The universe has a way of bringing people together when the time is right. Dave Elhard started his electronics career in 1986 working for a railway original equipment manufacturer (OEM) and struck up a friendship and close working relationship with Hung Phung, co-owner of the company supplying the OEM’s metal work. When the OEM was bought, Hung purchased the metal shop outright and Dave left to work for a small electronics contract manufacturing company.
Dave earned a business administration degree as he worked, and while he gained valuable experience there, he didn’t see advancement potential at the new company. He was ready to make a change for his future; he contacted Hung and proposed starting a contract manufacturing company together. Hung readily agreed, loaned Dave the seed money and invited him to lease a bay in the building that he owned on 64 Avenue SE. And, just like that, Innovative Manufacturing Source (IMS) Inc. was born on June 4, 2004.
“We bought some new and used equipment and we managed to scrape up a few clients in the beginning. We grew slowly, taking over bay after bay and now we occupy the entire building, the same building where I had worked for the OEM years ago,” says Dave Elhard, president and owner, IMS. “It has been an interesting journey.”
That journey started with three people, a 4,000-square-foot space and a vision to create quality products with unparalleled service. Over the years, IMS grew in size and scope and further broadened its services. In 2018 when Hung announced he was stepping back from the sheet metal business, Dave bought his business and seamlessly integrated it and its dedicated staff under the corporate umbrella as IMS Metal.
Today, IMS has a team of more than 110 employees, 77,000 square feet of state-of-the-art manufacturing space and a diverse client base in Western Canada and the United States. These clients distribute products worldwide in sectors including military, telecommunications, security, transportation, and oil and gas. Dave seeks out clients who value relationships and collaboration rather than those chasing the lowest price, and as a result, much of IMS’s work is done for a large list of long-time clients who appreciate the incredible service and quality that comes out of the shop.
“If you’re just looking to get a board built, there are lots of people who can do it,” he says. “We like customers who take their products seriously and who are looking for a manufacturing partner that will provide solid service, solid quality and solid products. That’s what we pride ourselves on.”
Being a full-service electronics contract manufacturer, IMS offers a one-stop shop for electronic assembly and sheet metal fabrication. The company’s mechanical and metal designers work closely with clients to turn vague ideas and hasty sketches into technical drawings ready for manufacturing. From established organizations that know exactly what they want to brand-new startups seeking help designing a product that is manufacturable and scalable, IMS lends its expertise to ensure the end results are exceptional.
The company partners with clients at every stage, assisting with design, material procurement, manufacturing, mechanical assembly, testing, packaging and shipping. As electronics have become more sophisticated, so too have the machines and software that manufactures them; IMS keeps up with the latest advancements in electronics, automation technology and laser and punch equipment to better serve clients.
“Electronic parts are getting smaller and smaller, making them harder to get on the board correctly,” says Dave. “We have some of the latest technology including robotic soldering arms that facilitate precision point soldering in the assembly of printed circuit boards (PCBs).”
IMS offers full box builds for products that incorporate manufactured PCBs, cable assemblies and sheet metal, all made in-house, and the shop has full test capabilities to ensure proper functionality of individual components and assembled units. They offer overmolding of circuit boards and cables and deliver a variety of finishing and coating options, encapsulation and potting to ensure devices are built to last.
“I don’t know that there is anybody in Western Canada that can do the range of things that we do. You can send us a purchase order and we build 90 per cent of it ourselves in-house,” Dave says.
Products are built expertly, and IMS’s certified quality assurance team thoroughly inspects each one to ensure it meets strict IPC and quality standards, and ISO 9001:2015 certification guarantees processes and procedures are up to date, meet industry standards and are followed throughout the process.
“The market is always changing. You have to keep up with it by having the most current equipment in place to build the most current technology. It’s important to look at new ways of doing things and coming up with new ideas, being innovative and offering our customers value-add services,” says Carrie Elhard, IMS’s senior office and human resources manager.
As new electronic products flood into the market, IMS is proud to meet the heightened demand for clients. After all, these clients are innovators too and as they design new devices, many look to IMS to manufacture their electronic products and create custom sheet metal enclosures to house them.
It’s exciting to discover the innovations Alberta companies are creating and more exciting to be a part of building them. Over the years, IMS has manufactured significant innovations, like a camera that helps quadriplegics communicate by picking up eye movements as they look at computer screen graphics and converting them to spoken sentences, or small PCBs that incorporate solar-powered LED lights for huts in third-world countries and remote areas. Not only do they produce light where there’s no electricity but they include a controller with a USB port for charging phones and devices. These are just a few small devices that have huge impacts on people’s lives around the world and IMS is proud to help get these products to market.
“We have a project now that’s a perfect example of what we do. We’re building a module for an OEM for a larger piece of equipment currently manufactured by them in-house. We are fabricating the sheet metal enclosure, manufacturing five PCB assemblies, 14 cable assemblies, doing the final assembly of the box build into a finished unit and performing a functional test. We ship it to the customer and they just have to plug it into the larger piece of their existing equipment. That’s the type of work we do, start to finish,” says Dave.
IMS has grown and evolved without sacrificing Dave’s vision for the company he wanted to lead: being a people-first business based on strong relationships and built on collaboration, honesty, integrity and respect. Dave worked hard to attract and retain great people and while IMS has grown significantly, the Elhards have managed to preserve the atmosphere of that original intimate workplace. Today’s IMS is a larger business with a small business feel. The hard-working staff enjoys constant banter and easy conversation, and colleagues have become good friends on and off the clock.
This relaxed, positive culture comes from the top with Dave, who does his daily “walkabout” on the shop floor to chat with the team and see how things are going. The Elhards appreciate employees’ dedication to the company and genuinely care about their people. Over 20 years, they’ve cherished watching young employees come in and grow up on the job and in life; they celebrate monumental moments, share in life’s disappointments and come together as a big extended family.
“I think it’s amazing that we’ve been able to build this for us and our family. Thinking back to 20 years ago, we never would have pictured this, that we could support not only our family but other people so they can support their families as well. We don’t just have one mortgage we’re responsible for, we have 110 of them,” says Carrie.
There is a definite family feeling at IMS. Dave and Carrie have worked together to build the company for 20 years and their sons worked weekends and during the summers from the time they were teenagers. Their younger son, Colton, earned his MA in Economics and is forging his own successful path in the energy industry while their eldest, Brenden, earned his Bachelor of Commerce in 2018 and joined the family business. Since then, he has earned his MBA in Project Management and serves as IMS’s operations manager, learning all aspects of the business to one day move into his father’s chair. The same is true across the organization; management is working to identify younger employees with the aptitude and desire to advance and be part of the succession plan for the next generation.
“We feel blessed to have had the success we’ve had and it’s due to all the people that have helped build it. We have a lot of people that have been here a long time and they’ve put their hearts and soul into it, too,” says Dave.
Everyone in the organization, from Dave and Carrie to the first-year summer students, is an important and valued part of the team and that team is comprised of some great key people including Stuart Henley, VP of business development, John Wilson, senior procurement manager, Tony Sauve, manager of advanced manufacturing and Bernard Deschner at IMS Metal. They bring years of experience and industry knowledge to the table and they, along with the rest of the talented staff, greatly contribute to the continued success of IMS.
“We want to continue to grow, to keep up with technology and to serve our current customers and those yet to join us,” says Dave. “With an incredible workforce, great leadership at all levels of the organization, solid vendor relationships and great customers, we’re pretty well situated for the future.”
Since it was founded, Innovative Manufacturing Source Inc. has had a clear mission: “to be the premier partner and provider of electronic manufacturing services for our customers as they transform lives around the globe.” Twenty years in with decades ahead, it looks like that mission has been accomplished.
3855 64 AVE SE,
Calgary, AB, T2C 2V5
587.740.1047
www.imsmfg.ca
