York Region Hardware Tech Companies: A Driving Force for ‘Made in Canada’

Mark Wood, CEO of Microart Services Inc. in Markham, says the quality of engineers, the education level and the support services here are all top notch. This breeds superior products and even more companies. “It’s a fertile area,” says Wood.

Microart is an electronic manufacturing and design services company. They provide printed circuit board (PCB) layouts, bare board manufacturing, PCB assembly testing, and what are called box builds for prototype and low- to mid-volume productions.

A wide variety of sectors have used Microart’s boards, including industrial, health care, life sciences, broadcasting, agriculture, energy, transportation, aerospace, robotics and wearables.

“What people are doing with electronics now far exceeds what we thought possible,” says Wood.

Microart has been involved in smart products ranging from smart gas meters, to smart water bottles, to smart vests that can keep score in a taekwondo match.

Wood says many people are often shocked to learn that PCBs are being crafted in Canada. “They assume it’s done in China,” he says. He’s proud that this work can be carried out well, and quickly, in York Region.

He got into the sector by chance. Wood trained to be an air conditioner technician but couldn’t find a job doing that when he finished school in 1982. Instead, he landed work at a tiny electronics company in Markham, hand soldering PCBs.

Wood says that companies like Microart aren’t household names as they don’t directly serve the end consumer and provide only part of the end product. Yet his firm and the region’s other hardware companies play an integral role to all of us.

“The majority of our customers are companies that are the backbones of our daily lives,” says Wood.

Published York Link February 25 2021 Read the Full Article Here