A Sudbury company tucked neatly away in the Lively industrial park near Fielding Road has created a global reach and is celebrating 20 years as a key player in the local mining supply business.
Fuller Industrial, a company that manufactures industrial piping for customers around the world, said it is proud to be a family-owned business.
Jeff Fuller, president and CEO of the firm, created the company in 2004 to specialize in abrasion-resistant piping and process piping for the mining industry.
Fuller Industrial said the company roots are traced back to the 1970s when Jeff Fuller's father, Bill Fuller, created Abraflex, a local fabrication, machining and rubber-lining business that also serviced the mining industry.
Fuller said he was inspired in 2004 by the potential of global projects in the mining industry. Fuller is an affable fellow who knows the mining pipe industry backwards and forwards.
"When I got into the business, I started recognizing this international potential. Because I started as a local supply company, so basically you service everywhere that you could drive in a pickup truck, right? I mean, those sort of terms," he said.
Things changed in the mid-2000s when Fuller was contracted to supply custom pipes and fittings to the Ambatovy Mine project in Madagascar.
Fuller said that project "really, really kicked it off for us."
He said the company was able to produce a niche lined-piping product that allows companies to pump all sorts of abrasive fluids and solutions within a mining plant through Fuller pipes. This would include pumping solutions of rocks and water where the lining of the pipes absorbs the abrasion.
"Because we're a really kind of a niche thing, we were really able to become one of the best in the world," said Fuller.
“And we have ... the most-advanced robotic welding pipe shop in North America. We've been challenged; I've challenged everybody. No one's ever said that they have seen one more advanced," Fuller added.
"So we said, you know what, we don't have to compete with Sudbury. Let's compete with the world," said Fuller.
Because Canadian mining companies are known as some of the best miners in the world, Fuller said they are usually backed up by the best Canadian or North American engineering firms. He said those firms are all familiar with the mining supply and service companies in the Sudbury cluster. And that is good for business, he said.
Fuller said Sudbury has become a "sexy location to have a mining-supply business" in that the city is located on the Trans-Canada Highway and has strong local rail links that make it easy to have products to be shipped out via the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Seaway.
"So with the infrastructure and the help that we have here from the local colleges — from the government, from the actual infrastructure of other businesses here, the mining community at large — it’s just a great place with a great infrastructure for what we do," said Fuller.
He added that because of the mining supply cluster in Sudbury, Fuller has found it easy to do the everyday work to keep the business running.
He said even the rubber for lining process pipe is an international product, but he is able to source it locally.
"And the reason it comes from local suppliers is because the rubber comes in a raw form. So it's got an expiry date so it would be hard to buy it further away; you have to buy locally," said Fuller.
But he said every other business service is provided locally and he said Sudbury is an excellent city for that.
"Plus, I like it here," said Fuller.
He added that he is proud that his children are also now working the business and are involved in the day-to-day operations of the company.
Len Gillis covers the mining industry as well as health care for Sudbury.com
