The labor shortage has been in the headlines for months now, but for certain categories of trades, it reflects a reality well before the current crisis. If today there is a lack of grocery, bakery, hardware or restaurant clerks, companies in the manufacturing sector have struggled for years to recruit assembler-welders, a rare commodity, but nevertheless essential to their survival. same.
Whenever I visit a company located in an industrial park, whether in Laval, in the Bas-du-Fleuve, on the North Shore or in Beauce, I am always struck by the number of manufacturing companies that post on huge panels claim their crying need for manpower and more specifically for welders.
It is a phenomenon which does not date from yesterday. The Quebec manufacturing sector has been lacking this specialized workforce for more than 10 years, forcing many companies in the sector to use the temporary foreign worker program to fill a fraction of the positions that are available, but that do not. not find a taker.
This was notably the case with the ADF Group (Au Dragon Forgé) of Terrebonne, which specializes in the design, manufacture and installation of steel superstructures with a high level of architectural complexity.
ADF manufactured the 450-foot steel antenna that sits atop Tower 1 of the World Trade Center in New York, as well as the steel structure of the Videotron Center in Quebec City or part of the central landing of the new Samuel-De Champlain bridge.
About fifteen years ago, ADF brought in some thirty welders – and their families – from Germany to meet its needs that the local workforce could not meet.
“There isn’t one left. When you come to work in Quebec at the age of 40, you don’t necessarily want to settle, you want to come back home. This is what happened, ”notes Jean Paschini, CEO of ADF Group.
Since the labor shortage has grown to become the crisis we know today, all the specialists keep saying it and repeating it: automation is the lifeline to free companies from part of this overwhelming scourge, and that is exactly what the ADF Group has undertaken to do.
The company, which this week unveiled the financial results for its third quarter, has a growing order book, as evidenced by its revenues of 110 million against 47 million last year.
To meet the growing demand in the United States, which will be stimulated over the next five years by President Biden’s infrastructure investment program, ADF has decided to give it a big blow by robotizing an entire welding assembly line from giant steel structures.
The biggest in the world
“We decided to change strategy. We are investing 30 million to robotize one of our four assembly lines at our Terrebonne plant. We are achieving a world first, it will be the largest automated line in the world, ”says Jean Paschini.
Groupe ADF called on an Austrian group to carry out this technological first. The 65-foot-wide by 300-foot-long production line will be equipped with four robots that will assemble and weld complex steel structures.
The technology exists, but the Austrian manufacturer has never robotized a line of this magnitude. Installation begins in January and entry into service is scheduled for April. It is a major investment, but one that will be profitable.
Jean Paschini, CEO of ADF Group
The entry into service of this automated assembly line will produce 45,000 tonnes of steel per year, which represents the production achieved by 100 welder-assemblers per year.
“Our robotic line will manufacture in 50 minutes what would take our teams of welders 7 hours. Despite these productivity gains, we will keep all our workers in place and we will have to hire 100 additional people over the next year.
“We will also have to call on workers specializing in programming and electromechanics to handle our robotic line”, puts the entrepreneur in context.
But, he observes, the ADF Group will be able to better cope with the expected increase in its order book. ADF achieves 90% of its turnover in the United States where the group has a plant in Montana which allows it to tender on federal projects, governed by the Buy American Act, especially bridges.
The next step will be to robotize an assembly line in Montana as we do in Terrebonne to increase productivity there too.
The ADF Group has numerous projects in the United States, where it has just completed the new Los Angeles airport and is working on those in Salt Lake City and Kansas City. “We also manufacture steel for two buildings of 2.5 million square feet for Amazon in New York and Seattle,” adds Jean Paschini.
“The 2028 Olympics are coming to Los Angeles, we’re going to be very busy in California. But we also have a lot of work in New York, where we have already made steel for 15 skyscrapers, as well as in Florida. There is only in Quebec where it is quieter, but at least we are working on the construction of the new maintenance garage of the STM ”, underlines the entrepreneur who is not a prophet in his country …