Transcript for:
Advanced Manufacturing Sector Challenges Discussion

so with that I just want to thank you for joining us it's going to be a great discussion today um and you've got the questions you spend a little bit of time hopefully taking a look at those jays given a little bit of a review so with that again we'll turn it over to Jason to get us started Jason and I'm I'm just sitting in the Wilds of Northwest Territories here uh conducting this uh this discussion so thanks everybody for uh just thanks everybody for joining uh the uh uh the discussion here I think as I mentioned the uh the idea here is really get get everybody's input your perspectives we have really eclectic group of Business Leaders here from a number of our uh projects uh that we've supported and um uh and everyone is involved in progressing uh advancing the advanced manufacturing sector here in uh in Canada but of course uh uh that sector and and uh manufacturers around the world industry around the world is facing some major challenges a lot of the supply chain related uh challenges but uh but uh broadening out from the idea of Supply chains into the idea of of value chains what it takes to what it takes to produce uh value for customers today uh really widens the discussion a lot more than just simply product Supply chains to now we're talking about how Innovation Works into this and how how Partnerships how International Development uh plays a key role here as well but uh I think we can all kind of look back three years ago to the good old days when supply chain problems were only a ship stuck in the Suez Canal uh and now of course we're looking at conflict in uh in Ukraine the impact that that's had we're looking at uh growing trade tensions and trade restrictions uh demographic problems that uh aging population can't get enough people which is affecting industry around the world and of course Logistics bottlenecks uh as well and real disruptions in in shipping over the past couple of years if anything that might be getting a little bit better but there's still some major problems in terms of Transportation Logistics as well so everybody comes from a different a different perspective and I'm going to just move across my screen here and and ask everybody maybe to introduce yourself introduce your company and say a few things about what you're seeing right now what what are the major challenges that your your business is facing or your your broader value chain is is facing maybe start with uh uh with Kevin from macrodyne thanks Jay my name is Kevin Fernandez I'm the president here at macrodyne we're the largest hydraulic press manufacturer in North America we make some pretty big stuff 50 65 feet tall can weigh 1 million two million four million pounds so uh when we talk about supply chain disruptions we're really talking about stuff that's required to make really big equipment what we're you know we've faced I think everyone's face this Electronics disruption but it does seem to slowly be getting better we faced an equal disruption in getting robots you know a lot of folks want to do Automation and so looking for robots there's been a disruption there but again we see that getting better well we don't see getting better is the capital goods infrastructure to manufacture big things so I mentioned in our presses can be up to four million pounds usually a component's 80 tons there's not a lot of folks out there that can weld up to 80 tons that can machine up to 80 tons and people are hesitant to add additional Capital Equipment to do that in the given environment so that's probably the biggest challenge I'm seeing right now thanks God I mean next to my screen is David um yeah David McNaughton I'm uh Canadian president of palantir Technologies um we uh the company started uh 18 years ago really after 9 11 focused on uh the fact that um there was very little uh sharing of information among the intelligence services in the United States and um we've developed Technologies to actually bring real-time data together from different Source disparate sources and then in about 2014-15 obviously started to apply that uh approach to uh the commercial sector and really have focused a lot on complex supply chain uh problems companies with multiple manufacturing sites where they were delegating all of the decision making down to the local level but not sharing data together and not being able to capture opportunities for um you know for years you know savings or uh for increased revenues and um you know what's really happened in the last few years because of not just the the pandemic issues and some of the other logistical but all the things that Jay mentioned the political uncertainty that uh you know Ukraine situation everything else uh a lot of our business is now focused on helping companies understand better in real time all the complex issues that come into managing the supply chains so it really is a big Focus uh we've done lots of work around the world with the companies that have complex supply chain challenges and I wouldn't say that we've perfected them all but we've shown many many companies how they can save a lot of money um in terms of better better understanding all of the complex issues that go into decision making around supply chain thanks David and there are there are lots of complex issues when when we uh started looking at some of the supply chain challenges a couple of years ago what one thing that we heard a lot was well we know what our suppliers are doing but we don't know what their suppliers are right are actually facing too and I think that's that's something that uh uh our project with uh with palantir has really helped particularly in the auto parts side to to take a look at at a broader a broader Network which is going to be even more important not just in terms of managing risk but when it comes to things like mapping out uh carbon footprint uh right across the supply chain or tracking and tracing um quality product across the across International Supply chains these are going to be even more important to get that that type of data so Barry uh you're you're next and uh I'm at Barry son uh really early on when we were trying to um scale up the production of critical products to uh to fight the pandemic uh various parts of uh of the PPE supply chain uh but also medical devices uh biomanufacturing and if there is something that really hit home right at the very beginning uh of the pandemic is that we didn't have a lot of the this product in Canada and there's a real push to uh uh to uh produce that to produce more critical product in in Canada so Barry tell us a little bit about what you're doing what pressure index does sure so um yeah Barry Hunt the president and CEO of prescient and um we're primarily in the engineered infection prevention space so developing Technologies and materials that you know keep particularly Healthcare facilities safe but now other communities based as public spaces Etc safe as well and we also pivoted uh during the pandemic to produce uh respirators you know that were desperately needed um for PBE and so so the the good news out of the whole pandemic really that supply chain Interruption of PPE brought Jay and I together so thanks Jay um and uh and I think you know it's given us an opportunity to have some input into government not just on PPE side but into supply chain for healthcare in particular but also some other things as well and um I mean there's a lot of things that we have in common you know there are critical components that are computer chips or rare earth metals Etc but PPE for us was the start of it and it was really I think the canary and the coal mine that said okay when the chips are down the countries that have X are going to hang on to it and they're going to look after themselves and that even included our allies our friends so in the U.S we were locked out of getting respirators and PPE and even certifications for respirators in the U.S and kind of still are so um so it's really incumbent upon us to have domestic Supply chains for critical infrastructure for for critical items and um you know again that's going to be more and more important I think as we go forward there's the geopolitical instability of course but in my world there's the health care side of it and um we have odd things that have happened here in Canada weird things like the government effectively banned UV products here in Canada because they wanted to regulate UV installations during an Airborne pandemic and so for two and a half years Canadian manufacturers of UV products that are desperately needed for pandemic use are restricted from selling well you know those are things that we need to address by having one arm of government talk to another arm of government to uh to get that left after but going forward the impact of you know originally we had lockdowns that were a problem that we had covert was a problem and now we have long covet as a problem so labor shortages etc etc and continuing um burden on hospitals and costs of health care we're spending 11.2 billion dollars a year now just to treat covid patients in the hospital with seven percent of our hospital beds are already tied up for this year before we continue on this year so there's a lot of things that we we need to look at that are going to interrupt but for me I always worry now about the next pandemic so this one's getting worse and worse even though it's not being the data's not being shared David you and I should talk about data sharing um but we have h5n1 around the corner that has in 20 years emerged and then jumped from birds to mammals and now mammal to mammal and now we're just waiting it to go human to human right Cambodia just this week has had one death and then now the father of the girl that just died of bird flu uh has it and you know once he gets the human to human transmission now you have a disease of 50 mortality um and so it's not covered it's not a low mortality it's a high mortality and more and more of these disease are going to keep coming out so um that's those are risks that we're going to have to face because we have to figure out a way to manage our economies and manage our businesses around that and it's not hard um but we have to face the data and put the put better ventilation in and better respiratory PPE when we need it where we need it and that's it and continue on so thanks Jay yeah thanks Mary that's a bit of a cold shower but uh realistic view of the rest so we don't uh we don't know the risks that uh that lie ahead and there's some uh severe ones uh there and how important this is for Canadians for the world as a whole not just for manufacturing of course uh two Louis Antoine I want to ask you whatever we Barry was mentioning some of the problems around uh uh Workforce and in um not only in in manufacturing of course but uh but in a lot of sectors and not only in Canada but we're seeing rapid rates of retirement as Baby Boomers uh uh step back and uh and not as many young people entering the workforce in in particularly in advanced manufacturing the the numbers in Canada are some like 25 26 percent of the workforce present will be retired in 10 years and uh you've got about five or six percent of the workforce uh uh composed of people under the age of 30. so labor shortages are here to stay uh and companies are going to react uh and are reacting by uh increasing the degree of automation so we're not only facing labor shortages and which we will continue to face but we'll be continuing to face skill shortages uh as well so uh Luanne please introduce yourself deep site is uh is a great project partner that has developed a solution exactly for some of those uh some of those problems yes so my name is Louis I'm the head of sales at deepsite which is a software as a service leveraging augmented reality and smart glasses for Knowledge Management in the manufacturing sector so I'm less focused on the logistics side but you mentioned a great Point uh Jason um just to give you an idea I have statistics for Quebec in Quebec the labor shortage today is about 250 000 uh jobs to fill by 2030 we estimate that statistics Canada estimates that it's going to be 1.4 million jobs vacant jobs only in Quebec and it's the situation is pretty much similar for the rest of Canada so if we think that we're having an issue today with labor shortage it's going to get worse the main risk with that is that most companies don't have a succession plan they don't have their procedures documented or if they are they're poorly documented and so we're gonna have to train a next generation of workers with less documentation and so the next generation of workers will be less skilled and they will have less resources to get skilled so what we developed at Deep Side is a suite of tools to automate the knowledge capture of these experts that are leaving for retirement but also to automate the knowledge transfer to the Next Generation and this is going to be vital even for you know for a global supply chain because we're seeing countries like China for example that traditionally had a a very a highly skilled Workforce and today their Workforce is less skilled uh they're they're transitioning like like uh Western countries more to you know university studies for most of the population so we need to find ways to transfer the technical knowledge that we've that we have today to the next generation of workers and we think that this can be automated through smart glasses and augmented reality so nice to meet you all great thanks and uh and Gary uh Europe next but uh you know as we're looking at uh supply chain issues and broaden that out into today the discussion is around uh reduction of carbon emissions extremely important to for uh manufacturers around the world to take the initiative here and and uh uh great challenges but also also some big opportunities uh uh coming up tell us a little bit about what uh carbocrete does and what some of the supply chain issues at UC yeah I'll be happy to yeah my name is Gary uh as uh mentioned I'm the Chief Operating Officer of a startup company it's it's five years in the making but it's still a startup called Kirby Crete before I get into what carb recruit does I I have to tell you that between Louis artwan who's telling us about less and less skilled workers and then Barry is telling us that those less skill workers we have are going to get bird flu I'm getting a little depressed here yeah but uh anyway that's we'll stick to the supply chain as I said was founded in 2016 uh I've got 20 plus years experience I I was in the Navy before and then I've got 20-year experience uh in the concrete world and that's why I came to Kirby Creek this Kirby Crete uh has developed a technology that's patented uh across the world that allows us to make concrete products but with no cement content whatsoever I mentioned before cement it's about eight percent of CO2 emissions in the world so if you eliminate cement from that process it's kind of a cool deal um and on top of that that tells you and we replace cement by a byproduct of the uh a reject basically of the steel manufacturing industry called slag that slag typically a very small percentage of it can be used for Road aggregate but for the most part it it needs to be buried somewhere and it costs money to do that as it's a big problem so slag becomes a replacement for cement and and on top of that to uh to make that slag um you know uh firm up the concrete product we need to inject CO2 into a chamber uh so not only are we carbon neutral because we've limited cement but all of a sudden we injecting CO2 we became uh we become carbon negative so the blocks and the pavers that we produce as a result are anywhere between you know 0.5 to 0.7 kilogram uh negative so every time you put one of our blocks uh you're basically reducing CO2 in the atmosphere uh that's what brought me here about six months ago I I didn't believe it at first I saw it firsthand and they blew me away with the technology and we're very excited about it now uh one of the challenge one of the first challenge that I faced when I came here were in the process of a key a component of our technology is what we call the curing chamber and typically when you manufacture concrete products with cement you put the products in the curing chamber you heat it up a bit and 24 hours later your block is pretty much firmed up with slag because we need to eject CO2 we have a special pressurized curing chamber it's low pressure but it's still pressurized so it's a more complex technologically advanced chamber and when I came on board we were installing or manufacturing and installing our first two curing Chambers at a test site a partner a company called patio Drummond outside of Montreal and the project because of supply chain issues uh and we haven't we had a manufacturer in the engineering firm from Calgary actually local Canadian firm the people before me were smart and enough to at least try and keep the supply chain close to within the country but in spite of that we were at least six months behind in installing or getting our chamber and it it wasn't from lack of trying from our local manufacturers but they were dependent like most of you guys were talking about on components that on which they had no control very high-tech stuff control panels controlled uh board Etc so not only were we six months late because of the delay in getting those parts uh but on top of that we had to make a lot of adjustments and and find suitable replacement because we would have probably been a year and a half late so in finding those Replacements we ended up being at least 40 percent over uh over budget in our project so it's been our horrendous experience for us and looking forward to the future we're looking at all care kinds of alternatives to try and prevent that this was just a test but we need to build between four to five hundred of those chambers over the next five years so needless to say we need to look at Alternatives not to suffer the same kind of uh you know experience as we did the first time around big big challenge for us thanks Gary let me uh move on to uh Eric and uh Eric's got a a I think a strategic view as head of uh Saskatchewan industrial mining suppliers Association uh both from some of the supply chain constraints for your members Eric but also some of the opportunities that some of your memories are also also facing so what's uh what does it look like out in Saskatchewan how much snow do you guys have well it's -31 the wind chill is 40. um there's a fair bit of snow I need heat um no no it's colder than hell here frankly um but I can say that's a Bobby sunny day yeah we're probably one of the few places on Earth that's really benefiting from the Ukraine being invaded we produce food fertilizer and nuclear fuel and which Kazakh I mean Russia was fertilizer and nuclear fuel which now got caught off so chemical buys Westinghouse and now are providing all the nuclear fuel to the Ukraine and they'll probably be announcing Poland and Czechoslovakia to follow which is all based on stuff mined here right Kazakhstan chemicals World Headquarters is literally down the street for me we're also the world's leading producer of nutrient the world's leading producer fertilizer is also based here just down the street they're both here and when Russia and Belarus got cut off all of a sudden a bunch of the world's fertilizer got cut off so we're producing that the other problem is when Ukraine got invaded all of a sudden one of the world's largest crop producers got taken off the market so our crops are now worth more and the fertilizer to grow more crops became scarce because of Russia and Belarus which all once again comes back here um so we're doing okay we have a labor shortage we're probably short about 70 000 workers in our sector alone automation would be a good idea um I'm thank Jason for putting this event together to help me solve my problems um Kevin you mentioned Capital needs in large pressure we do we have a lot of members that regularly work with things up to 200 tons and steel Fabrications pressure vessels for not only the potash sector and crystallizers but also work for the oil sands sector in Alberta and we just ship them they're 200 tons and they're put four semis together and and four tractors to push them but we'll take them from here into Alberta we have the transportation routes um we're working with BHP on carbon reduction we have an agreement with them we are the vet for local content for the Johnson potash project which right now is about 10 billion and probably another five coming in the next couple years uh we're doing all that uh but also with them we're working on the carbon reduction strategies for the world um so anything we can do there so carbon tracking David we'll need you um Barry Hunt you Barry I've already met with about PPE stuff um um knowledge transfer will probably become a big thing Louie for us as we try to grow and everybody's retiring we're going to need to get that going um carbon free cement free concrete we use a lot here I'll need to talk to you Gary um and get that plugged into our systems we've got people here doing that we also have exclusive agreements where the supply chain developer for for the province anyway for X energy GE attache and the organization Canadian nuclear industry so all the SMR work we're doing that I'm putting together I'm meaning um and given chemicals here we're also doing nuclear fuel work um we're getting asked for export help now I've put together an event for the government of Kazakhstan on March 6th in Toronto to help them develop their potash basins uh and then work with them on their the middle Corridor and developing the supply chain uh connecting China to Kazakhstan through the Caspian Sea Uzbekistan Georgia into turkey and then into western eastern Europe um steel is a shortage for us Labor's a problem but maybe robots can a knowledge transfer can help that out um yeah so that's what we're working on it's it's it's busy and it's really important but we're doing it thanks Eric you probably want to meet with Mitch and Billy here I'm going to introduce and uh in a few minutes too so these guys are uh are both leaders in the field of additive manufacturing yeah that's why I'm going to ask you to introduce yourself uh uh introduce yourself first so totally uh disruptive type of manufacturing technology uh but but also one that's facing some pretty big challenges too certainly thanks Jay amazing group here so diverse and uh yeah it's great to be meeting all of you I'll definitely follow up with a few of you afterwards um to pick your brains but yeah um one of the founders of Mosaic manufacturing we began it about 10 years ago now uh very lucky to be funded by ngen supporting us with a bunch of uh Partners in Canada to bring 3D printing to the factory floor um you know historically scaling up manufacturing many companies especially in the mechatronics consumer product space are forced to go overseas we saw that 3D printing could offer them a ton of benefits much Greener approach the ability to cut super long lead times down to a much shorter amount to iterate in their designs more quickly and excitingly to do things locally um the problem is anyone who's used a 3D printer before will know parts coming off are expensive and it's very slow so what we did is we solved that problem from a first principles perspective we Mass parallelize the process and apply automation so that you drastically cut down on the dependence on skilled labor so the you know people can be engineering and designing rather than going in at 2 am on a Saturday night to run the printers um so over the past five years we've kind of had a stealth launch this into the market uh and excitedly uh our biggest customers contracted to buy uh 300 of our array systems which is 1200 printers it's over a million uh Print hours capacity and they're going to be making a hundred thousand pieces a day of of one of their products so this is true scale this is True Manufacturing and they're they're shutting down their Factory in China and opening it up in a few places in Canada and the US so that's our business we we full stack software Hardware materials support you name it and it's interesting because we sit on both sides of this problem we're helping companies on Shore their manufacturing but we ourselves are a manufacturer who really struggle with um over the past three years we've transitioned half of our manufacturing from China to Canada which is really exciting but admittedly really challenging there's so many problems and things that we just aren't there yet on and we're trying to kind of you know fit a square peg into a round hole uh to make it happen so um it's an interesting Challenge and I guess one one comment I want to make on what we're seeing in our in our space um a lot of businesses they see why it's compelling to onshore and to switch from you know injection molding or die casting or CNC Machining to 3D printing but there's always that early adopter risk that's not everyone's an early adopter some companies they look for ways to de-risk it and not everyone can be part of engine so they look to the broader government they look for programs and there isn't a ton that helps companies build factories in Canada at least at the small level so we are seeing a lot of customers who are in that place where they kind of want to wait a few years to see all the other successful deployments so that it's de-risked and until then they're still comfortable saying ah it's twice as expensive it says to slow but I'm used to working with China so I'll keep working with China and just getting people past that hump you know this isn't news to anybody but uh change can be a bit scary for for a lot of companies and that's one of the things that we face thanks Mitch I want to come back to this issue about onshoring and uh in a minute and uh and maybe come back to you on uh on that but uh let me introduce Billy Rideout uh too from uh from exergy Billy you've been uh working with energy companies and uh and additive and uh uh and have both uh you know a view in terms of overall industry Supply problems but also some of the opportunities uh that you see as as well so it's a it's a common theme here I think across everybody but tell us what you're seeing out in uh in Calgary yeah um yeah we play more in the heavy industry and energy space and uh definitely Eric there's a value in us getting together because we we also Supply to mining more in Alberta and oil sands and there's probably some really good opportunities to see how we can help uh fertilizer business and um and uh nuclear in the mining side of things there uh I I would say kind of big picture we work more with energy and heavy industry and the the opportunity we're seeing right now is that from a supply chain point of view they sometimes they'll have like a turnaround they'll crack open the equipment and they'll find out that things are worn out and and then they go try to find it and they can't so it the additive manufacturing digital inventory notion um upgrading materials and as you're actually say 3D printing parts for those Industries is is certain to see some traction for for us here um I think that it's you know when when the facility is down you know those there's millions of dollars a day so there there's a they don't they see this as an opportunity to kind of keep keep the operations reliable and and running running steady I I would say that in a post-pandemic I I would say that there's like like when Mitch talks about what's going on which is great news with his array system like I I think that's almost triggered like I think differently mindset so they're now even though like economics and the cost of the part are a factor but it's that security of supply chain that to me is driving some of those decisions so they're exploring these spaces be it uh systems that Mitch offers or or metal systems I I see the challenge though is is we don't have a large you know we've been talking about robots automation say lights out manufacturing it's very Capital intensive and and I think they'll you know there would probably be a consolidation in this space um because these are Big multi-million dollar Investments robots that are picking parts and I I think we can definitely onshore but these are very Capital intensive installations so I think that's going to be one of the bigger challenges as we want to onshore um added manufacturing is is really the scaling up those installations is it it's a chicken and egg the additive business you gotta find applications you gotta bring customers you got to be able to base load your machines and so that's that's the challenge but uh yeah overall I mean what a great group of people here great diverse group people I'm definitely going to reach out to a few of you after the call so great yeah awesome we've all kind of touched on it uh oh and sorry I don't want to let Sean off uh care uh as well because Sean does a lot of work with particularly with uh smaller companies uh too and uh and helping them grow but uh but also just helping them manage their business so Sean what are you what are you seeing uh here from uh kind of the front line of some of the companies you work with well I think very much as many have mentioned from a supply chain standpoint some issues have been resolved I was saying to somebody this morning it's like if you travel a lot depending on where you go it's it's wet coven right because you think in some cases when you're on an airplane uh kova never existed so a lot of issues have been resolved but there are some underlying issues that many companies are still facing with Specialty Products Electronics steel um I think that the challenge that I'm I'm interested in David's perspective on is you know the idea of near Shoring which some of you have mentioned I think the biggest obstacle is cost and and if that cost can be surpassed the next challenge is where do we find the people because now we're bringing more more manufacturing more business to Canada um and you know that's going to take more labor that we just don't have so um you know I kind of echo what everybody here has said and I'm interested in some of the perspectives on as we go forward now well let's talk about whether it's uh near Shoring onshoring for ensuring uh all of these uh these terms are are being used right now um if you look at the uh the economic data for Canada uh the amount of uh product that manufacturers are importing from uh China and from the United States is just about exactly the same today as it was three years ago so there isn't a lot of evidence yet uh that a lot of onshoring is going on across across the entire manufacturing uh sector uh uh there's a but I did want to I do want to talk about like what what lies ahead here um the one thing that has changed over the pandemic though is that Canadians are buying more Canadian product uh than ever before uh the strange thing is that the displacement of imports uh is not from China it's from the United States and which is a very it's not what you what you expect uh with everybody talking about North American consolidation integration and onshoring so maybe let me ask David a very specific question here because there are there are all sorts of issues that uh that Canada has given our integrated supply chain with the United States and of course uh the new um uh the new uh uh act that uh that uh the Biden Administration has uh has championed a number of pieces of legislation that uh you know aiming at uh at strengthening U.S manufacturing and uh uh and reshoring production into the United States so let me uh let me ask a specific uh question to David and then open it up to the group as you know David from your you have a great uh a great view as as kind of this foreign former ambassador of the United States what what lies ahead here for for Canada is there is there really an advantage for onshoring in Canada uh here yeah I I mean I think medium to long term there is I think there's no question that uh we Face some hurdles in the short term I think a lot of people in Canada think that you know Democrats are more friendly to Canada than Republicans and the reality is it is that the protectionist element within the Democratic party is very very strong and you saw that in uh Biden's State of the Union where you know he he talked about by America not just in general terms but in very specific terms and talked about even things like Lumber being part of by America and I I expect that and part of part of what's happened um and I will give Biden some credit for pulling together the alliance uh against Russia and the invasion of Ukraine and all that kind of stuff um he actually does think that the word Ally means something which Trump really didn't um but but uh they're gonna they're gonna confront the reality after whenever that war is over that um that the rest of the world is not very happy about the protectionist elements that are being placed and and you know Janet Yellen talks about friend Shoring but there's no evidence that they're doing anything to facilitate their allies being part of the economic solution and I think that's going to be the dominant subject when Biden comes to Canada I think that you know they're going to want to talk about critical minerals and I I understand that and that's good for us but we also need to have sort of an integrated view of this Market which was the whole concept behind the renegotiation of the NAFTA and I think um the reality is is that you know and you saw when macron came over and visited uh visited the U.S and said you know this this uh Ira thing is fine except that you're you're you know you're asking us to get off of Russian oil and gas and in the meantime you're putting all the incentives in terms of building your industry in the United States so I think this is going to be a really really intense discussion over the next little while and I think Canada's gonna end up in a pretty good spot because you know we we do have things that they need and I I really you know I I I I know um you know everybody's kind of looking at the world today and saying oh my God you know this is awful you know pandemic and labor shortages and and uh you know political uncertainty and everything else but but I I Look to what Eric said um and and you know about Saskatchewan if you if you think about it uh and I'm I said this speech of the day you know I said you know things are terrible in Canada they're really awful and I'm thinking of moving somewhere and what I what I'm looking for is I'm looking for a country that's got all sorts of energy resources that has have all the mineral resources that are going to be need for transition that's got a robust agricultural sector that's got access to 25 percent of the world's fresh water and has a positive attitude towards uh immigration does anyone know any country like that you know and and I think the reality is is that yeah we Face some really big challenges but I can't think of another country that is as ideally positioned as Canada and I think what you know and and hats off to UJ and the whole engine team what is needed is much more collaboration uh between government and Industry and and among governments in this country and you know put aside the sort of the the petty politics of of that happens to dominate social media and get get get along with with meeting all of the things that that the opportunities we've got rather than looking at the negative side of it so but it isn't going to be it isn't going to be smooth sailing it's going to be bumpy as hell and and uh you know it's going to take a few years for all this to sort out I just I just think that we are both from a you know a natural resource point point of view but also from a human resource point of view we've got some really talented people just looking around this group of entrepreneurs and people that really want to help build you know a a terrific uh terrific economy so so I'm I'm occasionally I get discouraged but but mostly I'm optimistic about what what we can do in this country thanks David uh so let's talk about some of those opportunities uh that everybody uh everybody sees because I I think we do get kind of tied up in on the risk side and uh and the impact on cost and and particularly in The Innovation space uh you know where we are seeing more activity is in the new Innovative types of advanced manufacturing that's where that's where we are seeing a lot more and and that as uh Eric says uh uh you know problems in one part of the world are creating opportunities uh uh right here in Canada so so Eric yeah it looks like you want to jump in well I've a question for David really quick I didn't realize your previous role so we're working on nuclear fuel work here obviously the big issue that we run into would be enrichment of nuclear fuel it's the and so now chemical has a big share of the global labor laser enrichment piece which is in the U.S but they can't export it back to Canada because the nuclear non-proliferation so we can do all the we can mine the fuel we can mine the uranium turn into the yellow cake send it off to Ontario which we'll probably do here next converted into uf6 then we have to send it down to the US to be enriched and then bring it back here um and so we kind of need that streamlined or the ability do you see any change in that policy in the enrichment thing are we just kind of stuck with it no I I mean look I think that the the nuclear industry faces you know it it's got some really big opportunities obviously with you know the smrs and all that kind of stuff but but I think the the the streamlining or the the making sense of the regulation um is is is a great opportunity and I don't know I I you know I I hadn't realized that complexity but but you know it doesn't make any sense to me and and and if we're looking at an integrated North American market and you know we did do a lot in terms of harmonizing regulations so you didn't have all of those problems so I I don't think it's an impossible Thing by any stretch of the imagination I don't think it should you know you shouldn't be patient with that kind of stuff because that doesn't make any sense at all okay thank you so the one thing that I forgot to mention we're working on which I think opens up to the group um So Rare Earth elements there are two rare thousand facility manufacturing facilities off the back corner of where I'm sitting one the Saskatchewan research council is there and the envital minerals is right like literally I could hit them both of the Stone from our back door um so what's happening is so the Saskatchewan research Council has worked to come up with the Technologies to separate the rarests into various little piles so they can actually do something with them and now they've got that done and they're chatting with the various battery manufacturers and autos and Aerospace and defense companies about the next step in the use of that technology and scaling it up the key is though is it has to happen here because we own the technology which is kind of nice so in Saskatoon here in the next bit there's going to be a bunch of rare Earth element manufacturing kicking in that has to happen here what I'm working on with them is finding the suppliers who would do the work so that if Ford comes here and says we want to do magnets or something here they want to know who's the supply chain who can do the work right if we set up here um de-risk this thing so um that's another thing we're working on that's an opportunity I mean that's these these things are um I'm just sitting here watching them all come in I've got I did an event two weeks ago the governments of Mali brakano Faso Ivory Coast and guinea um helping them build mining Supply chains because they're realizing how dangerous it is to be dependent on others for Supply chains and we got Ukraine coming here to chemical we've got we're doing stuff with countries all over the world now like we never did before because people are desperate to secure their food and energy and that's what we got and if I mean the opportunities are gargantuan so anyway if anybody else on the rare earth thing let me know thanks Eric Uh Kevin did you I saw your uh yeah I I mean I agree with most of the points uh I would say that the although you may not have seen the onshoring occur um it is occurring we're in the capital goods industry we have customers One customer spending 50 million dollars to restore 50 million U.S to reshore semiconductor manufacturing uh we're doing a complete lights out facility for them it's the presses the Press tending automation automatic guided Vehicles it'll be one person to operate an entire Factory which normally would have had dozens if not a hundred employees and I think that's the shift that we need to start to look at is um you know historically governments have always been about job creation and I think that's good but if we focus on job creation when we have a lack of job sorry lack of workers it doesn't help us we just start competing for the same resources it's not a good strategy I I think generally we need to focusing on the optimum capital capital allocation so getting the right pieces of equipment you know to as some of the other folks have said to install robots and automation is very expensive so we need to look at the right Supply chains the right pieces of equipment pieces of capital goods pieces of Manufacturers that we want to be in so that we can make the best of it and and I'm seeing that right now like we've got some huge projects doing that sort of thing where we're picking specific products that we can manufacture much more cost effectively with automation um so I do think it's you're gonna see it you're just you're just in the capital goods acquisition process right now so you probably won't see it hit the books for another year or so what's the problem with economics you think that things shift overnight or shift automatically and of course it takes in some cases takes years to set up that uh to set up the facility set up the uh the capital uh there so that's a that's a good uh really good point uh having any anyone else in terms of you know some of the opportunities you see opening up all right yeah Jay I I want to jump on the train there with uh David and uh Eric about you know the the very positive things that we see here right now um and I'm hoping we are going to try and leverage those things um on the world stage because we we do have all the resources in the world the land the water the minerals the rare earth metals etc etc we have a lot going for us there but we have a great educated Workforce we have proximity to a giant you know trading partner a market the U.S market right next door and we've got some pretty strong support on the Innovation side for advancing things so those are all good we also have some great I think um attractors or magnets for bringing in Talent right we've got um strong and and affordable universities and colleges and you know that you want to bring your your kids into your family into if you're a smart person we do have we are like number one for freedom and democracy and happiness and all those other quality of life measures uh we're a very safe country we have a great reputation for that for ethics and rule of law Etc and we have Universal Health Care or still even though it's a bit in flux um you know we have universe so there's a lot of things to draw that talently and then a lot of things that companies are looking for and um I think the one piece that we're missing um and we're not missing it here in the Innovation space I think we're missing the engines in all the other Ministries and all the other Departments of government so collaboration between industry and government is really a key yeah and a lot of color over the world and I see countries like Sweden for example I go to all these you know International meetings or writing Global standards for different things and Sweden's government funds so many industry Representatives go and write ISO standards for whatever it happens to me and they punch way above their weight and Export way more than what you would expect and we're not doing that here in Canada we need to tie procurement in with Innovation we need to tie solutions for you know pragmatic things like you know processing uranium or Healthcare Solutions all of that sort of thing we need an engine in every Ministry or a pragmatic strategic um you know Department set up for every industry to work together to collaborate industry and government together and um right now I think government has traditionally taken the view that they don't trust industry that you know the they're the other guys of that sort of thing but it can't be that way it has to be a team candidate approach and uh we have all the resources there if we can just work together collaboratively and I know industry is working together a lot more collaboratively amongst themselves and then here in the Innovation side we're working collaboratively with the government we need to do that through the rest of government and I think we're there great Point Barry like around like manufacturing lives everywhere and every vertical in every sector and I like your you know your view on there should be engines in all these areas of sorts like that whole concept especially if we're looking at onshoring and I I guess one thing I'd say though like where is that in in the government strategy like specifically around creating onshoring and I bet you there's hundreds of companies thinking about it but in order to tip the scales and get them actually making that move um because especially when you when you talk about building a facility where there's one employee like that doesn't sound very attractive to a government to fund it but strategically if we want to win in the long game we almost have to do make these moves so like almost the criteria for for for support systems has to change to be more you know not within the political Cycles you know election Cycles it has to kind of think 10 20 years out um but it's not a very popular I guess it wouldn't be a very popular program given that things will be automated and robots and although there will be people servicing those robots highly skilled personnel and there will be not direct jobs but indirect so I I you know maybe something for Jason or David to kind of comment on you know the one thing I will tell you is that um you know when we when when when Trump came to power and he threatened to rip up NAFTA and everybody realized that this was an existential threat to our prosperity in the country what happened was that there was a remarkable coming together of industry and government and and federal and provincial governments I went right across the country and met with every Premier in every cabinet we had regular uh contact with all sorts of industry and what was remarkable about it was that everybody kind of checked their either specific interests or politics at the door and we were looking out for the thing and it was it had we not had that I can tell you for sure we would not have been successful because it gave us insight as to what the impact it was and you know like uh Barry you would really remember early on in the in the pandemic when the U.S wanted to ban PPE from coming into Canada and all of a sudden they found out that the Pope that was going into the manufacturing it was coming from Nanaimo and so you know it's just um that kind of collaboration was everybody came together where there was a threat I think what needs to happen now is everybody needs to come together when they realize that there's such an opportunity because I don't think we'll be able to capture it fully without that kind of collaboration agreed oh yes uh that's really important you know I I don't know about creating engines all over the place maybe just one engine is uh I could do that could do the job but we're uh what we're doing is is so important in terms of looking at the collaboration but looking at a a real systems approach like it's not just industry it needs to be government it needs to be academic sector in the research sector and the financial investors and and everybody who who is uh who is a part of this and uh but it is a powerful a pretty powerful model uh especially if we can focus on these uh on these opportunities uh uh coming up I wanted to ask uh Louis Antoine because the the technology the Deep site has developed uh is pretty disruptive in terms of being able to quickly like in real time help uh employees uh understand what they're doing and make decisions um here guided uh through uh you know through the through vrar uh but it's real time on time training here how do you see that disrupting the the entire education system because I think that you know it's we talk about skilled workers and we got we've got great institutions that work very closely with with industry to do training and research and education uh uh here how that's why how do you see see the education system changing well Barry spoke about collaborations and that's definitely a way uh we work as well um in Quebec again I can only speak for Quebec because that's where we work today we're also a startup as Gary said uh what we see is that the vocational training centers have changed the way they work traditionally they would you know develop core competencies for workers um but those core competencies would not make the workers productive day one when they would come in and to work so these traditional those vocational training centers have changed their way of training workers so instead of doing traditional training they do what we call just-in-time training so instead they're more on the procedural side they're less on the onboarding side and so they will literally work with private companies to create work instructions and so more and more we see that these vocational training centers have Services targeted to companies to create their work instructions to document their procedures and instead of just giving General training to the the next generation of workers they're literally creating the procedures that they're going to view on the factory floor and that's you know that's definitely a way that they started to to operate because they were under constraints and sometimes you know constraint uh gives opportunities and we are today in a period of constraints so people are obligated to innovate and the traditional training where you were onboarding some somebody for months before they are productive on the factory floor is not possible anymore and and so even educational uh institutions that had the mandate to develop these core competencies or changing the way they're doing training and it's sad because you know we're not building core competencies but in the end our Workforce is productive faster uh so it just gives you an Insight on how you know the public side collaborates with the private side to be able to have a Workforce that is more productive listen we're uh we're coming up on the hour and I don't want to uh I don't want to uh take a lot more of your time here but uh maybe ask Gary and Mitch just for some closing comments Gary your uh your uh Focus here uh Ron regenerative regenerative material basically negative carbon material I think is uh is going to be key to answering some of the uh the problems we have in addressing uh climate change what are what are some of the barriers that you're facing in terms of growing the business here and and applying that technology and in other areas or don't don't tell us about the problems just tell us about the opportunities that you see yeah yeah the opportunities are are tremendous uh to be honest with you we haven't done a whole lot in terms of reaching out there for customers because you build it then they will come and it really is true in that case as soon as people hear the they knock on the door they they call so it's a tremendous opportunity the challenges associated with their twofolds one is of course like I said the supply chain issues which I think we have some solutions going forward but some of them are going to go back in time in Old old-fashioned Solutions some of them are going to be as as rudimentary as we're renting a warehouse and storing pre-manufactured parts so that uh and even control panels and all that so that we're ready to go to market but that that that is one issue the but the main issue I would say uh challenging us and everyone else around the stable I believe is the Manpower the skill Manpower and our company is is filled with engineers and masters of Engineers a few phds and we need more and uh and that's we are constantly recruiting and trying to bring people in the good news is I think we have good programs to offer them and we have good challenges to offer those people and yet but we still have to find them and we're competing with probably around everybody around the stable and other Industries as well so that's going to be our challenge going forward it's it's the ultimate challenge for for years to come I'm sure for all of us is the skilled labor that we need uh but we think we have something exciting to offer you know being in clean tech and all that the Young Generation and all that I think they embrace it but we we will see yeah you know in our careers of the future initiative we went out and we were the idea was to attract young people into advanced manufacturing careers and uh we started first talking about all the great technology in advanced manufacturing and uh you know it's just an expectation uh on the part of young people of course you have you have great technology that's what Advanced manufacturing is supposed to be all about uh and and then you realize that the people who are really have concerns about are young people's ability to work with technology or people who couldn't work with technology themselves they're still there's no problems putting the mics on and uh yeah yeah absolutely and stuff like that like me but um but what did make a difference uh with young people was telling them come and work at Advanced manufacturing because that's the sector that's developing the solutions to address climate change and food security yeah and so forth so match you and and let me just uh kind of wrap up our discussion by asking Mitch about now you work really closely with uh with a lot of schools with universities colleges uh what's your what's your view in in terms of of uh the future here uh for uh that not just in terms of the the skills issues but but Advanced manufacturing and attracting young people uh in the future yeah I think it's exactly what you said it's uh I was part of a couple of those talks on the careers of the future and it's you know young kids they they want to know that they can have impact on things that they care about and um yeah they do care about um the the world the the pollution they care about uh sort of those topics and so if you can tell them that they can have impact um I think that can be really attractive to them um but anyhow I want to keep it short because I know that we're over time here but um yeah thanks everybody this has been a great discussion yeah and and I I want to Echo that thanks uh thanks everybody I I a part of it was to to have exactly this type of discussion it helps us a lot sort of ground ourselves into what's uh what's happening out there uh but uh large part of it uh as well was to introduce everybody everybody here uh and uh I've always been uh amazed that as you travel across Canada um and talk about different Industries and different companies and uh and people working with different Technologies and everybody is facing very unique problems and uh in Canada I'm convinced that uh as Canadians we're all unique but we're all unique in extremely similar ways uh here and uh uh I think some of the the challenges that we've been talking about are common the opportunities uh while specific are also are also uh pretty amazing for the for the country and for uh for advanced manufacturing going forward so so listen thanks thanks everybody for taking part today we'll continue to look forward to working with you and uh we all uh Sean uh circulate everybody's email uh here and uh hope this is uh the beginning of some good uh good business opportunities for everybody too