Brave Control Solutions wins award for innovation
Firm's cutting edge concepts could potentially change manufacturing
Brave Control Solutions has become the first Canadian company to win an ABB Value Provider Solution Award for developing a new process that introduces more customization and flexibility into the construction industry.
The Windsor firm was selected as the winner of the award by the world's largest automation company, ABB Group. The Swiss-based firm, with 110,000 employees in over 100 countries and tracing its roots back over 130 years, hands out one award in each of Europe, Asia and the Americas.
“ABB'S selection of our company for an award of this magnitude is a validation of what we're doing,” said Brave Control Solutions founder/ceo Brent Mcphail.
“My team went through a wall on this project. This certainly is the most prestigious award we've ever won.”
The immediate benefit for Brave Solutions is the 35-employee company is now on ABB'S preferred suppliers' list.
Brave Control Solutions was founded by Mcphail in 2008 and has cut its teeth in automation and robotics for the automotive industry before Z Modular approached Mcphail in 2018 with a prefabricated construction riddle to solve.
It would be the company's first venture into the construction industry.
Midway through designing the machine to meet those needs, Z Modular landed another project with the intention of using the same machine for a new and differently designed building.
“When you name your company Brave, you tend to get some crazy opportunities thrown at you every once in awhile,” Mcphail said. “This was one of them.
“We told them, it just doesn't work like that, but they told us, `That's what we need.' ”
Mcphail said the inability to meet higher levels of flexibility and customization has been what has stunted the expansion of automation into the construction industry.
The challenge caused him to re-examine an idea he had before he even founded Brave.
“It was one of those shower ideas that never went anywhere,” said Mcphail, who added it took two years to develop the system.
What emerged was a software tool that reads the computer-aided design (CAD) models of the product to be built and then directs the robots and automation to assemble the product. This is much in the same way that a CNC works to cut metal, but it extends to many functions outside of the CNC to tasks such as assembly, welding, nailing and gluing.
Kitchener-based Z Modular, which is a division of Zekelman Industries, is using the pieces built using Brave Solutions' system to construct the five-storey GEM Residence on St. Clair College's south campus.
Mcphail added that the ability to customize jobs in a matter of hours rather than days without having to reprogram robots each time is what makes the system unique.
The two main benefits of the boost in productivity and customization are that it will help the construction industry address its shortage of skilled labour while lower costs will be a boost to producing more affordable housing.
“This project was extremely challenging,” Mcphail said.
“It's very different than automotive manufacturing. The construction industry doesn't want every building to look the same.”
Mcphail said automakers design vehicles and then build factories that can produce them. There's limited customization of the product afterwards unless expensive retooling of the plant is undertaken.
Brave Solution's new concepts are the start down the road to potentially changing that model of manufacturing.
Mcphail feels the software and robotics system is only in its infancy.
“Fast-forward five years and I believe Brave Solutions will be known as the flex automation company,” Mcphail said. “I believe this will circle back to automotive manufacturing.
“We have solved a problem that manufacturing is now