In the City of Vaughan, at the heart of the Toronto Region, a decades-old manufacturing firm is building components for some of the world’s most advanced defence, aerospace and high-tech systems.
That company is Ben Machine Products, based in Vaughan, ON. Its CEO, Michael Iacovelli, isn’t the founder, but he grew up in the company.
“I have worked here since I was 11 years old,” he explained.
“It’s a matter of building, and Vaughan is a great place to be able to do that.”
From the outside, Ben Machine looks like a traditional, family-owned manufacturer in a Vaughan industrial park. But inside, the company has evolved into a hub for skilled trades, engineering and production technology that underpins safety-critical global supply chains.
The company started in 1973 as a tool-and-die shop for the casting industry. In 1977, Iacovelli’s father partnered with the founder after they began working on the business together outside their day jobs.
As mould-making manufacturing moved offshore in the early 1980s, the business transitioned to computer numerical control (CNC) manufacturing, which at the time relied on punch cards and paper tape. By the late 1980s, the company expanded into fabrication, sheet metal work, welding and a range of finishing processes.
From there, Ben Machine moved into increasingly advanced machining and assembly. Iacovelli, who trained and worked as a lawyer in Toronto during the 1990s, joined the company full-time in 2002.
Today, the company operates high-precision CNC equipment and supports complex optical and electromechanical assemblies. It manufactures parts for leading companies across aerospace, defence, industrial technology and nuclear energy. It has been a partner on Lockheed Martin’s Joint Strike Fighter program since 2001, manufacturing components for the F-35 fighter jet’s power and control modules.
“Our customers own the design, but as an integrated manufacturer, we’re more of a supplier-partner,” Iacovelli said. “We help with the design work, manufacturing capabilities and how to actually make the parts.”
One of the more unexpected threads in Ben Machine’s work is electro-optical infrared (EO/IR) systems, which use a combination of cameras and thermal sensors mounted onto planes and helicopters to track objects in darkness, smoke or heavy fog. Some of the underlying stabilization and imaging technologies were first developed for the film and sports broadcast industries to enable smooth aerial footage.
“One of our main customers has an Oscar, has an Academy Award, that they won for developing that technology, which fundamentally changed the way that filming is done,” Iacovelli added.
Over time, EO/IR became far more capable, particularly with long-range imaging and tracking applications. The systems are now used to support search-and-rescue teams as well as military operations. Their role in detecting improvised explosive devices in conflict zones became clear to Iacovelli after he reconnected with a childhood friend who served in the Royal Marines.
“I went to see him once in 2016, and he said, ‘You have no idea how many lives you saved over in Afghanistan,’” Iacovelli added.
Canada is in the middle of a major defence ramp-up, with the federal government recently unveiling its new $6.6-billion CAD Defence Industrial Strategy. The strategy’s ‘Build-Partner-Buy’ framework is part of a push to have roughly 70 percent of procurement value flow through Canadian industry, increasing pressure on manufacturers like Ben Machine.
With the recent upswing in demand for Canadian-made defence innovation, high-tech manufacturers are now wrestling with how to meet it.
“Personnel is the challenge now, and probably because we’ve been losing manufacturing,” Iacovelli said of the industry in Canada up to this point. “There was a significant amount of time where … if [someone was] in a trade, they’d rather be a plumber than a machinist. They’d rather be an electrician than an electrical technician.”
Ben Machine employs mechanical engineers who work directly with customers on what’s called design-for-manufacturing processes, which involve refining components so they can be produced more efficiently and reliably.
Beyond the engineering team, much of the company’s technical expertise comes from specialized programmers who create the code that runs Ben Machine’s CNC and Swiss-turn equipment. These programmers translate digital models and technical drawings into machining instructions for highly automated manufacturing systems capable of producing complex components with extreme precision.
On the production floor, machinists, manufacturing technologists, and mechanical engineers work alongside these systems to configure machines, design fixtures, load programs, and troubleshoot issues to ensure parts meet high-performance standards.
“Vaughan is a fantastic place to live. Its location is, from a number of different perspectives, ideal and in demand.”
Capital, Iacovelli said, is not the constraint. Instead, it’s filling the positions to keep the machines running. He added that the company’s biggest hiring challenges are concentrated in those trade-oriented technical roles rather than traditional engineering positions.
“We’re definitely feeling the pinch of capacity,” he said.
It’s just one of the reasons Ben Machine continues to build in Vaughan.
“Vaughan is a fantastic place to live,” Iacovelli said. “Its location is, from a number of different perspectives, ideal and in demand.”
In hardtech, success often depends on what’s within reach, and according to Iacovelli, Vaughan puts a lot within reach. The city is well connected to the Greater Toronto Area, with clear access to the highway system and multiple sophisticated transit systems.
Vaughan is also close to several key colleges and universities, including York University and Humber College. That proximity has proven especially advantageous for Ben Machine.
“We’ve got a really good selection of post-secondary education institutions that we can work with for the purposes of developing talent and bringing new people on board,” Iacovelli said.
That talent pipeline will matter even more as Canada focuses on strengthening its sovereign defence capabilities.
“The work is there,” Iacovelli said. “It’s a matter of building, and Vaughan is a great place to be able to do that.”
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All images courtesy City of Vaughan.