Industry Links

Associations and Magazines

We belong to the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters Association (CME).  As part of the CME we are active in the Manufacturers Executive Committee (MEC) where CEO's and top level executives of manufacturers meet monthly to help each other compete and improve. The MEC is always looking for new members who are interested in growing and improving their businesses through Lean Manufacturing, Industry tours and networking relationships.

We have been a member of The Executive Committee (TEC) since 2003. TEC is a leadership organization for the personal and professional development of Chief Executives.

Some of our employees belong to APICs which is the Association for Operations Management. We belong to both the Richmond and Fraser Valley branches.

The Professional Metalforming Association (PMA) is a great source of sheet metal information and are associated with the Fabtech International and AWS Welding shows that are held in Chicago and other major American cities. http://www.metalforming.com 

www.thefabricator.com is a great website for sheet metal fabrication. It has buyer's guides for equipment and is a good jumping off point for information.
 
Modern Machine Shop is a great on line and hard copy information source for machining. http://www.mmsonline.com

Originally the American Society For Testing and Materials (ASTM) is now known as ASTM International and is now one of the largest voluntary standards development organizations in the world. http://www.astm.org
 
ASM International is a Materials Information Society http://www.asm-intl.org

Sheet Metal Information including gauge information can be found at WikiPedia.
Basic Machining information can be found on Wikipedia.

Suppliers

Some customers need Industrial Design help beyond what we can provide and many go to FORM3. Alex Feldman, alexf@form3.com is a Partner in this company.

For Metal Finishing Information you can go to the websites of:

• Hudson Plating who we use for zinc plating, cadmium plating, tin plating, silver plating, hard chrome plating, Alodining (chromating on aluminum), and hydrogen embrittlement relief.
• Altech Anodizing who does standard sulphuric acid anodizing, Engineered Hard Coat anodizing, Commercial Hard Coloured anodizing, architectural bronze anodizing, chromating, Electroless nickel plating, hardchrome plating and hot dip black oxide on steel and stainless steel. They also do laser marking and pad printing.
• Spectral Finishing Inc for anodizing.
• Hudson Powder Coating for powder coating.
• Linex Industries Ltd. for powder coating.
• Valley Powdercoat Ltd. for powder coating and chromate conversion coating.
• Surf-Tech Industries Ltd. for powder coating, anodizing and PTFE coating.

You can get infomation on fasterners here:
http://www.interfast.ca   and    http://www.pennfast.com
To get information on welding gases: http://www.praxair.com
The following supply sheet metal and extrusion:
http://www.samuel.com
http://www.precisionsteel.com
http://www.wilkinsonsteel.com
http://www.indalex.com

Equipment Manufacturers

Machine Shop

Haas makes milling machines and lathes in California: http://www.haascnc.com
Okuma is a Japanese company that makes lathes and milling machines: http://www.okuma.com
Iemca makes bar feeders for lathes. http://www.iemca.com
This is the site for Bridgeport milling machines, the industry standard for knee mills: http://www.bpt.com 

Sheet Metal Shop

Trumpf manufactures lasers and punch presses: http://www.us.trumpf.com
Amada makes sheet metal fabrication equipment: http://www.amada.com
Panasonic makes welding robots: http://www.panasonicfa.com
This is the company that packages robotic welding cells: http://www.robotics.ca
This company manufactures in-line finishers: http://www.steelmaster.info 
Mitsubishi manufactures lasers and automation systems http://www.mitsubishi-laser.com/

Waterjet Cutting Shop

Omax makes waterjet machining centres: http://www.omax.com

Laser Cutting Shop

Laser cutting is efficient when cutting curves in thin gauge sheet metal. Punching is still faster if there are many holes and water jet machining is more efficient when material thickness is over .5 inches. We recently installed a fully automated Mitsubishi 4,000 watt laser processing system designed to run 24 hours a day, 7 days a week unattended.