The Government of Canada, advocating for a significant role for the manufacturing industry within the framework of the necessary economic recovery, several investments have been announced in the regions, in particular this one: a grant of $440,000 to OSBLOCK.
The assistance from Canada Economic Development (CED) will enable the company in Saint-Henri-de-Taillon, in Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean, to acquire and install digital control production equipment, tools and software.
More specifically, the project aims to improve productivity and expand OSBLOCK as part of a $3 million investment by adding an automated production line.
In an article published in the newspaper Le Quotidien, Marco Tremblay, president of the company underlined “We went from a pilot plant to a fully automated plant, which makes it possible to maintain eight jobs”. He now wants to target markets in Western Canada and the United States with this increase in production.
OSBLOCK also notes an increase in demand for its modules made of wood and polystyrene panels in the face of the significant increase in the price of lumber, indicated for his part Claude Chassé, vice-president of development of the company, in the same article. “We are already seeing a doubling and a little more of all our project requests since December,” he said.
Its president, Marco Tremblay, wrote yesterday on his LinkedIn page: “Thank you to the entire DEC team for their important support, which will help the growth of our business and give us access to new markets by quadrupling our production with the implementation of a new fully automated production line”.
Comment from Richard Darveau on behalf of the “Bien fait ici” program: “Support for innovative and regional manufacturers such as OSBLOCK shows that with the support of the Government of Canada, it becomes possible, in any case certainly desirable, to rely on local manufacturing to recover with the coming post-pandemic. We salute the government for its desire to rebuild a stronger and more resilient, but also more united economy.”
In addition, it should be noted that the company Les Produits Gilbert, based in Roberval, in the same region, also obtained assistance, in its case, an amount of $877,500. This will make it possible to acquire and install digitally controlled equipment and to carry out expansion work. This project, which aims to improve the company’s productivity, will lead to the creation of 10 jobs.
This company supplies robotic equipment for a number of construction and logging companies, including the Matériaux Blanchet sawmill, recently visited by AQMAT. Click here to see Gilbert equipment in our video.