Canada must improve record on innovation

If Canada’s alarmingly poor performance in the area of innovation continues it will have serious repercussions on our ability to sustain growth, competitiveness, and prospertiy in the future, a recent report from the Conference Board of Canada warns.

“Our performance in innovation is stunningly poor. We rank 14th out of 17 countries, the fourth from the bottom. Without innovation, Canada’s economic, environmental and social systems stagnate and our performance deteriorates in comparison with that of our peers. Our competitors are not standing still. This poor showing is a serious weakness in Canada’s overall performance and an alarming portent for the future,” the report cautions.

The report entitled, “How Canada Performs: A Report Card on Canada,” is published annually and benchmarks Canada’s performance relative to that of 16 industrialized countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in six major areas including Innovation, Economy, Environment, Education and Skills, Health, and Society. The report gave Canada a grade of “D” in the area of innovation.

“Innovation is an essential component of productivity and prosperity. It is only through innovation, insists the OECD, only through the development and exploitation of new products, processes, services and systems, and only through the constant upgrading of the quality of what a country already produces, that countries can sustain growth and productivity. Canada is no exception to this general rule,” the Conference Board states.

According to the report, Canada’s failure in innovation is also impacting on Canada’s record in the areas of health and society. “It is also an important part of the story of Canada’s failure to keep up with the top performers in the health and society domains. Canada is also a “D” performer in the environment domain.”

To assess Canada’s performance in innovation, the board looked at the creation of knowledge, the diffusion of knowledge, the transformation of knowledge and the use of knowledge through commercialization. The report also examined the creation of a policy environment that enables innovation.

“Canada’s record in innovation is poor across almost all these measures,” the report states, adding that on the two indicators of knowledge creation Canada scored “C” and “D” grades.

For example, the report notes that Canadian scientists publish 783 scientific articles per million population, while Swiss and Swedish scientists publish over 1,100 per million population.

When the report looked at triadic patents (patents that are filed simultaneously in Europe, Japan and the US to protect the same invention), the statistics told a similar story. “The number of triadic patents per million population in Canada is well below the number of most of our comparator countries. Canada does no better on the diffusion of knowledge; the score is a “D.”

“Again, Switzerland is a top performer on this dimension. Only on knowledge transformation does Canada rank well. On this measure, Canada gets an “A.” Canada is second only to the U.S. in the amount of venture capital investment as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP). But there are important caveats.

“For example, capital investments for each venture in Canada are typically one-third the size of those in the United States, due partly to the high number of early stage ventures. As a result, Canada spends a larger percentage of GDP on early-stage financing, while all 16 comparator countries allocate the majority of investment to expansion,” the report says.

According to the report, the single most robust measure of innovation is the share of revenue from new or significantly improved goods or services. “The percentage of European firms deriving more than one-quarter of their revenue from innovative products and services is substantially higher than the percentage of Canadian firms.

“Our abundant natural resources may be a handicap here. Canada’s reliance on natural resource products partially explains why Canada derives less of its revenues from innovative products. A competitive advantage based solely on low cost or local natural resources is not sustainable.”

Obviously, we have a lot of work to do on innovation and the sooner we get started the better.

Jerry Cook
Editor, MPP
jcook@clbmedia.ca

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Haas demonstration day a success

The recent technical demonstration day and open house held at Haas Factory Outlet, a division of Sirco Machinery Company Ltd.’s (HFO) facility in Toronto, ON attracted some 264 visitors.

The recent technical demonstration day and open house held at Haas Factory Outlet, a division of Sirco Machinery Company Ltd.’s (HFO) facility in Toronto, ON proved to be very successful resulting in six machines sold off the floor and some 264 visitors attending the event.

Another demonstration day and open house event was held simultaneously at the HFO facility in Montreal, QC.

The event in Toronto featured 10 different Haas machines on display including the Haas HPCL hybrid precision collet lathe with a full-feature CNC control, as well as manual handwheels. It comes standard with the Haas intuitive programming system, a conversational operating system that guides the operator through basic CNC operations. The Haas HPCL collet lathe offers a number of standard features including 7 in. x 17 in. travels (XZ), 5C collet spindle nose, 14 in. swing over the guide rail, and more.

In addition to the HPCL collet lathe, other Haas machines on display at the event included the SL-20L long bed turning center, the VF-6/40 vertical machining center will full five-axis TR310 trunnion table, the EC-400 four-axis horizontal machining center, and more. All machines were outfitted with the new Haas 15 in. LCD color monitor including USB port as standard.

Visitors at the event were automatically entered into a draw for a free Haas Toolroom Mill orToolroom Lathe as well as a trip for four to Indianapolis to see an upcoming NASCAR race as a guest of Haas CNC Racing and their race team.

The demonstration day/open house also featured displays by serveral of Haas’ industry partners including Sandvik, Iscar, OSG, Chick, Mastercam, Gibbs, Jergens, Tungaloy, Milacron Coolant, Commonwealth Oil, KAR Industrial, Javelin, Brican, and Machine Tool Solutions.

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