Stepping Up: Ontario Manufacturers Respond to COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic has reinforced the importance of Ontario’s innovative and flexible advanced manufacturing sector, supply chains, and essential activities such as food, medicine, and medical device manufacturing.

Across Ontario, a wide range of manufacturers have pivoted in response to the pandemic, and are now manufacturing critical goods such as medical devices (e.g. ventilators), personal protective equipment (e.g. face shields), and cleaning supplies (e.g. sanitizer). Many more are actively pursuing opportunities to shift production to help mitigate the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. These manufacturers are diverse in size and scope, and range from large multinationals to small locally-based breweries and machine shops. Many belong to industry associations, which have played an important role in their pivot.

The Trillium Network for Advanced Manufacturing is actively identifying and compiling information about Ontario manufacturers that have pivoted towards the production of these newly-critical goods. Some of this information is available in the table below. This information helps identify the wide range of manufacturers involved in mitigating the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. It also serves as the basis of our efforts to assess and disseminate the lessons learned from the experience of manufacturers that successfully pivoted. This includes the support they received from governments during their pivot and how they overcame challenges when attempting to pivot. We encourage firms to share their experience with us as part of this initiative.

We hope to update and augment this information daily and share it with government and industry stakeholders. For more information please contact Brendan Sweeney, Managing Director (manufacturing@trilliummfg.ca).