NORCAT expands role in Canadian mining industry

With the official opening of an underground test area, the Northern Ontario Centre for Advanced Technology (NORCAT) is fast becoming Canada’s premier proving ground for new mining technology.

NORCAT, which is run out of Cambrian College in Sudbury, Ont., opened two years ago as a support organization for mining service companies. The centre provides small-to-medium-sized companies with training and test facilities in which to develop new technology and applications in such fields as ground control, research and prototype development, and computer-based engineering and manufacturing.

The NORCAT Underground Centre is the latest addition to the facility, which is the only one of its kind in Canada. Situated 32 km northeast of Sudbury in Onaping Falls, on the prolific Sudbury nickel irruptive, the underground facility was once the Fecunis copper-nickel-cobalt mine of Falconbridge. The company, one of NORCAT’s boosters since it opened in 1995, donated the hard-rock mine to play host to the development of computer-based technologies such as robotics and equipment automation, satellite communication, ventilation training, rock support testing, mine rescue training and environmental evaluation. A classroom is to be built in the depths of the mine.

NORCAT exists as a technological centre where mining companies from across Canada can propose an idea and develop and test it before sending the finished product into the marketplace. Since 1995, 20 mining-related products or applications have been perfected at NORCAT and another 19 projects are in various stages of development. NORCAT and its staff are available to any company that may require its services, including firms operating in other countries. NORCAT has sent teams to projects in such locales as the Dominican Republic and Chile to help with training and the commissioning of equipment.

Back at home, executive director Darryl Lake says companies look to NORCAT when they cannot afford to develop applications or products on their own.

“Many small- and medium-sized companies don’t have the resources to complete the work themselves, and we have become their development arm,” he says. “The plan is to remain their development arm.”

NORCAT exists in partnership with the college and the Ontario government, and has received support from the private sector. The government contributed nearly $4 million for startup, as well as a $3-million loan for the construction of offices and facilities at Cambrian College, whereas companies such as Placer Dome, Falconbridge and Inco donated a total of $2 million worth of technical equipment. NORCAT currently has an annual budget of $2 million.

Lake says that while NORCAT provides much-needed support to northern Ontario’s mining industry, it also provides jobs that would otherwise not exist. “Too many of our young people are going to the south, and NORCAT will provide the jobs for them to stay in the north.” The centre currently employs 23, but as many as 100 could be working there by the year 2000, says Lake.