Manufacturing

Fredericton’s light manufacturing sector includes; plastics, printing, metal fabrications, food processing, and added value wood products.

These sectors continue to benefit and flourish as a result of the area’s unique blend of knowledge industry expertise, innovation, and cross-sectoral collaboration.

In Fredericton, light manufacturing operations find advantages that include:

• Lower operating costs
  
• Available and skilled labor
  
• Access to major markets as well as a more flexible regulatory environment than in the US
  
• Community support
  

Access to Fredericton’s growing bank of engineering expertise and IT skilled workers is helping transform traditional industries in the area through improved processes, systems capabilities and equipment.

Research strengths specific to Fredericton’s light manufacturing sector includes: food technology services at the Research and Productivity Council; plastics research at UNB; UNB’s Wood Science and Technology Center metal composites and advanced machining research in the Department of Engineering.

Cost advantages related to light manufacturing
KPMG ranks the province’s energy competitiveness as number one in North America. Cost effective access to markets is critical to the manufacturing sector.

A location in Fredericton, New Brunswick offers:

• Access to 100 million US and Canadian consumers in less than a day's drive.
  
• Road and air freight costs that are among the most competitive in North America.
  
• Shipping cost advantage 25 per cent lower to and from New Brunswick than to and from several US locations.
  

New Brunswick ports (Saint John Port Authority) offer inexpensive and convenient shipping of raw and finished goods to the US and Europe.

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) creates a single North American market within which New Brunswick-based companies have preferred access. Also, NAFTA-led technology improvements have resulted in faster clearance times at both NB/US borders.

Business Operating Cost Advantages

In a KPMG Competitive Alternatives analysis comparing ten-year average annual total location-sensitive costs for the manufacturing sector, Fredericton proved to be the lowest in terms of:

• Labor
  
• Utilities
  
• Facility costs
  
• Lower than six others in transportation costs
  

The result is an overall manufacturing cost advantage over four major Canadian centers and five major US centers. With the exchange rate advantage, the US dollar buys approximately twenty per cent(20%) more.

The same comparison (KPMG Competitive Alternatives Study 2004) for Precision Manufacturing produced similar results clearly illustrating Fredericton’s cost advantage in this sector.

OPPORTUNITIES

Existing capabilities and successes, cost advantages, and sector specific R&D services open the door to a range of opportunities in metal fabrication, added value wood products, plastics and food processing. The region’s focus on innovation and collaboration also offers traditional industries opportunities to integrate new technologies and systems aimed at increasing efficiencies and competitiveness.

Enterprise Fredericton
Business New Brunswick
Canada Business New Brunswick
City of Fredericton
Research and Productivity Center
Federal Potato Research Center
Wood Science and Technology Center
University of New Brunswick