A machine that makes omelettes? Picks scraps out of piles of lettuce? Etienne Poisson’s Ottawa startup Mechatronic DS has done it all before.
A machine that makes omelettes? Picks scraps out of piles of lettuce? Etienne Poisson’s Ottawa startup Mechatronic DS has done it all before.
Founded in 2019, Mechatronic DS works with manufacturers to develop automated robotic solutions that solve sticking points in their production lines. Its machines have been built to do menial tasks ranging from inspecting microchips and weighing gold coins to processing eggs and packaging lettuce.
Though Ottawa’s manufacturing scene is relatively small, Poisson said the city has become an effective headquarters for his company as it expands and takes on projects with clients across North America.
In this Q&A, Poisson tells OBJ about the local manufacturing industry, bringing in skilled talent, and how tariffs are hitting manufacturers on both sides of the border.
This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.
How would you describe Ottawa’s manufacturing industry?
There’s very little manufacturing in Ottawa. There is Kanata North, there’s semiconductor, optoelectronic manufacturing, but that’s very specialized, and there’s a bit of health manufacturing. But compared to say Toronto or Montreal, there’s very little. Because of that, we’ve had to expand our client base across North America. We have clients in Winnipeg and a fair amount in the U.S. We’ve done projects in Washington state, California and Minneapolis. We’re close to receiving a purchase order for a project with a large construction material company in New York. We’ve had to look elsewhere and that’s a little bit of our strength.
One of the advantages, which is also a disadvantage, is that we’re a destination employer for new graduates. If you want to develop robotics, if you’re interested in controls or developing software for machinery, there’s not a lot of employers in Ottawa where you can exercise those skills. Typically, it’s more on the manufacturing end. So we’re able to recruit, really, some of the smartest new grads. They’re dedicated and they’re passionate about robotics.
But because there’s not a big pool of manufacturing, we do have a hard time recruiting senior employees that have that experience; previous design skills, previous automation skills. We’re actually looking, for the first time, to start hiring remotely for certain roles where you don’t need to be in the office. That has an advantage because we can leverage their skills and experience but also have boots on the ground in those cities. It’s always good to be close to your clients and be able to visit them.
What problems are manufacturers typically bringing to you?
I would say the biggest one we’ve been seeing since COVID is dependency on labour. It’s reducing labour costs, reducing operating costs to be more competitive. It happens all the time, where the client has a manual operation, it’s working okay, they’re meeting quality standards, but they want to double, they want to 10-times their production. It’s not realistic to increase their workforce by a factor of 10 just to meet demand. So there are certain things that are done manually that are very well suited to do automatically.
The other thing is manufacturers looking to improve safety in their plants. A lot of times, it’s actually repetitive strain injuries. One of our first projects was for the Royal Canadian Mint in Ottawa and it was purely to eliminate repetitive injuries.
There’s also all these “soft benefits” to automating, one of them being employee and staff satisfaction. Staff want to know they’re working for an employer that has cool technologies. It’s easier to recruit staff when they know they’re not going to be moving heavy boxes around – that’s done by a robot.
Everyone is talking about tariffs right now. What are you seeing in the manufacturing industry, with your clients?
We’re in a position where everything I’m going to say is very anecdotal. In our sales pipeline, we’re talking right now to maybe 10 or 20 clients, actively.
Some things that have happened in the last few months – we had a contract with a local industrial food contractor that lost its contract with their client in the States. This company is producing cheese and was selling it to an industrial food producer that makes frozen pizzas. That producer, when they heard about the threat of tariffs, they just found someone else. They found a local supplier for cheese. So, in turn, we lost that project, or it got put on hold.
On the flip side, we have a client in eastern Canada that is being hit with Chinese tariffs on seafood. This client has quotas for a very specific seafood. He can’t farm or process anything else and it’s a very manually intensive process. So in his case, the tariffs are actually a motivator to automate. He’s looking at (the situation) and going, well, there’s going to be tariffs. I can absorb some of those, my client will absorb some of those, but to make up the difference, I’ve got to reduce my operating costs.
The last one is, we’re about to sign an order for a large project with a building material company in New York. They told us even with the 25 per cent tariffs, we’re still competitive against other bids. What’s helping is the strength, or weakness, of the dollar. In the last few months, we’ve seen a change of about 10 points and that makes up half the tariffs. So that’s been positive.
What are your plans for the future?
In the next year, we’re going to have to move our offices – our shop space is too small and we want to keep growing. We want to employ more graduates from Algonquin College and Ottawa and Carleton universities. And, you know, our goal ultimately is to work with large companies. In the next five to 10 years, we want to work with 20 large companies on an ongoing basis.
We’re also looking at, in the next year, taking a few of the projects we’ve done and looking to productize them. We want to market that technology and that expertise. Just this morning, I was on a call with someone from the Netherlands. We’re looking to grow and the biggest takeaway is that we want to start selling internationally.
Are you planning on staying in Ottawa?
I do not see myself moving. Ottawa’s home and we’ll deal with some drawbacks and disadvantages being here, but I think the advantages outweigh those. There’s lots of examples of engineering companies that have thrived in Ottawa and provide to the whole world. I don’t see why we couldn’t do the same. 
