SSM Innovation Centre launches I.T. team, partners with Algoma Steel Inc.

The Sault Ste. Marie Innovation Centre (SSMIC) has received $713,590 in funding from the provincial government to create its own in-house information technology team - a move which is expected to create nine full-time jobs locally.

The information technology team is partnering with Algoma Steel Inc. - making the steelmaker its first client - in an effort to modernize Algoma's operations and make it more sustainable in the process.

“We’ve always had a strong IT group focused on the GIS, but now this lets us expand into industrial modernization, which is a whole complete new area of software development,” said SSMIC executive director Peter Bruijns. “So it really lets us build core skills, not only in programming, but in how to manage programming, how to manage business solutions, and even how to market these technology solutions, because now we’re in the process of launching our marketing to build awareness of what our capacities are.”

Pramod Shukla, chief operating officer for Algoma Steel Inc., says that the modernization of its day-to-day operations will enable the steelmaker to remain competitive.

“This will definitely take us to the next level in terms of efficiencies [and] improvements,” Shukla told reporters following Friday’s funding announcement. “This partnership is basically to develop some kind of talent at [the] local level who can work with us and have some kind of a technology hub at the local level.”

Sault Ste. Marie MP Ross Romano says the funding from the province will help the innovation centre build a regional hub for its modernization services and expand throughout North America.

“Let’s use Algoma Steel as a prime example. You have a market that is very cyclical in nature, steel prices rise and fall, we have all these additional challenges we face today with 25 per cent tariffs out of the U.S.,” Romano told SooToday. “We’ve got so many challenges, and we know, just coming out of CCAA (Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act) - and the fact that it was the third time of bankruptcy for Algoma since the early 1990’s - we need to able to diversify that economy, we need to be able to look at ways to create efficiencies within those businesses to allow them to operate better, and the technology sector is so critical to tap into for that purpose.”

“You look at the great work that’s being done in so many different areas,” he continued. “Through digitization, modernization, we’re finding creative solutions where you can make a dollar do more for you, and you can allow a business to be a lot more competitive.”

Bruijns told reporters that SSMIC will be expanding its information technology team in the new year.

“We’re looking at recruiting a good chunk of their graduating class, almost immediately, to bring in on a part-time basis throughout the school year, and then we’ll be more than likely be adding 14 to 15 young people by spring this year - and then where it goes from there is dependent on how hard we work on our marketing and sales,” Bruijns said.