Applied Research Type: Manufacturing

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Chopping chopper waste

Airbus Helicopters Canada came to Niagara College seeking help to improve the productivity of a workstation in its Fort Erie plant. The company had established that the station (which trimmed, drilled and routed carbon fibre parts) was a bottleneck in the manufacturing process and was also wasting too much material. Airbus hoped a partnership with Niagara College would help improve the function of the station by reducing scrap and increasing its rate of production.

The research team, made up of an engineering instructor and a student on his senior co-op placement, used a GoPro camera to film workers at the station. They then fed the data they gathered into a program that rated activities as value-added or not. Among other things, the time-study data showed employees were wasting hours looking for tools: to fix that, the team built a mobile rack, with places for every tool.

The same data was used to study ideal trimming and drilling times and create standard operating procedures that would allow employees to achieve them. Scott Hickey, senior manager of manufacturing at the plant, said the research allowed the company to make more accurate and competitive quotes.

The most significant change brought about by the project, however, was the decision to buy a machine from a local company that automates the cutting and drilling of composite materials, which allows the work cell to increase quality and generate higher profits. The project, which ran over six months, let student Alex Goerz learn new skills not taught in the classroom, including recording and analyzing data.

“The wonderful partnership with Niagara College on this program has been amazing,” Hickey said. “It gives the student the ability to come into the work force, to really understand what we need, but also, for us it gives an opportunity to perceive what new technologies are out there.”

The report submitted to the company by the research team documented several tangible improvements, including:

  • A two-year return on investment on the $304,000 spent to automate the process;
  • Increased productivity and quality;
  • 8,911 working hours annually reduced to approximately 1,500
  • An estimated 85 per cent reduction in waste, from $180,000 to $20,000
Industry: Manufacturing

About Niagara College

Established in 1967, Niagara College has grown to become a leading global college and one of Canada’s most enterprising postsecondary institutions. With a mission to... Learn more
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The unbreakable stone age

The ancient Japanese vase had survived much in its 6,000 years — but withstanding researchers’ probing hands was probably asking too much. That led its owner to Mohawk College with a question: could the college produce an exact replica of the neolithic pottery on a 3D printer in its Additive Manufacturing Resource Centre?

Mohawk saw an opportunity in the project beyond the straightforward challenge of creating a 3D printed reproduction of a neolithic vase from Japan’s “Jomon” period. It was also a chance to develop and refine the potential of additive manufacturing as a tool for historical preservation.

To do that, they established a scanning process that used a high-resolution, hospital-grade Siemens CT scanner and researched a way to capture and combine the scanned data so that they could be converted into a workable format for printing. The final result is a reproduction vase made of Nylon 12 that captures all the intricate details of a clay artifact. While the original must be displayed behind glass, its new twin can now be touched and handled without concern.

“It’s very exciting to see advanced healthcare and advanced manufacturing technology being combined for a new and unique application such as archeological study,” said Jim Graziadei, managing director of Siemens Healthcare Canada. “We are honoured to have been a part of it.”

The project took approximately four months and two Mohawk College co-op students worked on it, spending their time manipulating the data and preparing the new file to be built on Mohawk’s Selective Laser Sintering machine. The pair can now say they worked on a world-first — in combining a healthcare tool with additive manufacturing.

The process developed for this project will provide a framework the Additive Manufacturing Resource Centre can use for future applied research projects. It could also be shared with companies doing 3D Printing commercially. The project also validated the high level of detail that can be achieved with 3D-printed.

Industry: Manufacturing
Funded by: Canada Foundation for Innovation

About Mohawk College

Mohawk College educates and serves 30,000 full-time, part-time and apprenticeship students at three campuses in Hamilton, Ontario. More than 1,200 international students from over 70... Learn more
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A Small Solution for a Big Cleaning Problem

Planes today that seat as many as 200 passengers have just two to four lavatories, which means they can get pretty dirty, pretty fast. But fuel-conscious airlines sharply restrict the weight, size and balance of equipment carried on board, and lavatories and galleys on planes are small. Regular cleaning tools just don’t fit.

When Vaughan Payne, president of Calgary-based Dakota Supplies, watched flight attendants cleaning airplane lavatories with nothing more than spray bottles and paper towels, he was sure there must be a better, more sanitary way. So, Payne and his partner Deborah Humphries got to work on what would become Moppitt™, an all-in-one inflight cleaning system.

In 2015, they brought their idea to Red Deer College’s Centre for Innovation in Manufacturing and worked with its expert product designers and fabricators to create a prototype for product trials.

Just over one year later, Dakota Supplies had partnered with Celeste Industries Corporation, global leader in cleaning products for the airline industry, to distribute Moppitt™ worldwide. It promises to revolutionize how aircrafts are cleaned.

Essentially an expandable mini-mop, Moppitt™ can be a hand-tool for cleaning counters, tray tables or around toilets, or its hidden handle can expand to allow floor spills to be mopped up. A new cleaning cartridge, filled with biodegradable cleaning fluid and a small mop head, clicks into place for each job. But its biggest selling point is its size: retracted, it tucks easily into an overhead bin or a small cupboard.

Moppitt™ offers many benefits: a cleaner, healthier environment for airlines’ customers and staff and reduced turn-around time because planes can be kept cleaner during flights. Airlines may even spend less on outsourced cleaning services.

Industry: Manufacturing
Funded by: Alberta Innovates, Industrial Research Assistance Program (IRAP), National Research Council Canada

About Red Deer Polytechnic

Red Deer Polytechnic is central Alberta’s largest post-secondary institution, serving more than 10,000 credit, non-credit and apprenticeship students. Since becoming a polytechnic institute in 2021,... Learn more
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Making Canada’s Summer sport safer for kids

After 10 years playing for the Calgary Stampeders in the Canadian Football League, Jeff Pilon knows about contact sports. So, when he witnessed some of the hits being taken by his son and his teammates on the community lacrosse team, he felt he had to do something.

Kids playing lacrosse are at risk of neck injury because most have not developed the coordination to cross check safely. Jeff decided to make a neck guard that would protect young players and allow them to participate more safely in this fast-growing contact sport.

Armed with a home-made model, Jeff approached Red Deer College’s Centre for Innovation in Manufacturing to identify problems and create design solutions for his neck guard. A couple of designs later, Jeff had a working proof-of-concept prototype, named Shell Shock, ready for field testing.

“Lacrosse is Canada’s summer sport,” Jeff says. “I want kids to be able to play it, be physically active, and their parents not worry about serious injury. Shell Shock will really help to build the sport.”

Since designing Shell Shock, Jeff has opened his own company, Jukebox and partnered with Philippe Jeanneau, an experienced sports equipment designer, to develop a full line of equipment for lacrosse, including gloves and shafts. Every contact sport has potential areas of risk for injury and players’ needs are very specific — hockey gloves will not work in lacrosse, for example. Jeff wants to provide sport-specific protection so lacrosse can continue to grow.

Partner(s): Jukebox
Funded by: Industrial Research Assistance Program (IRAP), National Research Council Canada

About Red Deer Polytechnic

Red Deer Polytechnic is central Alberta’s largest post-secondary institution, serving more than 10,000 credit, non-credit and apprenticeship students. Since becoming a polytechnic institute in 2021,... Learn more
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Cutting-edge technology makes prize-winning cutting edges

Joseph Hofer is an award-winning industrial designer based in Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario. He was intrigued by the possibilities of 3D printing but wanted to take it outside the realms of the aerospace and medical industries where it is most often used. In his own words, he was seeking to create “something more human as a product, something understandable. Something people could see in their lives.”

Hofer started by considering how some common household items are made, leading him and his team to come up with the “pair knife,” a design that combines the two most commonly used kitchen knives: the paring knife and the chef’s knife. In the stainless-steel design, the smaller paring knife is shaped to nest inside the larger chef’s knife. The design of the chef’s knife has a double purpose: in addition to storing the paring knife, its handle is shaped to suit the way professional chefs hold knives, which also helps home chefs learn to cut properly.

Turning the vision into reality was possible because of Hofer’s partnership with Mohawk College’s Advanced Manufacturing Resource Centre, where additive manufacturing technology — better known as 3D printing — was used to produce the innovative knife.

Two fourth-semester Mohawk students worked on the project. They particularly enjoyed having the ability to optimize the designs for the 3D metal printing.

The knife has already won a Designlines Award for showcasing the potential of future technology and has also been awarded a 2016 European Design Award. Hofer Studios is investigating larger-scale production of the knives.

Industry: Manufacturing
Partner(s): Hofer Studios

About Mohawk College

Mohawk College educates and serves 30,000 full-time, part-time and apprenticeship students at three campuses in Hamilton, Ontario. More than 1,200 international students from over 70... Learn more
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Deep down safety for miners

Ultra-deep mines are those that reach 2.5 kilometres below the earth’s surface. They are not an easy place to work; as the depth increases, so does the temperature. In an ultra-deep mine, ambient heat from rocks and humidity meets heat from machinery and human activity to create a hazardous mix. Miners in ultra-deep mines follow a reduced work-rest cycle to prevent heat stress.

Modified hours are only part of what it takes to keep miners safe and Jannatec Technologies, which has been developing safety products for the mining industry for over 25 years, undertook to design a new kind of coverall that could complement deep-mine thermal management systems, meet safety standards and keep miners comfortable as they worked.

To achieve its goal of creating innovative work wear for ultra-deep mining employees, Jannatec Technologies partnered with researchers at two Canadian institutions — George Brown College’s School of Fashion Studies and the Olds College Apparel Innovation Centre. George Brown’s research team was headed by investigators Edith Strasser and Daniel Somsavath and included three students from the School of Fashion. Throughout the project, the team relied on guidance from Jannatec as it evaluated current designs in work wear for ultra-deep mines, looking for feedback on efficiencies and wearer requirements.

“This project helped hone my skills,” one of the fashion students said. “It introduced me to the people working in sciences that rely on people in design — who have little understanding of the scientist’s goals.”

When they were ready, the research team first created a prototype in cotton canvas, then produced the next prototype in two textiles in standard sizes, to allow Jannatec to test and compare them. The final deliverables also included a pattern with a sizing sheet for the prototype design.

Applied research in this area is expanding at the college, and student-faculty teams have completed a range of successful projects to solve apparel design problems and commercialize new products. The work of this George Brown team will lead to a safer working environment for miners everywhere, as Jannatec Technologies gets one step closer to manufacturing on a large scale.

Funded by: Ontario Centres of Excellence

About George Brown Polytechnic

George Brown strives to build a seamless bridge between learners and employment by developing dynamic programs that are informed by industry and workplace-ready graduates who... Learn more
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Needle in a Circuit Board Haystack

Red River College is home to the Technology Access Centre for Aerospace and Manufacturing. Through the Centre, aerospace and manufacturing organizations can get access to equipment, assets and expertise to tackle problems in designing and manufacturing the advanced parts essential for their work.

In this project, the Centre worked with Parker Hannifin, which manufactures motion-and-control automation systems used in industry and aerospace. The company uses surface-mount technology to assemble circuit boards, but many of its boards were defective, with missing or misaligned parts being found during final quality inspection and testing.

Parker Hannifin turned to the Technology Access Centre for help. In this case, the problem was revealed using the College’s expertise in high-speed imaging, which can gather real-time data on robotic assembly, and allow experts to analyze the root causes of the defects.

To create circuit boards through surface-mount technology, hundreds of parts are picked and placed in a matter of seconds. High-speed imaging captured and distilled that process, and when the data and imagery were studied, the problem was shown to be parts being flipped and mis-oriented by faulty part feeders. Once this problem was identified, these feeders were isolated for repair or replacement.

“Collaboration with Red River College was instrumental in finding the true root cause of our ‘pick’ issue,” said Bob Dann, Technical Services Manager at Parker Hannifin. “Finding and correcting the root cause gave us a significant step improvement in quality and productivity.”

Industry: Manufacturing
Partner(s): Parker Hannifin

About Red River College Polytechnic

Red River College (RRC) is Manitoba’s largest institute of applied learning. The institution is renowned for providing accessible, innovative, applied learning and research in an... Learn more
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Franco Chiesa, Industrial Research Chair in Aluminum Transformation

Aluminum transformation is an important area of research for a number of Québec industries looking for improvements in molding or casting aluminum alloys.

Dr. Franco Chiesa has set up partnerships with multinational RioTintoAlcan (RTA) and with eight Québec small and medium-sized enterprises from various regions including the Saguenay, Cap-StIgnace, St-Cyprien, Drummondville, and greater Montreal.

RTA sub-contracts its casting-alloys research and development to tap into Dr. Chiesa’s expertise and into the research centre’s materials and resources, such as a low-pressure mold press. Most small and medium-sized enterprises have neither the scientific resources nor the specialty equipment to conduct such research. In return, SME projects allow the CCTT to fine-tune its ability to apply scientific principles to real-world problems.

This hands-on problem-solving is a core element of the Chair’s contribution to teaching in the cégep’s metallurgy department, as research projects involve academic staff either directly or through the supervision of students working on projects. The centre also proposes themes for end-of-studies projects, overseen jointly by a professor and Dr. Chiesa, and hires two student interns a year for 14 weeks. The strong working relationship allows professors to inject concrete examples into their courses, breaking from routine and heightening student motivation.

They also provide more up-to-date instruction on cutting-edge topics. Some of the challenges tackled to date include developing alloys with very high aluminum-copper content, die casting of low-iron alloys, high-production modified heat treatments, and direct-pour sand casting. The Chair also organizes its operations so that students can observe castings as part of their courses. Through projects designed by the Chair, two students won the 2013 and 2014 Prix de la relève (next-generation award) at the REGAL (Regroupement Aluminium) student day.

The benefits for SME productivity can prove spectacular as well. One example is a mold initially designed empirically, then “virtually” modified in a three-phase modeling process that not only improved quality, but also increased casting capacity from 10 to 15 units an hour while using 20 per cent less metal. Results from six research projects have been published in the 2014 and 2015 conference proceedings of the American Foundry Society and the 2014 and 2015 annual convention of the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum.

Industry: Manufacturing

About Cégep de Trois-Rivières

Fortement impliqué dans le développement socioéconomique de sa région, le Cégep de Trois-Rivières accueille près de 4 1750 élèves inscrits à l’enseignement régulier dans 40... Learn more
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Composite Aerospace Component Manufacturing

In the aerospace field, the quality and reliability of manufacturing processes is vital. Research and development are the very core of this industry and are key to growth and development through innovation.

The use of new materials, such as composites, is increasingly common to reduce the weight of aircraft and improve performance. The Industrial Research Chair in Composite Aerospace Component Manufacturing at Edouard-Montpetit was created from a need expressed by the industry.

This research chair facilitates knowledge acquisition and offers access to a team of specialized workers, factors that can help companies remain competitive in an international market. It also builds knowledge about the manufacture of composite parts, supports the local supply chain, and maximizes training opportunities. It aims to be a “one-stop-shop” for the development of aircraft composites.

Staff at the Centre technologique en aerospatiale (CTA), Bombardier and smaller enterprises such as FDC Composites, Hutchinson and Texonic, along with several university partners, are working in partnership to prove and market new technologies. Dubé has had a direct impact on the training of future aerospace technicians at the École nationale d’aérotechnique (ÉNA) since 2013. ÉNA teachers have been involved in various projects, and in technological demonstrations on resin transfer moulding and infusion which are attended by nearly 120 students every year.

Dubé and his research team facilitate collaboration between SMEs and Bombardier to develop composite parts by providing a cutting-edge technological workshop and a team of specialists. Bombardier is solidly committed to using composite materials in the manufacture of its new devices and its aircraft division is currently developing products that are highly innovative in their intensive use of composite materials. These high-performance materials make it possible to build lighter, more aerodynamic and fuel-efficient aircraft.

To date, several primary aircraft structure parts have been developed at CTA. Since the inception of the Research Chair program, over 100 structural-quality composite parts, from simple test plates to a complex fitting, have also been built. Based in innovation and excellent productivity of local companies, this type of partnership between industry and the research chair provides the aerospace industry with qualified and specialized workers.

“The research framework and CTA’s specialized team have certainly accelerated our development projects,” says Didier Hoste, Section Chief of Aerostructures Technology Development at Bombardier.

Industry: Manufacturing

About Cégep Édouard-Montpetit

Établissement d’enseignement supérieur francophone, constitué du campus de Longueuil et de l’École nationale d’aérotechnique, le Cégep Édouard-Montpetit met en oeuvre des programmes d’études et des... Learn more
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Clear Skies with Advanced Green Technology

Clear Blue Technologies designs on-grid and off-grid wind and solar energy devices for renewable energy manufacturers.

In 2012, Clear Blue and George Brown partnered to develop, manufacture, and test 20 prototypes of a key product. Clear Blue and the college have partnered again recently to develop a manufacturing process for Clear Blue’s Blackbird and Eagle releases.

The goal is to improve and scale the current manufacturability of its products and automate the existing manual manufacturing and testing of their systems. The company expects product quality and reliability to improve with proper reliability testing. This latest phase has supported Clear Blue in developing the process for a manufacturable for an outsourced subcontract Blackbird product. This involved working through an alpha version, a beta version and a version 1.0 of the Eagle product, and product and production testing processes. Clear Blue now has seven employees building, selling, and marketing these solar- and wind-powered solutions, and anticipates increasing their staff to 15-25 people over the next 18 months.

“Working with George Brown, we benefited from education programs specific to our industry, worked with great faculty, and had a strong and talented pool to draw from, leading to one of our first employees. Their faculty have assisted us as well – they provided assistance to review technology / hardware, as well as access to some equipment we didn’t have,” says Clear Blue Technologies.

This partnership has been mutually beneficial, matching industry experience with academic rigour, while serving as a conduit to the commercialization of green technology and student training. To date, Clear Blue’s application has had pilot systems installed at Mercedes Benz, Texas University, Stresscrete Alabama, Burlington Hydro, and George Brown College. Patents for their products have been filed in Canada and the U.S.

See video for more information.

Industry: Manufacturing

About George Brown Polytechnic

George Brown strives to build a seamless bridge between learners and employment by developing dynamic programs that are informed by industry and workplace-ready graduates who... Learn more