“We survived and now I believe us to be a very strong player in the field of east coast modular manufacturing,” Bingaman says. Thirteen years after overcoming the housing crisis, the Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania-based company is in the midst of overcoming the new challenge that COVID-19 has brought to the table. And the team is drawing on the same time-tested strategies to make it through on top once again.

Being a family company has given Icon Legacy an edge from the very start. Bingaman believes that personal touch is invaluable. “Whether you’re a supplier, a vendor, a customer [independent professional builder]… you have the ability to interact with key decision-makers,” he says. “The decision-making ability is not three states away or located an hour away down the river in the capital city. We are more adaptable to changing situations. You don’t have a board of investors you have to answer to. You don’t have that ownership being located offsite.”

This hands-on approach allows for excellent customer service – a factor that has always given Icon Legacy an advantage. “We are attentive to our customer needs and you don’t have to go through five departments to get to where you need,” Bingaman says. The management team may even travel, on a case by case basis, to an independent builder’s jobsite to inspect the modules with the builder. “If Icon’s customer, the independent builder, requests management to come walk through the modules of a house, we’re not putting it off; we’re going to address this right away with the builder,” he explains. And the team continues to maintain close contact with the builder throughout the service process. This way everyone can work together to double check and trouble shoot, so every ‘i’ is dotted and every ‘t’ crossed by the end of the process.

Icon Legacy’s product range of modules and building components is another critical asset. “We do everything from log exterior and knotty pine interior on modular construction all the way to very contemporary, very ultra-modern,” by providing the specific upgrade materials and modules designed to incorporate them in the builder’s finished job, says Bingaman. Icon works with the independent builder to provide whatever building materials and modular components they are looking to have added to their order. “And we do everything in between.”

The size of the building can be just as varied. The company’s modular homes range from four-story multifamily structures to 336 square foot “tiny homes.” “We are willing to look and see what we can do for [every independent builder buying building materials from us],” Bingaman says.

In addition, the company offers a variety of upgrades and finishings. For example, a customer might want an imported window brand from Europe or a specialty roof design, “something we can’t immediately source right here in the Susquehanna Valley.” The company will find a way to get the materials and deliver the desired custom product.

Even the company’s standard modular home boasts a higher than standard quality when it comes to fixtures, finishings, and other details. “We have a level of expectation for the dollar that we spend,” Bingaman says. “Icon is willing to provide you more for that dollar that you’re spending because, at the end of the day, we’re [many times] less than a percentage point apart in pricing many times from our competitors.” Offering value-added features at a standard price gives the company a competitive edge in a crowded market.

Some of these details may seem minor, but they add up to make a sizable difference in the long run. For example, the company uses a tinted primer instead of the standard. “It’s not a finished wall paint, but it’s not modular white,” Bingaman explains. The beige or gray paint means “you’re getting something out there that has a finished look.” Extra touches also include the use of quality materials, such as Merillat cabinets; Certainteed exterior finish products; energy-efficient windows by Seven D, Andersen, Marvin and Ply Gem; Shaw and Tarkett flooring products; and the list goes on. Icon’s standard designs include oversized – taller and deeper – corner cabinets in the kitchen with crown and under-cabinet trim, a Moen gooseneck faucet in the kitchen, and handheld body sprayers in the master bath. Icon homes feature crown molding throughout the modules, and instead of MDF molding in the base and casing, the team uses finger joint pine – a better product that “resists damage better,” Bingaman says. The company can also provide custom wiring and blocking for wall hung TVs, wiring to aid in the builder’s installation of whole house entertainment or security systems, and receptacles with USB charging ports. Also, homes can be designed with gas fireplaces incorporating stone surrounds, bathrooms with tiled showers and tile surrounds at whirlpools or garden tubs – all to make life a little more comfortable and convenient.

Exterior doors are another area that illustrates the Icon difference. “For years within the industry it was a wooden jam and a steel door,” Bingaman says. “From day one Icon offered an insulated fiberglass door and the full composite jams,” materials that outlast what had always been the industry standard. “Twelve to fifteen years from now, when that wooden jam is rotted out on the side of the house where the weather always hits, that’s when these things are truly appreciated. That door costs maybe ten percent more than the steel and the wood jam, but it’s saving those homeowners headaches and heartaches fifteen years down the road.”

The company’s modular homes boast superior windows as well. “We’ve also done a higher performance window from the get go,” Bingaman shares. “Pretty much everybody now has to include windows of higher performance and more insulation,” but Icon Legacy was meeting that standard long before it was required. “We try to include a lot of those value-added features; we’re giving you a little bit more right from the start.”

Icon Legacy’s hands-on management, customer service, product range, and value-added features have helped the company survive in tough times and thrive in the good years, and are now seeing the business though another storm. The COVID-19 pandemic has created unique challenges, but fortunately the team has been able to overcome them.

The suddenness with which the pandemic hit proved particularly difficult. “This was unexpected,” Bingaman says. “You didn’t see it coming. All of a sudden the governor of Pennsylvania announced Thursday afternoon at 4:30 effective tomorrow morning all businesses are closed until further notice.” The announcement left the team reeling. “This had been a busy winter, a busy year up to this point. And suddenly we go from that to ‘bang, you’re closed.’ We had to cancel shipments. We had to cancel delivery of building material.” And sensitive equipment had to be maintained despite the shutdown, which created further complications. “We have adhesive sprayers and insulation machines here that have to be turned on 24 hours a day,” Bingaman explains. “The temperature has to be regulated. We can’t just lock the doors and turn the thermometer down to 42 degrees and go home and wait for it to get better; you’ve got to make arrangements,” and schedule staff to take care of these issues.

Making these arrangements turned out to be quite complicated. “We were getting input from two different directions as to what we could do here,” Bingaman says of confusing, sometimes contradictory messages from the authorities. “We had to figure out what was going on.” To try and get answers, the team took “tons of phone calls from our customers, vendors, suppliers, the bank – nobody knew what was going on and how it was going to affect us.” This lack of clarity throughout this process stands out to Bingaman as a major issue during the shutdown.

And then there was the paperwork and red tape. “We had to seek whatever permission we could get to have people coming in and working in the facilities,” Bingaman recalls. “We needed maintenance people here to ensure that we didn’t sustain a financial loss if the sprayers were damaged.”

Manufacturing could not continue without an onsite workforce, but many employees were able to do their jobs from home. The sales team, processing department, engineering and drafting teams, and human resources department were all able to keep the ship sailing during the shutdown. “So we just had a skeleton crew here to keep the heat on, keep the lights on, and keep the doors open to a point,” Bingaman says.

After filing – and refilling – applications for a state waiver to reopen, the company was able to slowly start getting back to business following the peak and decline in infections in April. The team instituted a number of necessary precautions to help ensure the safety of employees, including face coverings, hand washing stations, and disinfecting procedures.

Now that manufacturing is up and running again, business is booming. “In spite of the coronavirus, in spite of these limitations that we all face because of the pandemic, in spite of all that, new home construction is busier than ever,” Bingaman says. “There’s a lot of development going on.” Icon’s customers, the independent builders, are particularly interested in bigger buildings. “A lot of developers are looking to put in larger, multifamily structures, so we’re hearing a lot more from our customer base and even new customers.”

Of course, the team is eager to meet this increased demand. “We’re here to provide materials and service to our customers,” Bingaman says. “We want to continue to provide quality materials and continue to provide Icon’s customers with world-class service, so they can do their job and build new homes or new light commercial structures – whatever they’re in the process of building.”

The next step forward is to further improve Icon Legacy’s facility. “We’re making that investment, confident of the future and in what we have here and what we provide our customers.”

The post A Formula for Success<p class="company">Icon Legacy Custom Modular Homes</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

“A lot has been going on at our company,” says Brunnquell, including the recent acquisition of Peckish, a company that produces premium hard-cooked eggs found in the grab-and-go aisle of groceries and convenience stores. Described as a “reimagining” of the hard-cooked egg, Peckish adapted the way eggs are cooked so the yolk is creamier, and offers two eggs in a packet with a set of five different flavors or spices for dipping.

“That’s the innovation part of Egg Innovations,” says Brunnquell of the product set to unroll across the nation in upcoming months. “We want to be anything but a commodity, and Peckish is more of an idea place.”

Although there are other free-range companies in the business, Egg Innovations is the “grandfather,” with about 30 years of experience, although still not a household name. Brunnquell says it’s time to tell their story a little bit better, including the reason behind the company’s core premise.

“In the free-range space, we’re advocates that every animal on this Earth is hardwired to certain behaviors,” he says. “In the case of the chicken, it’s hardwired to perch, to scratch, to socialize. When you let it do these things, good things happen.”

Brunnquell allows those good things to happen with his 65 layer barns housing 20,000 birds each in Indiana, Kentucky and Wisconsin, where the birds have access to the outdoors every day. The unique barns feature dedicated perch areas, scratch areas and pasture areas where the animals are free to be themselves and thrive in the process.

“What it really shows is when you treat the animals well and you really are all in on welfare, you unlock their genetic potential,” he says. “These animals aren’t stressed or pushed to these levels. They were just showing us when you treat them right, this is what they can do.”

Egg Innovations truly enjoys its leadership role in this space, including being at the front end of launching a regenerative egg via regenerative agriculture, a practice that looks to fight climate change and improve the planet’s ecosystem.

“We were always passionate about healthy pastures for our hens to get outside and enjoy sunshine and shade, and crawl and explore underneath things and on top of things and perch,” explains Brunnquell. “When we really began looking at regenerative agriculture, it occurred to us we have over 1,200 acres of pasture under our management to work with.”

The company is now adapting its pastures to regenerative environments with carbon sequestration to promote healthy, improved soil that can, in a small way, be part of a solution to the climate change issue.

This past year, the onset of the pandemic added its own unique challenges to the already challenging nature of farming. All companies in some manner changed their practices for COVID-19, says Brunnquell, whether it was limiting the number of workers, using masks, or practicing social distancing. Egg Innovations, determined to maintain close relationships, has managed to safely maintain connections with the farmer community that produces its eggs. Although the pandemic has raised safety concerns for the farmers and those relationships, Brunnquell has ensured his farmers were healthy, their eggs had homes, that they continued to receive checks, and they could help meet demand for the market in spring when there was hoarding.

“I would say the thing we’re proudest of this year is just innumerable stories of individual interactions between our employees and staff and the family farmers that we work with,” he says. “The more this crazy world gets automated, the more we’re in the people business. There’s just nothing that replaces a handshake, or in today’s world, a Zoom call. There’s always a real person at the other end, and it’s easy to lose sight of that. This past year was a very trying time on relationships.”

In that way, one of Egg Innovations’ biggest successes was staying focused on finding commonalities and reinforcing relationships for the long term. Video technology is useful and necessary right now, but Brunnquell says it was also easy to get out and talk with farmers and have a physical presence while maintaining a safe social distance. Although video has indeed allowed the company to increase points of contact — you can talk to someone in Philadelphia at 10am, and then someone on the west coast at 11 — nothing replaces face-to-face. “The human side is where the real story is,” he says.

Going into 2021, a significant portfolio expansion includes moving into a full line of institutional products with frozen eggs, liquid eggs, and powdered eggs. “We really want to give people who are passionate about animal welfare an opportunity,” says Brunnquell. “The more choices on how to exercise that decision, the better. We’re very proud of the corner that we’re taking over.”

There is always resistance to change in an industry, however, and the biggest one involves money. Brunnquell says he understands that the largest players in the United States are going to be slow to move to what Egg Innovations does, reluctant to undertake a massive investment in cages, then moving to cage-free, and possibly all the way to free range and pasture.

“We also recognize that in this environment we have 10 percent unemployment, we have people who need to buy 89 cent eggs,” he says. “However, we also recognize that more and more consumers are a lot more demanding and have expectations about issues beyond just food.”

Brunnquell’s experience growing up involved finding the cheapest food for a family’s tight budget. Today, people are much more aware of what’s happening on the planet and how animals are being taken care of, which greatly influences personal and family food purchasing habits.

“This generation is smart enough to know that you can take care of animals and still produce them in an economic manner. Hopefully we’re part of an example of how to do that, how to pay a living wage to our farmers, how to do it efficiently by vertical integration and still get it out to the consumer at an affordable price.”

Within the industry, Brunnquell sees owners older than himself who are in the stages of turning over the business to children in their forties. While the patriarch might claim cage-free is a “little bit silly,” and perhaps doesn’t understand why people would pay for it, sons and daughters who are stepping into those leadership roles say they’re looking forward to the day when they get to make those decisions – and they will be making changes.

“Cage-free is going to take the dominant part of the conversation, but it’s about the rising tide raising all boats,” says Brunnquell. “There’s going to be a set of consumers who say going cage-free is nice for those birds, but they’re still confined and they’re still not going outside. I want something better. So, free range and pasture are expanding as well.”

Free range and pasture offer numerous benefits for the birds, including no severe feather-pecking, low mortality rates, and birds outperforming caged flocks by two percent on average.

Brunnquell understands consumers have different expectations than they did 20 years ago, and are willing to pay a reasonable amount more as long as it’s legitimate. The problem, he says, centers around a vast misunderstanding of the different terminology used.

“We need to continue to educate consumers. In our research, 83 percent of consumers who hear cage-free think free range. They hear cage-free, but they think those birds go outside. As that education process continues, we want to be there again with the diversity of products that we can [use to] bring the cost down and bring the variety up so that it’s a lot easier for people to integrate animal welfare into their normal purchasing habits.”

This year, Brunnquell is also looking forward to the company’s rebranding, as it traditionally flew under the radar with about 85 percent of its sales under private labels. “While we had a brand, we weren’t putting a focus on it and really telling our story.” In November of last year, the company initiated a relaunch of the Blue Sky Brand and is beginning to tell that story again of animal welfare and what farmers can do with the hens and the eggs.

“We’re very uniquely positioned as the only company in the nation that has the business chops but also the scientific and academic background,” Brunnquell says. “We really do understand why a hen doesn’t go out in the middle of the day, but goes out late in the afternoon, and why they exercise a variety of behaviors. We want to share that story with consumers that there’s a brand out there that’s going to take away a lot of the noise and try to really make it clean.”

The post Good Eggs: Treating Chickens With Kindness<p class="company">Egg Innovations</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

While consolidating its position as a mining equipment leader, the company is also looking at other markets that might welcome its solutions. Another potential venture might involve using its products to warn workers when they violate COVID-related social distancing protocols.

“The biggest challenge facing Jannatec at the moment is attempting to provide the technological capabilities that people are used to above ground in an underground environment. It may seem simple enough – something works on the surface; it should work underground, right? In fact, the complexities of an underground environment are far greater than many people realize,” states Project Manager Mark Burnett.

Throughout history, mining has been a dangerous business with a constant risk of cave-ins and accidents. In underground work environments, proper illumination, reliable communication, and the ability to detect danger and monitor workers’ movements are vital. Jannatec’s solutions address all these areas to reduce the risks associated with mining.

The company, founded in 1983, is based in Sudbury, Ontario, an epicentre of mining activity in Canada. Sudbury is “where we began, and this is where our main client base is located, due to the high degree of mining in the immediate and surrounding area,” Burnett says.

From the start, the focus was “to provide quality products and services to the mining industry,” he continues.

Jannatec’s earliest breakthrough product was called the Johnny Light – the first radio cap lamp built for the mining industry. Over the years, there have been multiple improvements and iterations of this product line including the G1 Johnny Light, G2, and now the G3 Johnny Light, while incorporating more devices such as proximity detection and tracking.

The company followed this light with a proximity detection solution called JAWS1 (Jannatec Advanced Warning System) in 2010. In a JAWS application, radiofrequency transceivers are attached to underground workers, vehicles, and fixed hazards to detect the presence of other workers and vehicles. The system issues warnings to help prevent collisions and potential injuries by enhancing situational awareness of workers and vehicle operators.

In 2016, the firm introduced the SmartView platform. The latest version of SmartView is packed with sensors, cameras and connectivity options for circle check entry, training based access control, vehicle tracking, proximity detection, engine diagnostics, video recording, data logging and other applications. The system features a ruggedized android tablet resembling display consoles found in most modern vehicles. The platform provides “multiple services in one device,” notes Burnett. “The modular approach allows our clients the flexibility to address immediate needs and add functionality as required based on future needs.”

SmartView was followed by the SmartHelmet in 2019. The SmartHelmet features high-visibility LEDs arrayed in a 360-degree pattern on the helmet brim, proximity detection, RFID tagging, communications, online connectivity, and a camera capable of taking video or single photographs that can be transferred to a computer or through an existing network.

“Currently, our top-selling product is our JAWS proximity detection system, which includes our SmartView hardware platform and our personnel proximity detection tag – which can be embedded in our SmartHelmet, our cordless cap lamp, or our corded and radio cap lamps,” states Burnett.

“Our SmartHelmet and our G3T Radio Cap Lamp are the only products of their kind globally,” he affirms. “Our SmartTalk device is one of only a handful of devices that can communicate via LMR (land mobile radio), WiFi, and LTE, lending itself to mines that currently use standard radios but wish to move forward in the future to more smart devices and connected workers.”

LTE technology can be used to provide very high-speed online connectivity in underground work settings. As Burnett points out, establishing a reliable underground communications system is not easy. “There are very few people who have a solid grasp and understanding of the full complexities in keeping communications working for what is essentially a city underground.”

While Jannatec primarily sells its own products, the company is also an authorized Motorola reseller as well as an OEM integrator of Motorola products. Jannatec has also now partnered with SENA Industrial to incorporate Bluetooth mesh technology into its SmartHelmet while also offering the SENA Industrial line of products.

Jannatec’s R & D and manufacturing activities are handled in-house. “Some products we manufacture from the bottom-up, and others we leverage and modify [using] existing products, but all of this work takes place at our Sudbury, Ontario location. We strongly believe in Canadian-built products, as they have proven to have the durability and quality required worldwide,” Burnett notes.

The company’s client base extends well outside of the Sudbury area; it has representation in Nevada (a major mining state), the province of Saskatchewan, and wants to expand further.

It has ISO 9001:2015 certification and a reputation for excellence, and its products have been widely embraced by the industry. All Canadian operations run by Vale, which describes itself as ‘the world’s largest producer of iron ore and pellets,’ use Jannatec equipment. Many Glencore mines, Kirkland Lake Gold, Pan American Silver, and Potash operations in Saskatchewan use the products as well.

The company’s products are not limited to any one particular kind of mining operation. “We’re open to doing business with absolutely any markets and any type of mines. Right now, we’re in potash; we’re in open-pit; we’re in hard rock, nickel and copper mines. We’re trying to be as flexible as possible,” states Burnett.

The company has won industry praise for its solutions and capabilities. In 2015, it was awarded a Bell Business Excellence Award in the category of innovation. These awards are presented annually by the Greater Sudbury Chamber of Commerce. According to Burnett, Jannatec was also “the first company to be Cisco IoT (Internet of Things) certified for mining.”

As a manufacturer of safety equipment, Jannatec was deemed to be an essential service and was not required to close when COVID restrictions were introduced last year. However, it chose to voluntarily shut down for two weeks in March 2020 to develop a plan to keep its workers safe and guide the company forward. Strict health measures to limit the spread of COVID were introduced to protect the workforce.

Its main clients did not stop operating during the COVID crisis, so business was not hugely affected. COVID has even inspired the company to consider a new, safety-minded venture involving its products. “Oddly, the pandemic has presented us with a potential business opportunity, as we can now use our SmartHelmets for contact tracing and for notifying workers who use hard hats if they are not following social distancing guidelines,” says Burnett.

If two workers are wearing SmartHelmets, an alert can be triggered if they get within six feet of each other, explains Burnett. Proximity data can be recorded, to allow companies to enhance health and safety measures.

In a similar spirit, while mining is its biggest sector, the company is eager to explore new markets and has discussed the possibility of supplying SmartHelmets to offshore oil rig workers, for example. Jannatec will also be branching out to markets such as construction, warehousing, and manufacturing.

Although there are other firms in its space, Jannatec is unique in that it remains highly innovative, and as a relatively small business, it is “very agile, versatile and competitive,” Burnett says.

The company has twenty employees at present, down from twenty-two at this time last year. The drop in personnel was simply due to career changes, not COVID or other factors.

“We strive to create a fun and vibrant work atmosphere while still ensuring we take our jobs seriously and perform as expected. As an example, we have a billiards table in our main office that all staff are welcome to use, and we create events such as fun Fridays, where we take suggestions for team-building exercises that all staff are welcome to participate in,” says Burnett.

The company likes team players who “demonstrate a willingness to do whatever it takes to get the job right and who understand that, ultimately, it is the customer who keeps the doors open, and it must be a priority to ensure their satisfaction. Of course, qualifications and abilities are a must for certain positions, and we do have criteria and even tests that need to be taken prior to consideration [as a new hire],” he adds.

Company officials offer an optimistic forecast. “We see Jannatec as continuing to be a leader in underground communications and we see our SmartHelmet changing the conversation around communications and safety in various markets. We may just have a few tricks up our sleeves that nobody sees coming,” states Burnett.

“Within five years, we hope to expand our client base not only within Canada but also into the United States, Latin America and globally and are looking at having representation in all of those markets while our sales and resource pool continue to expand, not only here in our home area but in all of these other markets as well.”

The post Keeping Workers Safe Underground<p class="company">Jannatec Technologies</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

Salto primarily offers these services in the context of heat treating, ranging from annealing through hardening (using processes like case, air, and induction hardening) to carburizing, normalizing and black oxide, and to cutting services, with additional capability in induction hardening for both pins and drill rods.

Many different processes are involved in heating and cooling metals and improving overall properties as well as performance and durability, and this complexity necessitates state-of-the-art product-order charting and traceability.

A concept takes shape
The initial stages of development for Salto began in March 2019 at the behest of company owner Felix Lopes Jr.

The company’s lead hand, Christophe Mehanna, remarks that he has known Lopes for a long time and that when Mr. Lopes Jr. sees an opportunity, he does not pass it up. Mehanna himself was called upon during the development period for his 25-plus years of experience in the field – to give input into the design and layout of the shop and make it as efficient as possible.

The initial crew, including Mehanna, brought equipment together over the course of a year and a half before joyously opening the company’s doors on May 4, 2020. Now, given its newcomer status in the industry, the team at Salto are eager to demonstrate what makes the company stand out from the competition.

Born to lead
Mehanna explains that Salto operates by employing the most up-to-date technology available and that its processes are highly automated. One of the company’s primary focuses is to be reliable to its customers and consistent in its level of quality, and automation helps the team achieve this.

Salto is ISO9001:2015 certified. All the company’s furnaces and carbon probes are calibrated and certified, with the business itself being fully certified across industry standards (Technical Standards and Safety Authority, Electrical Safety Authority, Trescall, International Organization for Standardization, etc.). “We have superior quality control measures,” Mehanna adds. “All temper furnaces are digitally equipped and monitored by temperature control. In the event of a disruption or malfunction, the system alerts us by alarm and via email and text messages to all supervisors.”

Salto also boasts a lab in its Sudbury location that offers onsite testing – a big advantage that allows the company to perform hardness testing and analysis – along with a portable digital tester allowing for off-site hardness testing as well.

The company’s customer service measures operate in tandem with its robust service offerings with a 24- to 48-hour turnaround on most applications (regardless of size) at competitive pricing.

Thanks to its all-digital interface, clients even have their own online Client Portal to access their information – which is stored indefinitely on company servers, cloud-based with quadruple backups – at a moment’s notice. In short, Salto Heat Treating offers a full suite of customer-focused processes coupled with a modern approach.

A variety of firsts
In summer 2020, not long after its doors opened to the public, Salto added two significant new service offerings to its catalogue: a black oxide line, and pin induction.

Salto is one of the first companies in the northern Ontario area to install this cold oxide system, a process that’s an environmentally friendly counterpart to hot oxide, with the black oxide finish preventing rust and giving an appealing glossy finish.

Salto is also the only provider in the area to offer pin induction up to 7 feet in length. It can handle parts of up to 1000 pounds, with 24 different diameters and coils to do any job up to a 9.5-inch diameter. The company’s pin scanner has quick-change coils to reduce time between different size pins, allowing for faster set-ups and savings for customers.

Salto’s rod induction systems are also unique to the northern Ontario area, as the systems are fully automated and can harden up to 12 inches at either end of any drill rod up to five inches in diameter.

The rod induction scanners are outfitted with heat sensors to ensure each rod is heated to the same temperature. As Mehanna puts it, “We guarantee that the first drill rod we heat will be at the same hardness as the last. Uniformity is important to our clients.”

Further measures like surge protectors guard the processes from electrical interference and minimize factory downtime, leading to both a superior customer experience and final product.

The tough get going
2020 was a challenging year for businesses across myriad sectors and Salto felt the crunch of COVID-19 as much as anyone. With the company opening midway into the year (and midway into worldwide quarantine measures), Mehanna ruefully admits that it was – understandably – not as grand an opening as originally envisioned.

The company depends on both local and international business to survive and, as borders close off to nix the spread of coronavirus, it is increasingly difficult for Salto employees to meet with potential customers face-to-face. Nevertheless, Mehanna remains supremely confident in the Salto team as one with the experience and will to overcome challenges like pandemics and recessions.

He is candid in praising the company culture that has encouraged this attitude: “I wish every company treated employees like this one does and had the culture that this one has.”

Indeed, there is a deep vein of trust that runs from top to bottom of Salto and there’s no hint of micromanagement from general contractors, suppliers or from the companies that commission Salto. The company stands by a creed of employees first in recognition that work need not follow its people home and that, more than anything else, employees are the greatest asset to a company.

Recognizing the workforce’s continued efforts to deliver on the company’s principles no matter what, Mehanna hopes that the coronavirus will be managed soon so the industry can return to business as usual and Salto can offer its full breadth of services with no added hassle.

A bright future
The team’s positivity toward the future is buoyed by that of MTI (Metal Treating Institute), of which Salto is a member. The institute is optimistic about the opportunities that 2021 will present for heat-treating businesses and, in turn, Salto will be looking to execute on a plan to take advantage of these opportunities beginning early this year.

However, at the present time the market is still somewhat unstable due to the ongoing pandemic – Salto is currently working with one of the biggest customers in the market (both in North America and worldwide), so Salto seems to be getting off to a bright start.

Beyond this, Mehanna reveals that the company has in mind a five-year plan to add another line and build a new warehouse. Hilary Hancock, office administration at Salto, explains that Salto has plans to broaden its customer base throughout Ontario. “Meeting customers is a unique difficulty right now,” Hancock remarks, “but we want to make sure we don’t become isolated.”

Salto will look to coordinate with its regional contracts, getting potential clients into the shop so that it can display its impressive capabilities on a heat-treating level. Mehanna adds that the reviews of both the company’s quality and service have been “our focus and our priority.” The company will keep that momentum going into its first full calendar year.

Although Salto Heat Treating is a new startup business, it is a dynamic business with a solid plan for its future, and one that is eager to make its mark in the metal service industry.

The post Bringing Unique New Processes to Ontario's Metal Industry<p class="company">Salto Heat Treating</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

The announcement by SAMSSA came at the annual Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) convention and trade show in Toronto last March.

For SAMSSA Executive Director Paul Bradette, the new name and logo represent much more than a rebranding: they serve to connect MineConnect members to all of Northern Ontario and the entire global mining community.

“Part of that brand change was to let our members and non-members know we have undergone a significant organizational change and now offer a more in-depth value proposition to support our membership in growing their business,” says Bradette.

Taking over from Dick DeStefano, who had lead the Sudbury-based organization since 2003, Bradette points out that the rebranding now encompasses far more than just Northern Ontario’s largest city. “We wanted to be more inclusive,” he says. “We wanted to truly be a pan-northern Ontario organization that represented the interests of the mining supply and services sector.”

New name, renewed vision
Taking over the organization in March 2019, Bradette was the ideal candidate to replace DeStefano, who was earlier quoted by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) in May 2019, saying that “[Sudbury] would have stayed invisible” were it not for SAMSSA bringing together “manufacturers, service providers and financiers.”

Among the many responsibilities of the new executive director — direction, leadership, and collaboration with all levels of government are just a few — DeStefano’s replacement needed to possess significant knowledge of the mining sector, be a relationship-builder, and have experience in creating and leading trade missions outside the Province of Ontario.

Prior to MineConnect, Bradette’s roles included that of a Trade and Investment Specialist for over 15 years at the Ontario Ministry of Northern Development and Mines. Initially working as a northern development advisor and later a trade and investment specialist, he led about 45 international trade missions within the mining supply and services space to Australia, Chile, South Africa and other locations.

Responsible for developing and implementing the Mining Supply and Services Export Assistance Program, Bradette was also behind many reverse trade missions, which saw some of the world’s biggest mining companies visiting suppliers in Northern Ontario.

Working with an intern marketing person and a part-time director of membership relations, Bradette and MineConnect now represent upwards of 190 member companies, which range from small operations with one or two employees to major listed companies.

Membership has its perks
Employing around 23,000 workers, generating $1.7 billion in yearly salaries and benefit, and producing some $5.5 billion in annual revenue, Northern Ontario’s mining supply and services sector is a force of nature.

Serving this redoubtable industry, MineConnect strives to provide member companies with a competitive edge both in Canada and internationally. From lead generation to events and trade missions to connecting with others in the growing mining industry, the benefits of becoming a corporate or associate member of MineConnect are many.

Information-packed and easy to navigate, MineConnect’s website at https://mineconnect.com/ features a ‘Find a Supplier’ section. Here, suppliers can be searched for by keyword or through one of a dozen convenient links to specialties like blasting, bulk handling equipment, health and safety, mobile mining equipment, and battery electric vehicles.

This lead generation component is a tremendous asset for members of MineConnect, which recently launched a regional and international marketing campaign.

“Whether they are mining operators, contractors, or EPCMs [engineering, procurement and construction managers], this drives them to our website so they can source out whatever solution they’re looking for,” says Bradette. “Our intent is to get the eyes of the mining world on this cluster. Some of the best innovations in mining today were born in Northern Ontario and through these companies, so our goal is to shine a light on this.”

No matter where mining businesses are located worldwide, it is easy for them to go to the website, navigate to the exact category, and find the products and solutions they need.

Best of all, anyone clicking on the members, through the website, directs inquiries straight to the member’s inbox, because, naturally, they themselves are best qualified to respond to questions.

MineConnect members also have access to additional resources including mining contacts, an operational map of Ontario mines, a list of mines coming online, funding programs, and other valuable resources to smooth their way.

“At the end of the day, our primary mandate here is helping our members grow their business,” says Bradette, “and that’s what we are all about. Our mission statement is ‘Suppliers of Choice to the World.’ Everything we do is in support of pushing that mission statement forward.”

The rise of BEVs
Worldwide, Battery Electric Vehicles — BEVs for short — are taking the mining sector by storm.

Although BEVs have been in existence for decades, recent years have seen advances in technology bring dramatic improvements in efficiency and cost saving. Since they neither use polluting fuel like diesel nor consume oxygen while operating, BEVs are ideal for underground use. Vibrating less than their gas-powered counterparts, BEVs also generate little heat and noise, producing far better working conditions for employees.

Fully aware of the many benefits of BEVs, MineConnect acts on behalf of its members involved in this pioneering industry. Following a trade mission to Chile last year, the organization invited executives from Chilean state-owned copper-mining company Codelco to visit Sudbury, and four different mine sites, and meet representatives from several companies involved in BEVs.

“Quite frankly, we are leaders in battery electric vehicles,” says Bradette. “Northern Ontario was the first to develop a BEV; we were the first in Northern Ontario to adopt it; and we were the first fully electric mine to do full adoption, so that’s pretty significant. We continue to be leaders in the space.”

Along with other major advances in health and safety and tel-robotics, including remote control and collision avoidance technology, BEVs represent just how sophisticated mining has become.

“Mining is a very innovative industry, and people that aren’t involved in it probably don’t get a full appreciation of some of the innovations it makes,” Bradette says. “We’ve got companies that are replicating the Amazon model and are doing it 5,000 or 6,000 feet underground.”

U.S. expansion
Although COVID-19 continues to affect the global economy, Bradette says the virus has resulted in few shutdowns, since mining is an essential industry. “So I think in comparison to any other sector, we’ve done remarkably well,” he shares.

“People need to understand that perspective. As an association it impacts our value proposition because it is built on network and events and conductivity with members — that’s taken a bit of a backseat — and we’ve had to re-purpose, like everybody else. I think also with our suppliers the key piece is getting to trade shows, because they want to showcase their technology.”

While some major trade show opportunities like MINExpo INTERNATIONAL®, which is held every four years, have been cancelled or rescheduled because of the pandemic, Bradette believes MineConnect and its members will emerge a lot stronger, owing to the sector’s willingness to adapt to new technologies.

Other major events like PDAC have announced that their 2021 event will be entirely virtual. “We will still have a presence. We need to be there, there is absolutely no doubt.”

Looking forward to the future and a post-COVID world, MineConnect will also be opening a new office in Elko, Nevada in March. Bradette has travelled to Elko – famous worldwide for its gold mining – many times, and has formed a network. Close to other mining states including Arizona and Utah, Nevada is ideal for growing a new arm of MineConnect.

“I think that market is ready now,” he says. “Over the last decade, they’ve transitioned quite a bit into hard rock, which is what we specialize in, as opposed to open pit. So I think there is tremendous opportunity.”

Planning to hire a coordinator to set up meetings and trade shows and recruit Nevada operators to visit Northern Ontario post-COVID, Bradette believes this value proposition will support MineConnect members and help develop new markets.

“The intent here is to get the global mining community’s eyes on this very specific cluster,” he says. “Innovations that have come out of Northern Ontario and these companies have really changed the face of mining in a number of different ways, and it’s our objective to get more eyes on it – whether regionally or internationally – so others can discover technologies that are available now. We will continue to do the research and development necessary to remain leaders – it’s one thing getting there, and it’s something different to stay on top of the hill.”

The post Digging Deep to Improve Mining Technology Worldwide<p class="company">MineConnect</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

In the past two decades, the number of Americans retiring every single day has almost doubled, and is accelerating. And younger qualified workers aren’t entering the job market fast enough to fill vacant roles. All industries are feeling the pinch, especially resources, which is also facing a lack of minority and female employees compared to the overall North American job market.

Addressing the issues
While the oil and gas sector in Canada is attempting to diversity its workforce – including hiring better-educated persons and more Indigenous Peoples and visible minorities – success in hiring some other groups, including women, younger persons, and individuals with disabilities, has declined.

Just over two years ago, the Diversifying Canada’s Oil and Gas Workforce: A Decade in Review report was released by Petroleum Labour Market Information (PetroLMI).

Covering the decade 2006-2016, data revealed that although the oil and gas industry made some advances regarding diversity hiring, there remains room for improvement. The number of Indigenous Persons in the sector increased marginally from 5.6 percent to 6.3 percent, while visible minorities went from 12 percent to 13 percent, and non-permanent residents jumped from seven percent to 12 percent.

Despite these advances, however, the number of women employed in oil and gas remained relatively unchanged, representing only 22 percent, or about one-fifth, of the entire workforce. This remains an issue not only in Canada and the United States but also other nations.

NES Global Talent, which focuses on providing talent to oil, gas chemical and other sectors, released the study Attracting and Retaining Women in Oil and Gas Engineering: A survey examining the gender talent gap. Among the questions raised in the report was: why, with schools worldwide focusing on science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education and young women being encouraged to pursue these fields, are women still so under-represented in oil and gas engineering?

In Canada and the United States, other resource sectors, such as mining, are also in need of younger workers and greater diversity. Like oil and gas, mining also faces a crisis of exiting retirees.

The independent, non-profit Mining Industry Human Resources Council (MiHR) anticipates over 51,000 workers, more than a quarter of the present workforce, retiring by 2025. When veteran employees leave the resources sector, they take with them years of firsthand insight and experience, qualities not readily replaced when hiring younger staff.

The win-win of diversity
For the resources sector, hiring more minorities and women simply makes sense. Along with broadening the employee base, hiring persons from other races and genders introduces different, and often more creative, ways of thinking and problem-solving.

By deepening the talent pool, mining and oil and gas companies are also better able to serve customers who may also be of the same ethnic background or gender. These incentives, and others, create a more competitive environment, and greater profits.

At present, the American crude oil, natural gas, and chemicals (OG&C) sectors employ approximately 1.5 million, including field workers and specialists in engineering and chemistry. Despite fluctuations in the market for oil between 2014 and 2016 and, more recently, slowdowns because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the market is transitioning. Heeding warnings of global warming and the need for a greener future, super-majors including Chevron, Exxon, Shell, BP, and others are investing in renewable energy projects as an alternative to oil and gas.

From wind and solar to automotive hydrogen fuel cells, biofuels, and carbon capture and storage (CCS), big oil and gas businesses are investing hundreds of millions of dollars into clean alternative energy sources.

In 2017 alone, BP spent $200 million acquiring a 43 percent share in Europe’s biggest solar development company, Lightsource Renewable Energy. Rebranded as Lightsource bp in 2018, the strategic partnership was “inspired by the recognition of a shared mission: to accelerate low-carbon energy access for communities worldwide,” according to Lightsource bp.

Renewable challenge
Recognizing the need for diversity, the push toward solar and wind brings challenges and opportunities. Much like oil, gas and mining, minorities and women are under-represented in renewable energy.

According to the 2020 U.S. Energy and Employment Report (USEER) – published with support of over 12 states by the National Association of State Energy Officials (NASEO) and the Energy Futures Initiative (EFI) – the percentage of women in America’s energy sector (23 to 32 percent) is far less than that of women in the broader U.S. workforce (47 percent, or almost half of all American workers).

Despite the energy sector employing disproportionately fewer women, energy sector jobs are more racially diverse “because of the increased self-identification of employees belonging to ‘two or more races,’” according to the report.

Specific sectors such as coal fuels have a female workforce of 23 percent; natural gas fuels, 26 percent; nuclear fuels, 30 percent; ethanol and non-woody biomass fuels, 33 percent; and Electric Power Generation (EPG), 32 percent.

Women represent approximately 30 percent of the workforce in solar, 31 percent in wind EPG, 32 percent in combined heat and power generation (CHP), 32 percent in hydroelectric power, and 32 percent in coal EPG.

Of course there are other opportunities. According to the report, America’s traditional energy, energy efficiency, and motor vehicles sectors, while comprising just 5.6 percent of the U.S. workforce, “continued to outperform the rest of the American economy in job growth,” accounting for eight percent of the nation’s new jobs.

Recruitment strategies
To welcome more minorities, women, and younger persons into oil, gas, and mining companies, these industries must become inventive.

These diverse groups represent a tremendous, still largely untapped talent pool, and a means to make up for the ongoing loss of older, retiring workers. Fostering a work/life balance, promoting and valuing inclusivity and respect for different cultures – including sensitivity training of existing employees – re-evaluating organizational policies, greater transparency, and bringing in more women and minorities from the field to the boardroom level makes sense.

It is estimated that in less than a decade, one in every five Americans will be aged 65 and older. By 2044, it is believed over half of all Americans will belong to a minority group. These long-term projections lay the groundwork for resource sector companies to invest in pro-development strategies.

With almost two million positions becoming available in the coming years to take advantage of, this is a wonderful opportunity to attract more minorities and women to oil, natural gas, and petrochemical industries. And it’s not just socially desirable, it will be become a necessity for the purpose of filling vacant positions.

“The nearly 1.9 million direct job opportunities projected through 2035 in the oil & natural gas and petrochemical industries speak to the continuing importance of these industries in the U.S. economy as a whole and to individuals and families looking for well-paying career opportunities,” says the 170-page study Minority and Female Employment in the Oil & Gas and Petrochemical Industries, 2015-2035 study.

“As seen in this report and other API research studies, minority communities, women, and other strategic partners represent critically vital and available talent pools to help meet our future workforce demands.” Failing to attract willing minority and female hires creates an imbalanced workplace, and will undoubtedly make companies less competitive compared to others embracing diversity.

The post Making it Work<p class="company">Diversifying the Resource Sector</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

After several class action lawsuits, the last laws banning women from working underground were repealed in the late 1970s, Mines Magazine reports. But, even as women proved themselves and earned positions within mining companies, negative stereotypes continued to abound. When women were promoted, it was not uncommon for fellow employees to assume those women were in relationships with managers and executives, according to mining.com. Women working onsite were sometimes subject to sexual harassment and negative assumptions about their ability to do the job, CBC News reports.

Women were accused of taking men’s jobs in rural regions with few employment options, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence and research conducted by Suzanne Tallichet, a sociology professor at Morehead State University who studied female coal miners in West Virginia in the 1990s. In reality, women working in West Virginia coalmines were often the household breadwinners due to divorce or other circumstances and were dependent on the relatively high income coalmining provided.

In 2021, barriers still exist in this traditionally male-dominated industry, despite the enormous progress made since those days when women were literally forbidden from entering a mine. Negative assumptions still linger, even though the industry is working hard to embrace change and welcome women’s participation at all levels. The MeTooMining association was established in 2018 to advocate for strong programs and policies against workplace harassment, bullying, intimidation, and discrimination and to ensure workers – both male and female – have effective avenues for reporting mistreatment or unfair practices. “Mining related Organizations, Universities, Trades and Corporations are encouraging women to join the mining industry but there needs to be a change in the workplace culture so all workers are safe and secure,” the association’s website summarizes.

How many women are involved in the industry?
BNN Bloomberg reports that women make up around 16 percent of mining employees – a figure that has remained roughly the same since 2001, despite an overall effort to increase gender inclusivity within the industry. In 2013, the mining industry had the lowest number of women on company boards of any industry group in the world, according to the study Mining for Talent by Women in Mining (UK) and Pricewaterhouse Coopers.

Women’s participation in mining varies globally. African mining companies have some of the highest numbers of women in executive positions on the C-suite level and on company boards, S&P Global Market Intelligence reports, while Latin America and the Caribbean have some of the lowest rates of women in top positions within the industry. In Europe, women fill about 12.9 percent of C-suite mining sector positions. In the United States and Canada, women fill only 11.5 percent of these C-suite roles, but they make up 21.5 percent of mining company board members, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence.

In addition to being underrepresented within the mining industry, women are also more likely to be negatively affected by mining operations – in other words, they bear the brunt of the burden without the benefits, the Brookings Institution reports. Because they are more likely to be the primary caretakers and to be responsible for subsistence farming, women disproportionately suffer from extraction-related environmental damage, involuntary resettlement, and food insecurity. This is not just a problem on the individual level. Women’s economic participation is an important ingredient for economic development and growth, the Brookings Institution points out, so female disenfranchisement affects whole communities, not just families.

The positive impact of women in mining
Gender inclusion makes good business sense. A survey shows that, of the top 500 globally listed mining companies, “The 18 mining companies with 25 percent or more of their board comprised of women had an average net profit margin for the 2011 financial year that was 49 percent higher than the average net profit margin for all top 500 mining companies,” the Brookings Institution reports.

Indeed, research demonstrates that women’s participation in the workforce can lead to higher profits by raising innovation and productivity, as well as developing company engagement with local communities, according to the Brookings Institution. Forbes reports that companies that promote inclusivity and cognitive diversity outperform their peers and are likely to be more creative and productive overall. Gender inclusivity also boosts safety records and improves social and environmental responsibility ratings, Mines Magazine reports.

The industry has been impacted by the research showing the benefits of gender inclusion and many companies have begun to actively recruit women, Mines Magazine reports. This opportunity can be especially helpful to women in rural areas where the resource industry offers the highest paying jobs, says S&P Global Market Intelligence. Women in low-income households and single mothers in regions with limited income opportunities could particularly benefit.

They climbed the ladder
Women have not only made it into the once male dominated mining industry – they have made it to the very top. Take Hilde Merete Aasheim, for instance. In 2019 she became the President and CEO of Hydro, the biggest integrated aluminum business in the world. Aasheim joined the company in 2005 as Executive Vice President for Leadership and Culture and led the planning of the integration between Statoil and Hydro’s oil and gas operations in 2007, Mining Global reports. After the merger she became Executive Vice President of staff functions and corporate service for StatoilHydro. Now, as President and CEO of the behemoth company, Aasheim is focused on sustainability and green initiatives.

Eva Arias, another leader in the mining industry, brought her company back from the brink to become a national success story. Arias comes from a family with a long history of mining in Peru. After a career in architecture and construction, she decided to continue her father’s legacy at Compañía Minera Poderosa, eventually becoming Executive President of the business. Over three five-year cycles, she steered the business from bankruptcy, transforming it into the most profitable company in Peru – not just in mining, but in every sector, Mining Global reports. She has also focused on improving relationships between the mine and the broader community, government, and employees; minimizing environmental impact while maintaining operational efficiency; and achieving high safety standards.

Amanda Lacaze is another woman who turned her company around. As CEO she brought Lynas Corporation back from a 99 percent drop in its share price, Mining Global reports. Lynas is the second largest producer of separated rare earths in the world, and the only producer of scale operating outside of China. The company’s rare earth mine in Western Australia is one of the highest-grade on the planet and its processing facility in Malaysia is the largest single rare earths processing plant in the world. In addition to bringing financial success to this global enterprise, Lacaze brought greater gender equity. Under her leadership, the number of female employees rose from 51 to 120, Mining Global reports.

Women have proven their value to the mining industry, from manual labour jobs all the way to the boardroom. As Aasheim, Arias, and Lacaze demonstrate, women can bring valuable perspectives, strategies, and insight to mining operations. As the world continues to evolve and mining companies face new challenges, these perspectives, strategies, and insights will only become more valuable.

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