Unirope expands manufacturing facility

Ontario, Canada-headquartered wire rope and rigging product manufacturer Unirope has added 50,000 square feet of manufacturing space to its headquarters. It says this will improve lead times by up to 400%.

The expansion planning started in 2018, with ground-breaking in 2020. The construction project concluded in 2021. Since then, further investment has been committed to equipping 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% improvement. We are moving towards modernising 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.

“We have implemented material handling solutions to help with heavy lifting; installed modern machinery to make reeling, cutting, and fabrication easier; utilised 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.”

The majority of Unirope’s work is on customised rigging products; 90% of all chain slings that it manufactured in 2023 were unique, either in size, length, or configuration. The business can proof test up to 1.3 million pounds, and the highest single vertical sling capacity in the portfolio is 600,000 pounds.

Unirope, which has been servicing the industry since 1956, already had two warehouses in Mississauga, but it was running out of space to store growing inventory, and the situation was starting to impede production. It would have been impossible to navigate an aggressive phase of growth without expanding and streamlining operations.

Brown said: “With strategic machinery updates, we were able to eliminate certain labor 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 optimise our workforce. The overall investment led to efficiencies that allowed us to eliminate bottlenecks, deliver faster, and increase our outputs.”

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 meant that inventory could also be increased across all product lines, including Python high-performance wire rope, Grade 100 chain, and range of Crosby rigging hardware. Python wire rope is stocked in a wide variety of constructions for tower cranes, mobile and truck cranes, overhead cranes, and gantry cranes. These ropes are widely used in construction, automotive, and industrial applications. Unirope also stocks a variety of other standard and custom ropes, all meeting national and international standards.

Brown added: “We have built a diversified customer base over the last 68 years and continue to build on that strategy. Our customers, without exception, are looking for professional and attentive service. They want our input and expertise; they are not looking for the cheapest and untested; they want reliability and quality.”