Technology and the Canadian Forest-Product Industries ... - ArtSites

only internal source of dissolving pulps. Whereas Cocel's R&Dfocused on pulping, the central laboratory of Celanese in New Yorkfocused on the pulp-converting stages.As Cocel began to lose money in the late 1960s the R&D staffbecame embroiled in operational problems at the expense of longtermresearch regarding dissolving pulps. When it became clear Cocelwould close its R&D division, two employees in 1972 purchased thelaboratory and created Econotech. Then the company had nineemployees; by 1978 it had 20. Econotech still specializes in pulpingR&D and concentrates on developmental work and technology transfer.Although Econotech does provide "consulting services" on operationalmatters, it emphasizes independent evaluations of pulpingprocesses utilizing its own equipment, which includes complete pilotplant facilities for pulping and bleaching.Econotech's customers include equal numbers of large companies,for which it conducts "overload" R&D, and small firms, which maylack the expertise to do their own R&D. Virtually all work is doneunder contract to forest-product firms, capital goods manufacturers,and consulting engineers. About 50-70 per cent of revenue is generatedwithin British Columbia.There are three explanations for Econotech's growth and its abilityto compete internationally. One, it has a high level of expertise indissolving pulps, a field where there are few competitors to beginwith. Two, Econotech claims to be able to maintain confidentiality. Allemployees sign secrecy agreements and sometimes technologists arethemselves not fully informed about the problem they are investigating.Three, Econotech has accumulated considerable experience in avariety of mill environments throughout North America.Another British Columbia-based spin-off company is CoastMountain Consulting of Nanaimo, which designs software packagesfor use in forestry. All Coast Mountain's original personnel came fromMacMillan Bloedel's Woodland Services in 1982, when MacMillanBloedel was cutting back. MacMillan Bloedel had created the groupcalled Computer Assisted Forest Engineering or CAFE in 1975 toprovide the company with a series of programs on various forestryrelatedtasks. Coast Mountain continues to serve MacMillan Bloedel,but also sells to other corporations in the United States and Canada."Software packages range in price from $300 to $20000.Government and University R&DCanadian governments, especially the federal government, anduniversities have traditionally done R&D for the forestry sector." In44