Canada’s job shops find new areas of opportunity

There are so many unique ways that companies look to capture gold and other materials. Arctech Circle Welding Services focuses on engineering and fabricating large, custom washplants for the Klondike placer mining industry. Arctech Circle Welding Services

Canada is rich in natural resources and diverse in the industries it supports. From coast to coast, job shops take on unique projects, adapt to meet market flux, and grow to support the customer base. These last few years have been challenging to say the least.

Here is a look at how three fabrication shops from across the country have risen to those challenges and come out stronger than ever before.

Serving the Northern Community

Canada’s northern territories are a gold mine, literally and figuratively for Arctech Circle Welding Services. This Dawson City, Yukon, shop specializes in engineering and fabricating custom washplants, feeders, conveyors, and cleanup equipment for the Klondike placer mining industry.

“Within the mining industry in this region, there are so many unique ways that companies look to capture gold and other materials,” said Joel Famularo, founder of Arctech Circle Welding Services. “Everyone has their own way of doing it, so no project is ever the same. This is especially true because we service a mining field where the shape and weight of the gold in one spot may be vastly different from another, so the projects and equipment needed to capture the gold changes to suit specific needs.”

The company focuses 80 per cent of its work in the mining industry, but Dawson City is also a tourist destination for adventurers and outdoorsmen. Because of this, the shop also provides fabrication services for RV and travel trailers. Outside of these two industries, Famularo noted that he also takes on some small government projects.

Famularo, an Australia native, found himself travelling across Canada in 2012. When he visited the northern regions, he noticed that there was great opportunity for work in the oil and gas sector, but that there was a hole in the market, particularly in Dawson City, which didn’t have many fabrication shops to support the work.

“About five years ago, I decided that I wanted to start my own shop,” he said. “It was slow to begin, but we really started to build relationships with the local community. And once we started to do that, customers were knocking down our door and we’ve been here and working ever since. In fact, the company itself has grown and doubled itself in revenue every year for the past five years.”

However, because the shop is so heavily tied to the mining industry, growth is tethered to the price of gold. When the price of gold is favourable, the company usually is in a prime position.

The small shop is approximately 40 by 25 ft., but the surrounding yard is large enough to support the massive projects that the company undertakes. And Famularo noted that the indoor facility is primarily used in the winter months when outdoor work becomes a challenge.

“We're currently working on one of the biggest projects we've ever done,” he said. “It's a 450-yard-per-hour washplant, which will be one of the biggest in this area. It’s been really interesting to work with such large pieces of steel. And we are now about two-thirds of the way finished and we can’t wait to see it through.”

The company focuses 80 per cent of its work in the mining industry building washplants, feeders, conveyors, and cleanup equipment. Dawson City also is a tourist destination for adventurers and outdoorsmen, so the shop provides some fabrication services for RV and travel trailers. Arctech Circle Welding Services

And while the projects keep coming in, Famularo is keeping his eye on some unique challenges. Since the shop is so remotely located, freight has increasingly become more expensive. Whether its welding wire, consumables, or raw steel, the cost is going up, which can make it hard for the company to be competitive.

“While we don’t have many competitors in Dawson City, we do have some in Whitehorse,” said Famularo. “We have to be smart when ordering steel to make sure we are loading the containers right to the brim, so that we have the stock available when people need it and don’t have to pay for a second load. That really helps.”

Also, with the local work pool being so small, finding employees could potentially be an issue moving forward as the company's three shop workers inch closer to retirement.

“We are pretty far away from everywhere up here, so there isn’t a naturally large workforce to pull from,” said Famularo. “We’ve seen a lot of retirements in the community in general, so we are cognizant of what that will mean for us going forward.”

Famularo is particularly proud of how the shop has grown over the years. Initially, it was just him and his wife, but year after year he’s been able to hire additional workers. Today, there are the five in total. He added that because of the small work pool to draw from, it’s great to know that the company has built up such a good reputation that people want to come work for it.

“We're providing our community – a small community – with a service that may not be here if we weren't here,” he said. “It's a good little town, and it's always looked after us. And we'll help look after it.”

Supporting Its Workforce and Long-term Customers

Nu Dimensions Fabricating and Manufacturing has found opportunities in challenging times. The Surrey, B.C. fabricator spent the last few years focusing on how to best transform its business to make it more efficient.

CFW spoke with Nu Dimensions about its 5-axis waterjet capabilities. Check it out here!

“A lot of that commitment grew during the pandemic,” said Sean Taylor, operations manager, Nu Dimensions Ltd. “We really wanted to stand beside our customers and our employees and do whatever it took to get through it together, whether it was reducing our margins, expediting turnarounds, or simply just assisting customers where we could. We feel like that demonstrated our loyalty with our core customers.”

The shop’s goal was to take a long-term approach rather than focusing on the short-term difficulties. Taylor credits this approach with the company’s ability to retain employees, expand capacity, and its overall success.

“Our major success coming out of the pandemic was that we fully retained every employee,” said Taylor. “We’ve been promoting within our team and the culture has never been better. We recognized that during the pandemic, everyone had varying comfort levels, so we did our best to meet all our employees’ needs. We are only as good as our staff and how our staff treats our customers, and those relationships have never been better.”

The company added a CRM system, diversified services, expanded capacity with new waterjet equipment, and really strengthened its relationships with long-term customers. Nu Dimensions

And because of this, the shop has seen significant growth over the last few years, especially as it tried to diversify to meet the growing needs of its customers. Last year, Nu Dimensions invested in a finishing machine that is primarily used to finish aluminum. Some of its stainless steel projects also need to be finished to a certain sand or grit, so this machine is able to do that as well.

“This machine has opened up a few doors for us as it has enabled us to do more full-service work,” said Taylor. “We no longer need to send these parts out for surface finishing. It has also pushed us to expand our waterjet capacity with a new Flow machine that will come online hopefully in the next six months. The investment in our sales team and manufacturing processes has really grown our capacity.”

While the shop has had great success in the past few years, operational costs have been heavy. Taylor noted that he has seen operational cost increases of 12 per cent year over year. Rather than push these costs off to its customers, the shop looked to efficiency gains to mitigate these increases.

“Our major goals throughout the next year are to implement systems and processes to streamline production output,” said Taylor. “With these operating increases, we needed to find ways to become better, more efficient, and turn out more work. We want to bring in more talent, provide a continuous learning environment, and add new equipment.”

The pandemic forced the fabricator to develop internal processes that allowed it to be nimble and pivot in different directions.

“We basically pushed five years of growth into one year,” said Taylor. “It’s been difficult but fun. I don’t know if we would have done this if the pandemic hadn’t forced the issue. We’ve created so many efficiency gains that under normal circumstances would have taken us years to get to. Sitting here today, Nu Dimensions is a completely different company than it was pre-pandemic. We’ve added a CRM system, diversified our services, expanded our capacity with new waterjet equipment, and really strengthened our relationships with long-term customers. And today, we are continuing that growth. It’s something we are very proud of.”

Getting Out Into the Field

MacGregors Industrial Group has spent the last five decades building out its operations in New Glasgow, N.S. Most recently, the manufacturer has focused its efforts on growing and diversifying its field work.

“We have always had a small field presence to support our fabricating and machining divisions,” said Nick MacGregor, vice-president, sales and business development, MacGregors Industrial Group. “We decided to turn things on their heads and our field operations can stand alone while also drive business into our shops. We are really capitalizing on these new opportunities, and it’s been a big change for us.”

With this shift, the company has focused on a mix of structural steel erecting and field welding work along with industrial mechanical work like conveyor and mine site maintenance, which all ends up related to the fabrication and machining divisions.

Our associate editor Lindsay Luminoso visited MacGregors Industrial Group back in 2016. Read this shop profile and see how the shop has grown since then.

Projects are located throughout the Atlantic region and in other areas like the Canadian arctic.

The shop’s major goals throughout the next year are to implement systems and processes to streamline production output. Nu Dimensions

“In 2020, we decided to focus on improvements and efficiencies,” said MacGregor. “We added an 8,500-sq.-ft. expansion to our fabrication facilities and brought some processes in-house, like plate processing with a new plasma table. This new addition meant a reconfiguring of the material storage area of the facilities to make things more efficient.”

As these changes took place, the company narrowed its focus to supporting the industrial sector and backed away from the commercial sector, which has paid off with some exciting opportunities.

One area that it recently entered into is the bridge rehabilitation sector. The company obtained CWB Division 1 certification for welding and it is working on its CISC Bridge Fabrication Quality Certification. It currently just wrapped up its first successful bridge rehabilitation project, and with growing opportunities in this area, MacGregor looks forward to more.

However, he is mindful of other market trends, particularly the shift to the next generation of industry.

“We see a shift," he said. "Although we're proud to support conventional industries like mining and forestry, the future is without a doubt in the renewable fuels, renewable energy, and oceans technology industries. Ten years ago, we wouldn’t have been talking about these sectors, but in order to stay ahead we need to talk about them now.”

MacGregor is doing this by getting involved with various industry associations, understanding unique client needs and the services required to compete in these sectors, and making sure that equipment is in place and the trade labour is trained for it.

Like everyone else, the company is experiencing labour shortages and a mismatch of skills. Historically, the company has struggled to find machinists, however, today it is having difficulty finding skilled fabricators. To address this, the company is hiring people and training and upskilling them in-house. It is also looking to bring in newcomers to Canada.

“Currently, we have 175 employees, and we are looking for more,” said MacGregor. “We’ve had to develop unconventional strategies, and while they are new and we are early in the process, we think it's an essential part of the mix going forward.”

Some companies can outgrow their processes and procedures as expansion takes place, so MacGregor is working to make sure this doesn’t happen. His focus is on ensuring every aspect of the business is set up as efficiently and effectively as possible to deliver the best value to customers.

“We think this will naturally drive growth,” he said. “We are investing in more equipment to make us more competitive and respond quickly to work. We’ve invested heavily in CNC machining equipment to make this division more effective. Beyond that, we have been focused on building up our fleet of trucks and equipment to service field projects. We are always looking for unique projects and support a wide range of services. With all this, we are really finding our sweet spot.”

MacGregors spent the last few years focusing on improvements and efficiencies, including an 8,500-sq.-ft. expansion to its fabrication facilities and new equipment. MacGregors Industrial Group

Associate Editor Lindsay Luminoso can be reached at lluminoso@canadianfabweld.com.

Arctech Circle Welding Services, arctechcircle.com

MacGregors Industrial Group, www.macgregors.ca

Nu Dimensions Fabricating and Manufacturing, nudimensions.ca

The company has focused on a mix of structural steel erecting and field welding work along with industrial mechanical work like conveyor and mine site maintenance. MacGregors Industrial Group