For the 2,800 technicians and engineers at IBM’s sprawling plant in the idyllic Eastern Townships, finding new and better ways to operate isn’t a luxury. It’s a necessity.
Every product the Bromont, Que., factory makes quickly becomes obsolescent – which means the plant must constantly adapt to new technologies and apply new skills if it is to survive.
The factory, 75 kilometres east of Montreal, started out in 1972 making Selectric typewriters. It has worked its way up to become IBM’s biggest facility for testing and assembling advanced microchips. Its products go into the planet’s most popular video-game consoles and fastest supercomputers.
Arch-rivals Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo entrust the Bromont plant with testing and assembling the ultra-powerful microchips that go into the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Wii. That’s like Coke and Pepsi using the same lab to test their formulas.
IBM has provided a solid foundation for the factory’s success, having invested nearly $1.3-billion in the Bromont plant since its founding. Still, manufacturing director Ray Leduc argues that it’s a combination of relentless training and an egalitarian philosophy that has allowed the Bromont plant to boost its productivity while cutting costs and keeping its head count stable through the recession.
“We don’t compete on labour rates, we compete on skill, on innovation, on time to market,” said Mr. Leduc, a veteran from the typewriter days, who was appointed last year to be a part-time adviser to Canada’s National Research Council. “A Formula 1 driver is also a machine operator. That’s the model we use: We take a very sophisticated piece of equipment that costs a lot of capital, and we give it to a very highly skilled person in whom we’ve invested a tremendous amount of development, and have them run it better than anybody in the world.”
