TO NEW HEIGHTS
Hydraulic lift company from Grimsby, Ont., finds success in cruise ship entertainment,
Amid gasps from the audience, one group of acrobats appears to be walking on water while more performers dive deep into the tiny pool without obstruction.
A light and water fountain show, along with music, complements the breathtaking aquatic performance on one of the world’s largest cruise ships.
But the real magic is delivered below the pool’s surface by a series of gigantic steel lifts built in a small factory in the Niagara region.
The installation by Handling Specialty Manufacturing Ltd. for Royal Caribbean cruise lines is just the latest example of the kind of highly customized work that has taken it around the globe.
“It sounds simple. But if you do something well, figure out who wants it and go tell them about it,” says Tom Beach, chief executive officer of the mid-sized Grimsby, Ont.based company.
Handling Specialty is among a rare breed.
Just 4 per cent of Canadian companies — 41,000 in all — export and most are focused on the U.S., where slow growth since the Great Recession of 2008 has hurt their performance, according to Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters.
Canada’s future economic prosperity increasingly depends on trade especially in high growth emerging markets, but many small- and midsized firms find it challenging to reach markets beyond their borders, according to a 2013 report for the former Certified General Accountants, now the Chartered Professional Accountants Canada.
Although the entertainment industry, including Cirque du soleil, is one of Handling Specialty’s splashiest customers, it sells to a broad range of companies, from General Motors to NASA to Boeing.
As its name implies, Handling Specialty specializes in helping its customers handle their materials, whether they’re assembling cars or rockets or amusement park rides.
“Our slogan is: We build big things to help our customers build big things,” Beach said. That wasn’t always the case. Founded in 1961, the company got its start supplying floor cranes to the automotive industry, the kind used to lift motors out of cars, Beach said.
By the ’80s and ’90s, as the auto industry became increasingly global, Handling Specialty realized it needed to diversify and become more specialized.
“We kept differentiating with more custom solutions. The solutions kept getting physically larger, more sophisticated and more intelligent,” Beach said.
It’s that kind of specialization that can make or break a small firm, said Jay Myers, president and chief executive officer of Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters.
Between 2002 and 2012, Canada lost 20,000 manufacturing operations, mostly to the high dollar as they could no longer compete on price, Myers noted.
“We have a fairly high cost structure so we can’t be a commodity type manufacturing country. We have to be much more specialized and customized. That can come with better engineering or better designed products or services. And we’re seeing an awful lot of that,” Myers said.
Handling Specialty’s biggest project to date involved making 14 integrated lifts for a water show. It was at the House of Dancing Water, a giant casino on the Chinese island of Macau near Hong Kong.
Together, the lifts’ combined surface area could have held 115 minivans, Beach said. “It was the size of a parking lot.”
In the 30 years Beach has been with the firm, he says he’s watched it grow from $1 million in annual revenue to between $20 million and $25 million by expanding into new industries and offering more customized solutions.
In many cases, the company got its foot in the door simply by picking up the phone, he said.
“It may sound extremely amateurish. But it began with making phone calls to the industry associations. Then speaking with government trade offices.”
An Industry Canada program that requires suppliers of defence and security systems to buy goods and services from Canadian business has been a big help, he notes.
Handling Specialty now employs between 65 and 70 people. About 15 per cent to 20 per cent are engineers.
With the steel industry on its doorstep in nearby Hamilton, Beach says, he has no trouble finding skilled labour.
But employees have to be comfortable with a challenging work environment that requires a lot of creative thinking, he says.
He recalled one incident in partic- ular. An order for Disney — a giant industrial lift for a theme park ride — was almost ready to ship.
After numerous test runs in the plant, the moving platform just needed to be knocked down and packed up.
Except for one problem. None of the gigantic pieces of steel fit through the factory door.
The solution? Buy 10 sledgehammers from the nearest Canadian Tire store and make the door opening bigger.
It’s that kind of low-tech, low-cost problem-solving that Beach believes has helped drive the company’s success.
“Our customer base is large firms that are looking for small companies that are flexible and able to make decisions quickly on the fly, with proficiency,” Beach said.
With his eye on the future, as always, Beach says, he believes the company’s work with Royal Caribbean could eventually lead it to more industrial applications in the shipbuilding industry
“We’re good at building big, heavy things and making them move. What’s big and heavy? Trains and planes. We have a great interest in the ship building industry, which we haven’t tackled yet,” he said.
“But five years from now, I’ll be talking about that. We’ll join the associations, go to meetings, introduce ourselves and make contacts,” Beach said.