Continuous improvement in manufacturing is vital to help our businesses continue to grow and stay competitive in the global market. Have you thought about implementing changes to make your manufacturing process more lean? Are you working towards improving the quality of the product you manufacture? What about reducing a negative impact you may have on our environment? While these are great projects to implement, sometimes we don’t always have the funds available to actually do so.

That’s where the CME SMART Funding Program comes in.

The Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters group (CME) created the CME SMART Program with funding provided by the government of Ontario. This program was created to help small to medium sized manufacturers in Ontario improve efficiency and productivity to better compete in the global market.

How do they do this? They help fund projects that implement changes to improve your operational efficiency. These projects could include lean manufacturing and/or design, environmental impact reduction, IT best practices, quality improvement and energy efficiency. These projects should hopefully not just increase your efficiency but would change the way you do business, as well as reduce or eliminate waste (both wasted time and wasted materials) and phase out mistakes and non-value-added activities.

After getting approval from CME for the funding, these projects must be started within 2 months of your notification of selection from the CME, and should not take longer than 6 months to implement.

How much do they fund? The best projects proposed to the CME SMART Program get selected for funding, and you can receive either 50% of your project costs, or $50,000 – whichever is less.

Who is eligible? Companies with 10-500 employees that have their manufacturing operations in Ontario are eligible for the CME SMART Program. These companies would have to have been in operation in Ontario for at least two years.

Northbridge Consultants is a service provider for the CME SMART Program. We can provide you with SMART Assessments and help you implement these programs.

Lines of credit have almost completely dried up in this recession, and it’s harder than ever for businesses to fund their new development projects.  Ontario’s Advanced Manufacturing Investment Strategy (AMIS) is a great venue for Ontario manufacturers to pursue. What’s more, AMIS is available to companies from all manufacturing sectors in Ontario. The $500 million dollar provincial program focuses on:

• industrial R&D
• design/prototyping/engineering
• new/ advanced products/materials
• advanced manufacturing processes
• robotics/software development
• waste reduction
• energy conservation

AMIS, when granting a loan, can provide up to 30% of the total eligible costs of a project (up to a limit of $10M). This funding is given in the form of a repayable loan. The loan is interest free and principal free for up to five years, providing the company receiving it meets job and investment targets mutually agreed upon between the company and the province. After that period, the repayment rate is the province’s cost of borrowing, plus an additional 1%.

To be eligible, projects must create and/or retain at least 50 jobs. Alternatively, the projects must invest $10 million over the 5 year period. The costs eligible for the loan (excluding ongoing costs of production or operations) include:

• research and development
• equipment and machinery
• materials
• construction/facility improvements
• training
• overhead
• labour (one time only)

The terms for the loan are negotiated individually. After completing the application process, most companies receive word of the province’s decision within a relatively speedy 45 calendar days. This sometimes may take longer for the more complicated applications. The Minister of Finance, along with the Minister of Economic Development, approve or deny applications based on the guidelines of the AMIS Assessment Committee.

What’s more, for those manufacturers who regularly claim for SR&ED, receiving an AMIS loan has no impact on SR&ED eligibility. The AMIS loan is not affected if a business has already received an SR&ED return or income tax credits.  Companies that have received AMIS funding often include extra cash procured by SR&ED towards their projects. In fact, any business that has received SR&ED credits is more likely to be meeting the AMIS eligibility requirements.

For more information about AMIS, visit http://www.ontariocanada.com/ontcan/en/progserv_amis_en.jsp

The cost of borrowing money just went up. Unlike their US counterparts, Canadian banks that held positions in high-risk US mortgages will likely not receive a bail-out package.  The net impact of the mortgage crisis is that Canadian banks will have to increase their lending rates to make up for their losses.

This is a great opportunity to explore alternative financing options.  Two programs which many businesses are not aware of are the federal government’s IRAP (Industrial Research Assistance Program) and SR&ED (Scientific Research and Experimental Development) programs.

IRAP is run in conjunction with the National Research Council of Canada (NCR), and provides non-repayable contributions to Canadian small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) interested in growing by using technology to commercialize services, products and processes in Canadian and international markets. NRC-IRAP also provides mentoring support and invests on a cost-shared basis for research and pre-competitive development technical projects, upon assessment of a project and firm by a team of Industrial Technology Advisors.  Canadian SMEs with under 500 employees and industrial associations desiring to enhance their technological capability are eligible for support.

The SR&ED program is a federal tax incentive program, administered by the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA), that encourages Canadian businesses of all sizes, and in all sectors to conduct research and development (R&D) in Canada. It is the largest single source of federal government support for industrial R&D. The SR&ED program gives claimants cash refunds and/or tax credits for their expenditures on eligible R&D work done in Canada.