Molder celebrates in spite of fire damage (July 01, 2000)

Just three weeks after a fire destroyed part of the plant, an injection molding company in Stoney Creek, Ont. went ahead with an open house celebration to mark the company’s 20th anniversary.

“We decided to go ahead with the open house,” says Dan Bruneau, owner and president of Promold Corp. “It would send the wrong message to clients to postpone the event after all the invites had been sent. Besides, it gave us a target, a focal point for the clean-up.”

Fortunately, clean-up was all that was needed in the production and administration areas of the plant. The fire occurred May 12 in a storage room that contained cardboard boxes and some finished plastic goods. The room had concrete walls and a concrete floor, so the fire was contained. Other areas of the plant suffered only smoke and water damage.

Bruneau was away on vacation at the time of the fire. He commends production manager Doug Weiler for stepping in and taking charge of the crisis. A restoration crew from Deep Clean Restoration (Hamilton, Ont.) had the machines running again in two and a half days. “A thin film of carbon covers everything after a fire,” says Bruneau. Machines and components had to be wiped down; circuit boards removed and cleaned. Ceilings, walls and floors were repainted, and the administration area was recarpeted.

Promold manufactures mostly lower volume products in engineering resins for trains, braking systems and industrial trucks, as well as other products for consumer, electrical/electronic and appliance markets.

One large volume contract that Promold has held since the inception of the product is molding and assembly of plastic whistles for Fox 40, based in Hamilton, Ont.

Promold has nine molding machines ranging from 20 tons to 400 tons, and a fully equipped moldmaking shop to make and maintain its own molds.