Re-Certified!
Northern Steel gets recertified to the ISO 9001:2000 international stamp of approval
Northern B.C.'s best steel fabricating shop just got better! The Quality Management Institute recently granted Northern Steel Ltd. re-registration of their Quality Management System to the requirements of ISO 9001:2000.

The Quality Management Institute (QMI) has provided and will continue to offer expertise to Northern Steel Ltd. As they move forward with their quality management system, Northern Steel is committed to quality for the long term.

> Interested in ISO? Review our primer and links
on this globally recognized standards organization.

>back

Northern Steel

Developing diversified markets at home and abroad and filling a niche for highly-specialized equipment for heavy industry has kept Northern Steel in top form despite a flat provincial economy, says company president Fritz Hausot.

In business here since 1977, the steel fabricating company outgrew its shop on Rock Island Road in the Danson industrial park, opting to open a second plant last year on nearby Milwaukee Way.

At both locations, processing equipment - everything from vats, washer drums, kilns, and sodium chlorate cells - for the mining, pulp and paper and chemical industries, is fabricated for markets as close as the city's three pulp mills to the tar sands of northern Alberta.

Diversification and specialty markets developed over the past dozen years through a working relationship with B.C. Chemicals, which opened the door to sales in the chemical industry in both North and South America, Hausot said.

"That's where it started," he said. "We grew into the North American market and now we're bidding on projects as far away as Australia."

By reaching out to the world and filling the specialty market, the company has been able to even out the peaks and valleys common to any economy tied to the resource sector. "Diversification is what led to more stability in the economic environment for Northern Steel," Hausot said.

Its work force has grown from 25 to 30 several years ago to 55 today, he said. Finding qualified experienced welders and steel fabricators is difficult, and Hausot said the firm could easily employ a dozen more skilled workers.

Having a qualified and experienced staff is a definite attribute for Northern Steel, he said. About half the employees have been with him 10 years or more, and some from the 1970s.

Some of them have been working on a massive steel pump box that dominated the floor space at the new shop. The 130-tonne project is about 14 metres long, six metres wide and will stand seven metres tall when installed. Next week it will be divided into two pieces and loaded aboard specially modified multi-axle trailers and be trucked to Alberta. The pump-box, which Hausot estimated to cost in excess of $1 million, is destined for delivery to Suncor in Fort McMurray for its tar sands project.

>back

Only the biggest for this shop

Northern Steel's production facilities have truly jumped into the 21st century with the opening of our Milwaukee Way fabrication shop. It features a 32-foot under-hook and 60 ton lifting capacity, providing more flexibility to get the job done.

This new facility offers 18,000 square feet of production space. Combined with our existing Rock Island Road facility, Northern Steel now has 36,000 square feet of workspace to handle some of the largest and most complicated jobs around.

>back