertise, we can help you source whatever you need.”

The gear industry is complex, and investments can be significant for companies seeking to be a jack of all trades of gear manufacturing. In approaching its customers to determine their needs, the ODG team—who refer to themselves as “a bunch of gear geeks”—listens to their customers, their requirements, and any existing or potential design issues.

“We aren’t just a machine shop; we are much more than that,” says Purcell. “We have a design, manufacture, and assemble philosophy here. So we can help with everything from black box design, where the requirements of the mechanical system itself are unknown, all the way through to production, or anything in between. And for the size of our company, we are a large supply chain both domestically and internationally.”

Gearing up for the future
In business for 64 years, Ontario Drive & Gear continues to grow mindfully. Many times, the runway for projects is very long—sometimes six months to a year or longer from the quoting stage to production. And continuing to invest in equipment means the team looks not only for replacements, but for the next advanced technology. “Parts are getting more complex,” says Brown. “That’s the niche environment we live in, and we have to have specialty equipment to do it. It’s about investing in the people as well.”

Owing to the company’s location, ODG is able to draw on the next generation of talent from institutions such as the University of Waterloo and Conestoga College. At any one time, the company has several co-op students from the University in various departments including manufacturing, engineering, and quality engineering. “We are also going further, planting some seeds with the local school board here, to see if we can get some interest at the high school level as well,” says Purcell.

Although the company advertises through its website and LinkedIn page, ODG finds word-of-mouth is still its best promotion. “We attend trade shows, but we don’t necessarily show at them,” says Brown. “Having these connections—and with our sister company in the off-road recreational space—we often say, ‘Come to our factory, see what we do and how we manage our processes.’ We’re not just gear manufacturers; we are also gear users. We put these products into our own vehicles, and we know how they work, and we know the legacy of them in the field,” he says.

“Once we have someone interested in engaging with us on a project, we like to get them into a plant, introduce them to our processes and our people, and I think that’s what really draws people to continue to work with us. Our best marketing tools are our factory and our people.”

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