Unirope expands manufacturing space in Ontario, adds modern equipment

Unirope, a company specializing in manufacturing, distributing, testing, certification, and inspection of high-performance wire rope and rigging products, has added 50,000 square feet of manufacturing space to its headquarters.

The expansion represents the completion of a journey that started in 2018. Since then, the company has invested further to equip the facility with a suite of state-of-the-art machining and fabrication equipment, centred on wire rope fabrication, synthetic sling manufacturing and computer numerical control (CNC) technology.

Justin Brown, president at Unirope, said, “At a minimum, we have cut lead times in half, and in the best case we have seen a 400 percent improvement. We are moving towards modernizing the traditional rigging shop model. The words ‘rigging shop’ and ‘modern’ are rarely mentioned in the same breath. Many of the products are heavy and lined with grease, and most factories are stuck in the 1980s with equipment from the 1960s. Not us.”

He continued, “We have implemented material handling solutions to help with heavy lifting; installed modern machinery to make reeling, cutting, and fabrication easier; utilized technology to put work instructions at the fingertips of production workers; installed a full machine shop with modern [CNC] capabilities for custom wire rope end fittings; upgraded ventilation to keep the air clean; and fitted environmentally friendly plant lighting alongside fit-for-purpose test units.”

An automatic wire rope cutting line, plus additional swagers and upgraded annealing machines will be operated with an additional test bed and a third Twin-Path machine. Additional warehouse space also means that inventory can also be increased across all product lines.

Brown added, “With strategic machinery updates, we were able to eliminate certain labour-intensive tasks and ease the burden on production employees. The work is difficult, so anything we could do to make the jobs more efficient, eased the physical impact on our employees. Remember, unemployment is at an all-time low, so we have to optimize our workforce. The overall investment led to efficiencies that allowed us to eliminate bottlenecks, deliver faster, and increase our outputs.”