Expertise
Systematix celebrates 30 years in automation business with new Waterloo home
WATERLOO — Like the products coming off its automated assembly lines, Systematix is on a roll.
In the past two years, the company that builds automated assembly lines for vehicle parts and medical equipment manufacturers has increased its workforce by 50 per cent.
When it marked 30 years in business this week, Systematix Inc. had 150 people on its payroll, up from 100 in 2016 — and it continues to hire. A few months ago, it moved to a new location at 815 Bridge St. W. that has 98,000 square feet of space, more than double the size of its former building on Frobisher Drive.
Founded in 1988 to provide automated equipment to window and door manufacturers, the company evolved into a maker of robotic assembly lines. Inside the new facility it has eight automated production lines in different stages of completion that are bound for Mexico, China, the United States and factories around Ontario.
“It is about marrying technology with ideas,” said Robert Lague, the company’s COO.
The company founded by Steve Errey and several partners was originally called Grip Clinch Canada. Errey became the sole owner in 1991, and Cecil Bauman joined as a partner the following year. After Errey retired in 2009, Bauman became chief executive officer and assumed full ownership of the company with his wife, Ruth Anne Bauman, who is the head of human resources.
The automated production lines made at Systematix go beyond robot arms that spot weld car frames moving along assembly lines. It has built robotic lines for assembling inhalers, syringes and intravenous bags. It developed the hardware and software that inspects specialized plastic bags. The technology spots particles the human eye can not see.
Systematix integrates data collection systems into almost all of its robotic assembly lines to track quality, test results, monitors production efficiency and watches overall performance of the automated line, said Lague.
This technology helps a lot when parts are recalled, pinpointing where and when the errors occurred in the production process.
“A lot of parts manufacturers are insisting on some form of traceability to make sure things are done right,” he said.
Automotive parts manufacturers accounts for 55 to 60 per cent of Systematix’s business. About 30 per cent of its work comes from medical equipment makers. The rest of the business is what the company calls niche work.
“We have some automated door lines that we just put together,” said Lague. “We are just finishing the last line and this customer has been coming to us for 20 years.
“They wanted to update to new lines because demand for the products has gone up. That would fall into the niche market.”
Recently, a customer that makes auto parts had a very specific request. It had to significantly increase the speed at which a specific part got placed into an automated assembly line. It was taking 90 seconds for each part to get placed. That section of the line did not have enough room around it for more workers to do it by hand.
So Systematix built a robotic machine that now does the work in five seconds per part.
“We built the whole line, but that was one of the challenges we had,” said Lague.
Systematix employs software developers, mechanical engineers, designers, tradespeople and robotics specialists. It hires graduates of the machine building program at Conestoga College and grads from the University of Waterloo. It also takes on UW co-operative education students.
High school students frequently take tours of its facility and the company sponsors the robotics team at Elmira District Secondary School. The team went all the way to the grand championships at the First Robotics Competition in Detroit earlier this earlier this year.
“My wife and I are competition junkies, so we travel with them, and go to all their events because it is just so fascinating,” said Lague.
“We want to introduce opportunities to young people, and we value being able to do that,” he said.