Attracting talent with new tech at Bourgneuf

Bourgneuf’s most recent equipment purchase was a BLM Group E-Turn52 tube bender. This electric bender handles tube diameters of 50.8 mm and thicknesses up to 2 mm. Y- and Z-axis accuracy is +- 0.05 degrees, and X-axis accuracy is +- 0.05 mm.

Investing in newer technology can create a variety of benefits for a company, chief of which is increased productivity. Another significant benefit, however, is making it possible to attract new employees, both young and old. Industrie Bourgneuf considers this of great importance for its future growth, which makes investments like its new tube bender a critical step in its development.

Anniversary Year

In 2022 Saint-Honoré-de-Shenley, Qué.-based Industrie Bourgneuf celebrates its 30th anniversary. The original owners sold it to the Filion family in 2008.

“My father was working in the metal fabrication industry in Quebec City and thought he could divide his time between both businesses, but he soon decided that that wouldn’t be practical,” said Marie-Claire Filion, owner of Industrie Bourgneuf. “In 2008 I was working in the fashion industry but wasn’t enjoying my job. When I told my father I was thinking of starting out on a new project, he said, ‘Why don’t you run Bourgneuf for me?’ Initially I thought there was no way that I would find a place in this industry, but I told him I would give it a year. I quickly became fascinated by the work and all the beautiful products we were able to fabricate in the shop. After a year I started to buy shares in the company.”

In 2019 the younger Filion officially completed her purchase of the business.

Since she joined, the shop has grown from a 20-person business to an employer of 40. The company’s facility has also expanded twice.

Dedication to Detail

Bourgneuf focuses its energies on three industries: furniture, including commercial office furniture and outdoor municipal installations; medical; and parts for recreational vehicles. Of course, the company also takes on other work that fits similar structural parameters of these specialties.

“What defines us is that we work in light steel and aluminum,” said Filion. “We work in material that is ¼ in. thick or less, and we pride ourselves on our precision. I like to think of some of the welds we do as ‘stitching’ metal because the end result has to be clean and precise.”

Filion also takes great pride in her approach to listening to customers’ needs.

“I attend a lot of tradeshows for different industries to better understand the pain points for our clients,” she said. “And when we start working with customers and prototype products for them, I make sure we have an open-door policy with those customers. I invite them into the shop to discuss their product with our team, and we welcome them back whenever they wish to discuss a product because we want them to understand that we are an extension of their business. This has served us well. When we get a customer, we keep them. And the mix of industries serves us by ensuring that as business fluctuates in one, the work for others keeps us busy.”

Tech Draw

Having an open-door policy with customers is an incentive for technology investments; using quality advanced machinery is one way to demonstrate dedication to quality output. Filion has been working to successfully express this with recent investments in tube laser and tube bending equipment. But the new equipment also is about ensuring that the shop retains a capable staff as well as increasing production.

The new tube bender can make both left and right turns, simplifying the fabrication of certain parts and in some cases removing the need for certain welds.

“Having modern equipment in your shop helps in hiring in two ways,” she said. “First, it attracts people from the younger generation who are used to working on tablets and cellphones. Those interfaces are second nature to people who have grown up with the technology. But second, it also helps in the hiring of less experienced employees of any age. For instance, I have one employee in her 50s who used to work in a jeans factory that closed down. She had never worked with metals before. I bought an advanced laser tube cutting machine that looks complicated, but in our purchase we included all the bells and whistles that make it simple to operate. She is operating that machine every day because she isn’t required to adjust any settings; she knows what programs she has to use and she does so.”

New Tube Capabilities

Bourgneuf’s most recent equipment purchase was a BLM Group E-Turn52 tube bender. This electric bender handles tube diameters of 50.8 mm and thicknesses up to 2 mm. Y- and Z-axis accuracy is +- 0.05 degrees, and X-axis accuracy is +- 0.05 mm. Most important, it can make both right and left turns.

“The new machine is a definite upgrade from our old machine,” said Filion. “It allows us to have more precision and speeds up our processes. The ability to bend both left and right makes it possible to make parts we couldn’t before, and parts we made previously can be made more efficiently. For instance, when we manufacture office chairs, in some cases we would have had to bend two parts for a frame and then weld them together and polish them to create the finish necessary. With the new machine, the frame could be made from one piece of tube.”

The programming for the machine is done offline in the office by tech engineers – something Filion is gradually making a standard with any new machine she invests in. Currently all laser cutting and tube bending programming is managed in the office.

“The challenge with fabricating in the past was that all of the knowledge on the floor was in the head and hands of the operator,” said Filion. “While those individuals are valuable to our success, having programming that can simplify production can help maintain that knowledge.

“But just as importantly, it saves time and money,” she continued. “With the software on our tube bender, we can prototype and validate bends through programming rather than through trial and error on physical parts on the machine. Issues of springback can be managed without losing material in production.”

During Filion’s time at Bourgneuf, the company has developed the capability to do more and more work in-house. For the past four years it has handled everything from laser cutting to powder coating.

“In the past 14 years we have doubled the number of employees and more than doubled our size in terms of sales,” said Filion. “When I started, we didn’t have a website, we didn’t have brochures. We were a small shop living like a small shop. In a way, investing in a BLM Group machine was one of the moments when I realized how much we had grown. At the beginning, I would never have thought it possible to invest in that kind of premium machine, but we have grown enough to do so.”

And the journey is not over. Filion hopes to bring more automation to the Bourgneuf shop soon. “We have the vision, and we intend to keep growing.”

Editor Robert Colman can be reached at rcolman@canadianfabweld.com.

The programming for the machine is done offline in the office by tech engineers – something Filion is gradually making a standard with any new machine she invests in.

Industrie Bourgneuf, bourgneuf.com

BLM GROUP, www.blmgroup.com

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