Suppliers find answers in Fortin Discovery Lab

State-of-the-art gear includes 3D printers, injection molding machines, oscilloscopes, CNC milling machines, isolation chambers, an environmental test unit, and circuit assembly tools

Located in the NORCAT facility in Sudbury, the Fortin Discovery Lab has assembled an impressive suite of services for product development. If you have an idea, they can help you visualize it in a virtual world. If you are fabricating components, you can create them in thermoplastic or metal. If you are developing an app, the lab offers design and software solutions.

“Fundamentally, the Fortin Discovery Lab allows existing companies to expand their capabilities as needed by accessing the latest high-tech tools or engaging highly skilled engineers,” said lab founder Tom Fortin.

The facility wasn’t established to serve the mining supply and service sector exclusively, but in the ecology of the Sudbury business landscape, mining figures prominently. “The lab has been used to design power supplies for mining equipment, IP68-rated cases, electrical connectors, as well as stainless steel and plastic components. Our engineers have also consulted on IoT electronics design for mining products,” said Michael Dolinar, director of daily operations.
The reach of this facility is much larger geographically than Sudbury. Requests for assistance have come from Europe, California and even China, and while projects can be for industry, the consumer market, or equipment manufacturers, they can even come from the world of competitive sports.

Dolinar is decidedly proud of the lab’s global influence: “We provide local and international companies with access to high-tech equipment and expertise… expanding their capabilities by contracting the Fortin Discovery Lab’s expert engineers to perform a variety of tasks, from product design to manufacturing.”

Maestro Digital Mine vice-president Michael Gribbons used the Fortin Discovery Lab to test electronic hardware for compliance with export market standards. “If the Fortin Discovery Lab didn’t exist in Sudbury, we would have been forced to look for a facility in southern Ontario or outside of Canada. By having it here in Sudbury, we were able to rapidly determine the requirements to meet these standards and compete head-to-head with manufacturers in other countries.”

Jeff Fuller, president ACRFuller, echoes the sentiments of many users of the lab: “The Fortin Lab has been an amazing resource for the development of our leak prevention system (for piping). They assisted with rapid prototyping, radio frequency enabling, programming and problem solving. It’s not an exaggeration to say that it saved us months of time and thousands of dollars in development costs.”

Local businesses give two thumbs up for the state-of-the-art gear, such as 3D printers, injection molding machines, oscilloscopes, CNC milling machines, isolation chambers, an environmental test unit, and circuit assembly tools.

Marc Richard, chief engineer at Symboticware Incorporated, a NORCAT tenant, also acknowledges the role the lab played in the development of the company’s fourth generation SymBot (see story on Page 4). “The prototyping facilities assisted us with equipment whose cost we couldn’t justify. The testing equipment provided us the ability to verify our design’s reliability without leaving our building,” he said.

Having the Fortin Discovery Lab in Sudbury speeds product development for local mining suppliers. “Without needing to outsource or await shipping/delivery, our design loop is much tighter, even allowing us to make changes to the design during the build,” said Richard. “And the seamless transition of taking a 3D-printed prototype to injection molding for production gives us that quick turn from development to manufacturing.”

Fortin is delighted to hear these stories of successful product development, and knows the lab is building confidence and competencies in areas that would not normally be seen in Sudbury-based companies. Given the right tools, mentorship, and stimulating projects “…there are several individuals who are well on their way to being part of the next generation of manufacturing and innovation leaders in Sudbury.”