Industrial Technology Centre 'eager' to tap into Ontario market.

• Author: GOULIQUER, DIANNE
• Position: Technical services consulting firm - Brief Article

When it comes to finding new clients in Northern Ontario, business is slow for Winnipeg's Industrial Technology Centre (ITC). But Market and Business Development Officer Bill Boskwick remains optimistic that it's just a matter of time before things change.

ITC provides technical services for companies, home-based businesses, entrepreneurs and government agencies primarily in Manitoba.

"We bend and break things and calibrate and inspect," Boskwick laughs.

ITC is accredited through the Standards Council of Canada and is also ISO 90001 certified, Boskwick says. The facility offers a broader range of technical services than any other independent, commercial laboratory in Manitoba, he says.

Its specialized laboratories and machine shop provide services in areas like calibration, technical information, mechanical testing, noise and vibration analysis, dimensional inspection and product/process design and development.

But despite being the closest provider of these services for northwestern Ontario, ITC has had little luck in attracting clients from across the border.

"It's surprising," Boskwick says. "We've barely had any contact with anyone over there (in Ontario). We have selectively done work for some of the mills like the pulp mills m Fort Frances and Dryden, but nothing substantial has come forward in the last few months."

Because of this, he says the centre will be turning its focus to the prairie provinces for the winter, where a lot of work for the facility has cropped up recently. But northwestern Ontario remains a market ITC is eager to tap into whenever the opportunity presents itself, he says.

"Because of some of the directions we have to go in, I'm spending a fair bit of my time - probably until the first quarter (of 2001) - on a lot of the manufacturing activities that are going on here in Manitoba and also with the farm implement folks between Manitoba and Saskatchewan. That's not to the detriment of Ontario, but that's where we have a fairly substantive client base."

ITC has...