Systems approach to advanced manufacturing key to Canada's future prosperity

Advocates of Canadian advanced manufacturing (AM) are pushing for a systems approach to marshal the country's considerable assets in the face of increasing global competition. The call for collaboration stretches beyond Canada's considerable manufacturing base to include the burgeoning services industries, which now conduct more R&D than any other sector.

Canada is arguably late to the AM field. Only last year did the federal government add AM to its list of priorities for science, technology and innovation (STI) in its refresh of the 2007 S&T strategy (R$, December 10/14). Targeted investments followed and will likely continue under the Liberal government.

The decision to elevate AM's status was spearheaded by Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters (CME) which argued that increasing the use of disruptive and enabling technologies would give manufacturers the ability to competitively deliver high value-added products and processes in a global marketplace.

"There's a huge infrastructure around manufacturing … a bigger value chain … Maybe it's about time we take a look at the business models that underline this business of manufacturing," says Dr Jayson Myers, CME's president and CEO, at Montreal's Advanced Manufacturing Canada conference earlier this month. "As manufacturing companies in this new world of diffuse, global value chains, how can we continue to provide value to our customers and make money?"

Myers notes that many of the AM technologies are not new or even ground breaking. But "what is new is how they're coming together and how they're being applied and how they are transforming not only the products and processes but the business models that are underlying them."

It's a point emphasized by Dr Ian Potter, the National Research Council's VP engineering who oversees the agency's new Factory of the Future (FotF) program. Potter says the NRC has utilized foresight with a view to managing risk and technology more effectively within industry, academia and government.

"We believe Canada actually has a very strong tool kit. We've got all the tools we need but how do we bring them together — our skill base and expertise, the SMEs, the academic and industry base — to make sure they can be brought together effectively and efficiently in a way that ensures the right tools are in the right place at the right time, in the right sequence," says Potter. "We also have to make sure there is alignment between academia, industry and government … You might not pick the right race initially. You've got to experiment a little bit and be able to manage that risk and experimentation."

With the manufacturing sector struggling to maintain and grow amidst global competition, the NRC's FotF program was launched to provide AM expertise and infrastructure to companies across the value chain. Earlier this year it announced upgrading or building of new AM facilities in Montreal, Ottawa, London and Winnipeg — the latter the site of a new building set to begin construction in April/16 (R$, July 13/15).

"This is a systems opportunity. It's not just the government … We've all got to take leadership in this," says Potter. "We believe that the Factory of the Future we've put forward will be a catalyst for making this sort of thing a reality for Canadian manufacturing and manufacturers here. These factories, whatever size and shape, will rise above smart to become the brilliant and actually respond."

While it's common knowledge that the manufacturing sector has shed many companies and thousands of jobs, it remains a force on the Canadian economic landscape, providing a bedrock for the application of AM. Myers says that with the proper use of metrology (data and measurement), closer collaboration with colleges and universities and prudent investments guided by foresight, Canada can effectively compete and success in the global marketplace.

"Manufacturing is a $620-billion industry. There are a lot of Canadians who think that manufacturing is disappearing. Well there are 1.7 million Canadians who would probably disagree with that who are directly employed in manufacturing," says Myers. "If we've learned a few things from this recession, it's you do not create wealth in an economy by spinning other people's money around and around again. We create wealth by producing goods and services that customers want to buy ... It's going to be the manufacturing and exporting sector that we as Canadians depend on to sustain our economic recovery and keep those well-paying jobs here in Canada."

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