Canadian Manufacturing’s top five quotes from Q3 2024

PHOTO: Getty Images/andresr

Manufacturers are tackling labour shortage challenges, sustainability pressures and diversifying their supply chain in a variety of ways in 2024. Canadian businesses continue to build resilience, innovate and stay competitive through a year presenting them with new opportunities and problems. Below are some notable quotes from the first three quarters of the business calendar, from manufacturers interviewed by Canadian Manufacturing.

“How are we going to navigate new regulatory and sustainability concerns? A lot of ingredient manufacturers are making changes and discontinuing products that aren’t as sustainable. We have to be mindful about our use of plastics. We’ve done a lot of work to change our products from plastics to glass. As a manufacturer there’s something always coming up that you have to deal with,” says Groupe Marcelle CEO David Cape.

“There’s going to be more competition anyways. The demand for electrical power is going to be significant. All of our customers today want to double their production over the next few years. And yes, that will mean foreign investment and more competition from other companies. But the supply chain needs to expand, and it’s not just going to happen through one or two companies,” says Ron Harper, CEO of JFE Shoji Power Canada, on the increased competition they would see from further investments in transformer manufacturing.

“Be careful what you wish for. We are seeing more reshoring, but it’s starting to slow because manufacturers are asking themselves what regulatory policies will look like when they operate here. They’re looking at how the interest rate is changing, how the election cycles might affect their operations, and really analyzing any changes to their supply chain,” says Dave DeGraaf, CEO of JR Automation, during a panel at Automate 2024.

“We’ve grown a lot over the years, we have a number of companies now under our portfolio. When companies come through our booth, they may know us for one thing, but may not know that we have laser trackers, or CNC simulation capabilities as well, so we can really showcase our capabilities in helping them. It’s about brand building,” says David Hill, Director of Commercial Operations at Hexagon, on the importance of attending trade shows in-person.

“The last two or three years have been challenging. We’ve hired 130 people over the last three years and it’s particularly challenging because we’re looking for highly skilled employees, this isn’t manual work anymore. We feel like we’ve hit a wall, but we’re trying to use the TFW program to bring more people in on contracts. Luckily, we are 100% staffed now,” says Jean Meredith, CEO of Raufoss Technology, on how the labour shortage has effected the company.