On Wednesday January 25^th over 40 London/Oxford/MWO EMC Member companies gathered at Hanwha Canada for the Consortiums first SIG Session of 2012.

Hanwha L & C Canada, a division of Hanwha Living & Creative Corporation is owned by the Hanwha Group, a global Fortune 500 Company and one of Korea's largest industrial corporations with 30 affiliated companies and more than $30 billion in annual revenues.

Their new facility in London represents the first of a two-phase North American…

On October 31, 2011 the Certificate of Approval (Air & Noise) process inOntariochanged.  Companies that are required by Section 9 of the Ontario Environmental Protection Act to obtain an environmental approval for air and noise emissions are now required to self register on the Environmental Activity & Sector Registry (EASR), or apply for an Environmental Compliance Approval (ECA).  Details of the air and noise approval process are outlined in Ontario Regulation 419/05 - Air Pollution -…

How are you growing your business?  What are you looking at within your organization to help you identify, create or develop a new product, new service or something that differentiates you from your competition.  Last month was the first event in a series of six monthly events that EMC is sponsoring and supporting with the RIC Center.  These amazing sessions are being held at Sheridan College's Advanced Manufacturing site in Brampton.  To see the schedule for the remaining events, please click…

Last month's Strategic Interest Group Meeting was held at Brampton Engineering.  Special thanks to Bob Smith, VP of Operations at Brampton Engineering.  He spoke very candidly about the issues and problems they face while trying to implement a new ERP system and integrate it with their current engineering systems.   Brampton Engineering Inc. (BE) is the world leader in the design and engineering of 5 - 11 layer blown film lines for high barrier applications in the food, medical and industrial…

The Owen Sound HR/H&S SIG in January met to find out more about the issues relating to mental health and effects in the workplace.  Canada will be releasing a voluntary standard for psychological health and safety in the workplace in 2012.

Jeff Suchak with the Community Mental Health Association and a Certified Trainer with Mental Health Works gave a presentation regarding this very important and timely issue.  He indicated that 1 in 5 people have some degree of mental health issues -…

Our host Canplas Industries started the discussion by sharing their efforts to increase & recognize employee participation.  Their employee suggestion program is a part of their cost reduction program.  They use many different methods off idea collection including person-to-person, web-based, and email.  Every idea submitted gets points which can be accumulated and exchanged for Jump gift cards.  A cross-functional committee meets monthly to review ideas and the ideas are tracked over a one…

Mike Curry, P. Eng., Industrial Technology Advisor with the National Research Council Industrial Research Assistance Program (IRAP) gave a presentation covering IRAP's role in stimulating innovation in small & medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in order to increase economic growth - jobs, revenue, market share and profitability and to create wealth for Canada.

IRAP offers financial & technical support to develop and adapt innovative technology.  The program helps accelerate the growth of…

This month, DV Systems Inc. hosted the Environmental, Health & Safety Strategic Interest Group session which was all about Certificates of Approval or Environmental Compliance Approvals and National Pollutant Release Inventory (NPRI) reporting.

Our guest presenter was James Barker from MTE Consultants Inc. and he gave a very informative presentation regarding the topics mentioned above and answered members questions.  A copy of his presentation is available on the Barrie/Midland/Muskoka…

Every month when the Information Technology professionals of the Barrie/Midland Consortium get together there is no shortage of questions and discussion topics.

They started the January session with a roundtable discussion of how their respective businesses are faring heading into the new year. 

The discussion, then, headed into the technology realm and covered the following topics: