ManuFacts
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2011
A Newsletter for Manufacturers in Huron County
Andex Named Manufacturer of the Year
The Huron Manufacturing Association celebrated its 5th annual Huron Manufacturing Awards dinner and tradeshow on Friday November 12. The tradeshow sponsored by Kenpal Farm Products Inc. featured a wide variety of businesses and organizations from the region. The Brussels, Morris & Grey Community Centre was a beautiful setting for the event thanks to colourful centrepieces and arrangements by the Brussels Agricultural Society.
Hosted by the Huron Manufacturing Association and Gold Sponsor, United Communities Credit Union, approximately 300 people were in attendance representing Manufacturing, Municipalities and the local businesses. Guests were welcomed by Master of Ceremonies Wes MacVicar. Celebrating youth entrepreneurship the evening was kicked off by the introduction of the youth summer company participants by Alison Lobb, Manager of the Small Business Enterprise Centre with locations in Seaforth and Goderich. Following the recognition
of youth entrepreneurship was a dinner catered by the Brussels Agricultural Society. After the enjoyable meal guests listened to the speakers of the evening. Last year’s manufacturer of the year award winner Blaine Field, President of Goderich Aircraft wowed HMA members by inviting the HMA to hold next year’s awards at the new Goderich Aircraft hanger in Huron Park. Scott Dupuis of Deloitte’s Southwestern Ontario Regional office spoke about the recovery from the economic downturn from a financial perspective. Julian Bayley of Iceculture was the winner of the door prize draw for the $50 gift certificate donated by CapProducts.
The first award of the evening was the Junior Employee of the Year Award, for an individual under 30 who made a significant contribution to his manufacturing workplace, Jason McConnell of Ackromold. Carrying on with the same theme, the next award was presented to a company recognized for integration of youth into their workforce, Contd on page 2
Inquiries can be directed to the Huron Manufacturing Association, 57 Napier St., Goderich ON N7A 1W2. Phone 519-524-8394 ext 3/ Fax 519-524-5677
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United Plastic Components of Exeter.
Next the Tech Department of F.E. Madill was presented with the award for Outstanding Tech Department. HMA Co-ordinator, Monica Walker-Bolton stated “this award recognizes the contribution that our secondary schools make to training the next generation of workers and entrepreneurs”.
Next the Green Leader award was presented to MTS Environmental of Centralia for developing, Bio Desolve, an ecologically friendly way to treat wastewater. The Health & Safety award was picked up by E.D. Smith of Seaforth in recognition for their outstanding achievements including having over 2 years with no lost time incidents.
Credit Union Young and Free spokesperson Keith Reinhart. HMA Chair, Frank Palen thanked the United Communities Credit Union for their sponsorship of the scholarship and awards evening. The selection committee decided to choose two recipients in the Employer of the Year category. R&R Machine & Tool was recognized as a company with
The event moved along seamlessly, videos presented by EDCOM multimedia, highlighted each of the award winners including past HMA chairman, Chris Meier, who received the Chairman’s Award for Leadership. The Outstanding Associate Member Award was presented to the Huron Business Development Corporation.
Two awards were handed out in the Innovative Manufacturing category. Composotech Structures of Goderich and Andex Metal Products Inc. of Exeter were both recognized for their commitment to process improvement and productivity.
The Innovative Product award for 2010 was presented to Kenpal Farm Products Inc. for their DryStartTM product, a powdered agent, which can be added to animal enclosures in livestock barns to reduce moisture and improve animal health and hygiene. Kenpal Farm Products Inc. also picked up this year’s Exporting award.
Ensuring that those who give back to their communities were recognized, the award for Corporate Citizenship went to Andex Metal Products Inc. The United Communities Credit Union and the HMA sponsored scholarship awards of $1,000 given to apprentices working in Huron County. Three scholarships were given out to the 2010 winners. Chuck Bradley, Melanie Hunt and Brandon Hakkers were presented with a cheque by the United Communities
Young & Free Spokesperson Keith Reinhart gives some advice to scholarship winners Brandon Hakkers and Melanie Hunt.
less than 20 employees and Iceculture was chosen as a company with 20 or more employees. Both companies were identified for their efforts to implement appropriate Human Resources responses in light of the pressures created by the economic downturn.
HMA Co-ordinator, Monica Walker-Bolton, thanked all the sponsors for the evening including Silver Sponsors: Municipality of Huron East, Deloitte, Town of Goderich, Municipality of Bluewater, Ontario Youth Apprenticeship Program and Gold Sponsor: United Communities Credit Union. The evening concluded with the much anticipated announcement of the Huron County Manufacturer of the Year. Huron County Warden Bert Dykstra presented the Manufacturer of the Year trophy to Andex Metal Products Inc., a company that has weathered the economic downturn remarkably well and has invested heavily in the Exeter plant through its
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g Association parent company Agway Metals Inc. This investment has meant that new processing capacity could be added to the Exeter plant and jobs in our county could be saved. UNITED PLASTIC COMPONENTS NOW ISO 9001:2008 RE-CERTIFIED LAUNCHES NEW LOGO & WEBSITE
QUICK NEWS HMA Looking For Bus Tour Hosts
The HMA is looking for companies willing to offer a tour of their facilities for a group of 15 to 20 high school students. You will only be asked to do one tour per school year. Tours are 1 hour in length. Tours are now being scheduled for the 2011 school year. The HMA encourages manufacturers to offer tours as an effective means of encouraging young people to think about future careers in manufacturing. For more information, or to register, E-mail mwalker-bolton@huroncounty.ca.
Spirit of Success Awards Exeter, Ontario - “It has been an exciting summer and fall for us at UPC,” commented Taylor Lambert, General Manager of United Plastic Components (UPC) in Exeter, Ontario. “Not only have we recently updated our corporate logo, we have launched a new website and achieved re-certification to ISO 9001:2008.” UPC provides high quality profile extrusions to customer specifications from its modern 32,000 square foot facility. Capable of working with a wide range of materials, UPC also specializes in the design and development of the tooling and the equipment needed to produce complex shapes and profiles ranging from simple tubes and channels, to complex porthole profiles, slatwall extrusions and multiple co-extruded and tri-extruded profiles. UPC turned to Marketing Strategies & Solutions for both the logo update and website development. “I’ve known Brian Lowe for many years and after meeting again at a local hospital CT Scanner Fundraiser, I learned that he made the move from heading up marketing at Volvo to VP, Client Services at Marketing Strategies & Solutions. We were in the early stages of thinking about updating our corporate look and Brian brought fresh ideas to the table.”
“The key was to get the brand identity done first, tweaking the logo meant not deviating from the current logo but at the same time, providing an updated and fresh look to reflect UPC’s future growth,” said Lowe. “The website came next and it was clear the site had to be developed from the perspective of how customers from many different industries would approach UPC, with some not even realizing that an Contd on page 4
The Goderich & District Chamber of Commerce is set to hold its Annual Spirit of Success Awards Dinner Gala on Friday Jan 21, 2011 at 6pm Royal Canadian Legion. These awards celebrate a wide range of successful businesses from across Huron County, including manufacturing businesses. To reserve tickets call the Chamber Office at 519440-0176 or email info@goderichchamber.ca
New HMA Directory for 2011
The HMA is pleased to present the new Manufacturing Directory. The directory features a listing of all manufacturers in Huron County. Full Members of the HMA receive an enhanced listing. Associate Members are profiled in a special section of the directory. If you are aware of any new manufacturing businesses that are not currently listed in the directory, please E-mail an update to mwalkerbolton@huroncounty.ca. The HMA relies on our members to assist us in keeping the directory up to date. All updates will be made immediately on the HMA website. Additional copies of the directory are available by contacting mwalker-bolton@huroncounty.ca
HMA Membership Fees Due in January
HMA members are reminded that membership fees are due in January for the 2011 membership year. All Members and Associate Members with membership fees paid in full are entitled to the full range of membership benefits. For example, Full Members and Associate Members are encouraged to submit articles and news items that can be featured in the HMA newsletter and on the HMA website free of charge.
ufacturing Association. Visit www.huronmanufacturing.on.ca.
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extrusion is what they needed. With this in mind, the UPC site was structured to be what is commonly called a ‘destination website’. This meant that it had to contain a large amount of reference information,” continued Lowe. “With relevant information all in one place, both our current and prospective customers can easily access the information they need and in the process, keep UPC top-of-mind,” suggested Lambert. Visibility to web searches was handled though carefully selected key words and many back or referring links, basically extending the reach of UPC across the web. “Visitors can easily see what we do and the valueadded services we offer, from helping with the initial design to post extrusion processing, easing our customers’ downstream production costs,” commented Lambert. While the development of the website was underway, UPC was also busy updating their quality management system certification to the latest ISO 9001:2008 standards. “Our quality system first became ISO certified in 2001 and re-certifying to the latest standards helps in our positioning for the future,” stated Lambert.
HMA to Unveil New Look Website in 2011
The HMA is set to unveil a new look for its website in 2011. The website will feature local news and news from around the world of interest to manufacturers, updated through a number of RSS feeds. This will ensure that each time HMA members visit the website there will always be something new to find there. The HMA is building the website to be more user-friendly and engaging by adding more photos and videos. Members will continue to find the member profiles and information about HMA events. This information continues to be available, but will be presented in an attractive updated format. The website will continue to be available at www.huronmanufacturing.on.ca and will also be available at www.huronmanufacturing.ca. Full Members and Associate Members are encouraged to send news items about their businesses to mwalker-
January, 2011
bolton@huroncounty.ca so that this information can be added to the HMA website news section free of charge. The HMA website also features a Help Wanted page where all Huron manufacturers can post job ads free of charge.
Improve your triple-bottom line (for free!) Huron County was pleased to officially launch the County’s Sustainability Plan in August of 2010. The Sustainability Plan is a long range plan that helps to address and plan for environmental, social/cultural and economic issues in the County and its 9 individual municipalities.
Since the program launch, the Sustainable Huron Project Team has been working closely with the Steering Committee to identify a long-term vision and goals for the project, as well as the development of pilot projects that will illustrate what sustainability looks like on the ground. The selected projects include a local food project, a native species planting project with Huron’s youth, and a sustainable business project targeted at manufacturers in Huron County. The Sustainable Business Pilot Project will involve the creation of a best practice report and toolkit that will aid manufacturers in the pursuit of becoming more sustainable while improving their triple bottom line (environmental, community/social and economic performance). The Sustainable Business Toolkit will provide a framework, checklist guide and tips that will help companies increase efficiencies, reduce environmental impact, contribute to the local community while striving to reduce overall costs. The project will be seeking a select number of businesses to participate as part of the pilot testing, for more information or to get involved, please contact takeaction@huroncounty.ca.
Inquiries can be directed to the Huron Manufacturing Association, 57 Napier St., Goderich ON N7A 1W2. Phone 519-524-8394 ext 3/ Fax 519-524-5677