The Robot Industry Podcast

Chris Latour and I have known each other for many years, from our days at ATS Automation, and it was my pleasure to reach out to him to arrange a tour of Element5 in St. Thomas, Ontario. So if you have never heard of Mass Timber, it is structurally efficient wood that is bonded together and used to form small and large buildings: walls, ceilings, floors and is engineered to be easy to use, to look beautiful and be functional. Think of a wall that needs a plumbing stack cutout, but it is actually cut at the factory using 3D CAD model files. Elegant and purposeful. St. Thomas is just South of London, ON and North of Port Stanley, which is where I grew up in the summer, so the opportunity to have a tour and record a podcast was very exciting to me. Chris is a manufacturing professional who has worked with The Cakerie, Armo Tools, Convergix Automation (JMP Automation), and ATS Automation ~ so we have a lot in common, as many of these companies have been my clients before, and we have a lot in common, living nearby. St. Thomas (aka Railway City) is also the "Rail Capital" of Canada. At one time, St. Thomas had around 25 different railroads that came into the city, and it was, and still is, a major hub of manufacturing. For the large amount of wood that is required, being connected to CP and CN rail line is a game-changer for Element5. Chris is now the CEO of Element5 (a member of the HASSLACHER group) and oversees the entire operation, including a 350-square-foot facility with sanding, pressing, CNC cutting, RF pressing, gluing, laminating, X-ray, vision inspection, material handling, and staff and sales. The build of the operation took place during covid.  The facility was recently expanded substantially in September of 2025 from 137,000 square feet to over 350,000 square feet, adding in a full Glulam production line, and a two-storey mass timber front office. This expansion also doubled the production of the facility from 50,000 cubic meters to 100,000 cubic meters annually of cross-laminated timber (CLT) and glued-laminated timber (Glulam) products.. Keywords: Dimensional lumber, Engineered lumber, Mass Timber, Element5, St. Thomas, Messenger Freight, Artificial Intelligence. CLT Cross Laminated Timber, Glue Lamination, Build Canada, Canadian Wood Council. For background information here, see: Element5 Mass Timber Celebrates Grand Opening of Expanded Manufacturing Plant in St. Thomas, Ontario - Element5 Thanks to Diana Tamblyn, Mira Grkavac, and my friends at MPI who did the early connect. Element5 is located at 70 Dennis Road, St. Thomas, Ontario N5P 0B6 https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-latour-5a5a044 www.Element5.co for some wonderful pictures! 1 888-670-7713 info@elementfive.co If you would like to get in touch with us at THE robot industry podcast, you can find me, Jim Beretta on LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/in/jimberetta/ Today’s podcast was produced by Customer Attraction Industrial Marketing and I would like to thank my team: Chris Gray for the music, Geoffrey Bremner for audio production and my business partner Janet. Be safe out there! Jim Jim Beretta Customer Attraction & The Rob...