says Mike when asked about
the manufacturing industry in
Canada. “People have a stig-
ma that Canada is too expen-
sive for building products. It’s
not true,” adds Jash. “We and
other suppliers have been able
to be competitive with inno-
vation and efficiency to beat
the competition from the far-
east.”
Both Mike and Jash were quick
to agree that the ECI team of
over 100 employees has been
integral to the company’s suc-
cess. “We’ve been doing some
serious staff training over
the past two years [which is]
a heavy investment… the
benefit of a company’s suc-
cess is in the staff, and if you
have been trained and cross-
trained with regards to the
process control and being
able to identify quality issues
on the floor, they feel empow-
ered to do that.. That’s one of
the secrets to our success,”
says Mike. “In this industry
you can have a high turnover
of staff which can be very ex-
pensive to maintain, however
we found that if you don’t
empower or train your staff,
that’s what will happen… if
you’re stretched in one area,
you can move experienced
staff to another area with the
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