Soaring to new heights

A new building will create business opportunities for a West Kootenay company

— Photo courtesy Firebird Technologies Inc.

Expect business to grow and expand for Firebird Technologies Inc. as they transition into a new 40,000-square-foot facility.

The Trail-based company has been steadily moving equipment from their current base of operations to the new digs, which will allow for increased production output and the space to design and create new manufacturing processes, according to Paul McKay, manager of production, sales and marketing for the company.

“It gives us the size and the room for expansion and the layout, infrastructure and utilities required for our current processes and new processes we are going to develop,” he said.

The old manufacturing base maxed out at 14,000 square feet and it got to the point where it was time to look into the future, McKay said.

“With the new building—it enables us to grow our current product and realize some of the products we have been contemplating over a number of years but we didn’t have the resources to get there,” he added.

Enhanced vision

The core of products manufactured by the company includes indium antimonide, a semiconductor product used in infrared detectors, thermal-imaging and astronomy equipment.

Firebird Technologies also offers highly refined pure metals such as indium, antimony and tin.

An engineer was sent from 5N Plus, the parent company of Firebird, to help design the new space and work with the contractors.

“We were happy to be able to design the building from the ground up to match the manufacturing processes that we have, and we also designed it to be readily expandable to suit future growth,” said McKay.

Over the last 10 years, Firebird has been developing new in-house products and is looking at a single crystal optical germanium product to be shaped into lenses, blanks and rods.

Planning for growth

Another target area for expansion is CIGS (copper, indium, gallium and selenium) products, which have applications in thin-film solar cells for use in the alternative energy industry.

The capacity at which Firebird produces indium antimonide makes the company unique on a global stage.

Firebird has 30 employees right now and hopes that the new facility will allow them to expand upwards to around 100, depending on the market for their new products.