Icon Technologies Limited, a Canada-based aftermarket products manufacturer, is breaking ground on an expanded facility that will allow more room to “play,” the company said.
The expanded production space will increase Icon’s plant size by 45,000 square feet. The company’s goal is a quick and seamless aftermarket, where plastic RV components such as fender skirts, freshwater tanks, sky lights and step trims are state-of-the-art and plentiful.
“It’s going to enhance our ability to turn out prototypes and parts for [manufacturers] more quickly,” said Jordan Martindale, Icon’s marketing manager. “We’ll have the ability to play in the R&D shop with new tools and capabilities, keep wait times down and turn out tools that need a new part that doesn’t exist in the catalog.”
Along with more space, new equipment such as 3-D printers and updated CNC routers will give Icon the ability to better facilitate an aftermarket that is seeing unprecedented demand and pressure, Martindale said. The company also will have additional rotational molding equipment. Rotational molding is a process that uses a rotating arm to equally disperse heated mold material.
“We’ve seen a lot of growth in rotational mold development,” Martindale said. “It’s popular for waste tanks, freshwater tanks and some agriculture needs.”
Icon’s expansion will have some space geared toward research and development, helping Icon to quickly prototype OEM components without production line interference.
Martindale said the expansion was in the cards when the company’s Manitoba, Canada, location was built in 2016. The facility was built on a large land parcel with an expansion plan in mind, he said.
“It’s just under way and moving slower because of the weather,” Martindale said. “But we’re excited to see things going up, and hoping this expansion can help manage the aftermarket.”
Operations at the expanded plant are expected to begin by June 2021, Martindale said.
