Expansion will create new jobs, says president
Windsor manufacturer helps to develop next generation of local skilled workers
Already enjoying double-digit growth over the past several years, Windsor’s Cavalier Tool & Manufacturing Ltd. expects that wild success in the mould-making sector to continue with the formal opening of a $9-million state-ofthe-art expansion.
“I said we’re looking to hire 20 to 30 (new employees) … but if 50 people applied, I’d look at each and every one of them,” company president Brian Bendig said at a splashy opening Wednesday attended by hundreds.
Bendig said the days of tool and mould shops being staffed with “the big guy with the hammer in the back, they are gone.”
The new 22,000-square-foot advanced manufacturing facility — $6 million to build, and filled with $3 million in equipment, including $1 million worth of cranes — is bright and clean and high-tech, with cranes under a 75-foot ceiling that can lift a 50-tonne hunk of steel mould and precision machinery that can cut a human hair 30 times over.
“There are people here who have never lifted a hammer,” said Bendig.
With more than 100 shops and thousands of skilled workers, Windsor and Essex County is a global centre in mould, tool and die manufacturing, a sector “vital to the economic health of our community,” said Mike Bilton, cochairman of the Canadian Association of Mould Makers.
“Most people don’t realize how powerful this community is (in injection tooling and manufacturing),” said Bendig, who travels the world to study the latest technologies and processes, bringing that knowledge back home to Windsor. Some of the custom machinery on display Wednesday is among “the best the world has to offer,” he said.
Bendig said the new addition will speed up the mould-making process at Cavalier by at least 20 per cent, representing a big competitive advantage.
Automotive only represents about a third of Cavalier’s business, along with sports recreation (ATVs, snowmobiles), heavy trucks, agriculture and commercial equipment.
“The diversification to your business, but also to our community, is invaluable,” said Mayor Drew Dilkens. Cavalier was the 19th local venture approved for a city community improvement plan grant equivalent to the increase in property taxes over the first 10 years.
“Thank you for your vision,” said Dilkens, ahead of a giant crane delivering a ribbon that was cut at the opening ceremony.
An industry leader with 131 employees, Cavalier is actively developing the next generation of local skilled workers to fill the current gap. That mission, according to Bendig, includes showing off what his company does and how it looks to help prove “we have what young people want; this is fun and exciting.”
Last year, more than 400 students toured the facility, and the company recently began an inhouse training program for recent graduates and junior designers. At Wednesday’s ceremony, Cavalier presented $5,000 cheques to St. Clair College for new equipment at its Ford Centre of Excellence in Manufacturing, to the University of Windsor to establish a Faculty of Engineering scholarship, and to the United Way to support its On Track to Success program.
“This is way more exciting,” Herman Academy’s Steven Butt said, comparing what he gets to work with in his Grade 10 manufacturing class to what a number of students were exposed to at the opening.
The local skilled-trades jobs market is currently so competitive, said Rob Chittam, chairman of St. Clair College’s School of Skilled Trades, that his students are being scooped up by employers before they can finish their programs.
He said it’s possible for those new hires to triple their wages in 10 years.