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1956
Plant opens as Western Wire and Cable in a former World War II airport training hangar, just a few miles outside of Weyburn. The principle product was ACSR.
1970
A fire severely damaged the plant and the facility was relocated to its current location. During this time, the product line was extended to include data transmission cables, as well as copper telephone cables, which became the major product line until 1993. The new facility was 74,000 square feet.
1971
Moved to new premises built after 1970 fire.
1992
Facility was sold to Alcatel
1992-1993
The facility underwent a major restructuring and expansion. An additional 36,000 square feet of floor space was added. A true triple (three layers of plastic extruded at once) catenary vulcanization (CV) was added, and the plant was refocused to manufacture power cables. Telephone and data transmission cable production was moved out.
The total size of the facility was now 110,000 square feet.
New partnerships were entered into with Manitoba Hydro, B.C. Hydro and Edmonton Power. Exports now made up half of the plant's business, with the Salt River Project as the largest customer in America.
1996
Another major expansion and restructuring was completed. Machines added to production were:
- Aluminum draw
- Tubular stranders (2)
- Right strander
- Extrusion line
- Parallel rewind line
Products being manufactured now included bare overhead transmission cables, low voltage overhead and underground multi-plexed cables, and medium voltage (up to 46,000 volts) underground cables.
Products were primarily marketed to Western Canada and the continental US from North Dakota to Florida and Arizona to California. However, Weyburn produced cables for as far away as Bangladesh.
2000
Another major expansion was undertaken to double the Weyburn plant capacity within 3 years with the total estimated investment at $19.6M CAD. Key goals for this expansion included:
- Leadtime reduction;
- Increased cost reduction by capitalizing on economies of scale;
- Improved productivity through use of state-of-the-art manufacturing equipment;
- Increased quality.
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