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Sandvik opens head office/Canadian Productivity Centre |
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 Left to right): Rick Askin, president of Sandvik USA; Kenneth Sundh, president of Sandvik Coromant; and Dave Thompson, president of Sandvik Canada officially open Sandvik’s new head office and Productivity Centre in Mississauga, ON.
by Jerry Cook
Sandvik Coromant Canada’s (coromant.sandvik.com/ca) new head office and Productivity Centre is designed to help ensure the continuing productivity and competitiveness of its Canadian customer base.
“We started our Productivity Centres many years ago (in Sweden) to
demonstrate our products. However, not all of our customers could come
to Sweden so we started to establish local Productivity Centres. Today,
the Canadian Productivity Centre is our 22nd centre,” Kenneth Sundh,
president of Sandvik Coromant globally, said in officially opening the
new facility.
Adds Sundh, “I firmly believe that the world has changed. For example,
10 or 15 years ago when a machine tool was sold, the cutting tool
manufacturers would be happy that there was any budget left for cutting
tools. Since then we’ve built our business and really concentrated on
productivity and cost savings (for our customers). Today, we are not
just selling inserts for machine tools anymore, we are selling
productivity.”
Sandvik’s recently opened 25,000 sq. ft. head office and Productivity
Centre in Mississauga, ON will play a critical role in providing
companies training programs designed to maximize their productivity and
help them compete in the global market.
“The Productivity Centre is the ultimate training facility for our
customers and provides the support needed to achieve maximum
performance from all Sandvik Coromant products,” says Andrew Kasper,
communications manager with Sandvik Coromant Canada.
Offering a wide range of theory-based training courses, the
Productivity Centre specializes in improving component quality,
minimizing downtime, increasing throughput, and improving engineering
competence for customers.
The Productivity Centre’s training facilities comprise two conference
rooms including audio-visual aids; a Mazak Integrex 200 IV-ST
multi-tasking machine; a Mori Seiki NL 2500 MC CNC lathe; an Okuma
MB56V vertical machining centre; and more.
“This Productivity Centre will be a vital part in the added value we
offer for our customer base. Its first main function will be to
facilitate training for our customers across Canada. The centre is also
for our (distribution) channel partners as well as our own sales force
to make sure that we bring new technologies to our customers,” says
Alemur Swiderski, senior manager, training with Sandvik Coromant
Canada.
Continues Swiderski, “The knowledge that we need to bring to the table
of new cutting tool technologies and new methods (will help ensure) our
customer base remains competitive and profitable in the future thus
ensuring a strong Canadian engineering market.”
Sandvik celebrated the opening of its new Canadian head office and
Productivity Centre with a ribbon cutting ceremony and tours of the
facility. Approximately 60 people attended the event including Sandvik
Coromant executives from Sweden, the United States, and Canada,
officials from the firm’s various Canadian channel distributors, and
Sandvik’s Canadian Productivity Centre partners including EMEC Machine
Tools Inc., Gross Machinery Group, and A.W. Miller Technical Sales.
According to Swiderski, Sandvik’s Canadian Productivity Centre will
tailor-make training packages for customers. Some of the training
courses that the new Canadian Productivity Centre will offer include
introduction to modern tooling; application of tool materials and tool
geometries; application of turning and drilling tools; application of
milling and drilling tools; increasing productivity in metal cutting;
and machining economics.
“The facility will also be used, when practical, to assist the process
development team as far as proving-out some of the techniques and
processes for our customers. This will save valuable production time
for our customers as well,” he notes.
Sandvik’s new Canadian head office and Productivity Centre incorporates
Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standards. LEED
provides a recognized standard for the construction industry to assess
the environmental sustainability of building designs.
According to Dave Thompson, president of Sandvik Canada, the new
facility will achieve 37% better building efficiency than the model
national energy code and will provide a 30% improvement in water use
efficiency over the US EPA standard. The company says that more than
70% of construction waste was recycled, and recycled materials were
incorporated into the construction of the facility.
coromant.sandvik.com/ca
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