Most people likely don’t know what a commutator is, but they use them every day nonetheless.

Commutators move the rotary blades on an electric shaver, they raise and lower the power windows of a car and are literally the driving force of a locomotive. If something electric moves without being plugged in, there’s a commutator at work.

They are internal components in any DC motor or generator, and their sole purpose is to convert electrical energy into the mechanical energy necessary to make things move.

Barrie’s Industrial Commutator Company Ltd., which has supplied NASA, was the first manufacturer of its kind in North America to be ISO 9002 certified.

“It’s not exactly in the everyday lexicon of most Barrie residents,” smiles company CEO David Simpson, “but Barrie is a leading manufacturer of commutators.”

Although tiny versions of the component show up in everyday items, like cordless power drills and electric toothbrushes, Simpson’s plant specializes in larger commutators with industrial applications.

It can manufacture new products from original designs or by creating new drawings through reverse engineering an existing sample; or it can re-build a malfunctioning item.

The custom-order for NASA was possible because Industrial Commutator could complete the work quickly.

“Our timeline was about half of our American competitors,” Simpson says. “It was for one of only two wind-test tunnels in North America – it’s for testing air flight. When there are only two in North America, it makes it a little awkward if one’s not working.”

His team was able to turn around the project in 14 days.

At the Ames Air Force base in California, the 40-foot high and 80-foot long wind tunnel has fans at either end with four-storey high blades, he recalls. It costs $1 million every month in hydro to operate.

“We produced a couple of large commutators for them,” says Simpson.

“They were four or five feet in diameter and weighed 3,000 pounds each.”

The plant is equipped to produce components as small as a half-inch in diameter, and as large as 12 feet. There are many industries served, but 98 per cent of their client markets are foreign.

“The success of this company in this manufacturing environment today is definitely because of its diverse client base,” he says. “We don’t rely on the exchange rate for our margins.”

Simpson scours the globe for low-cost producers of raw materials and credits his continual process improvement policy for remaining competitive. Making systems more efficient also allows him to offset the higher costs of the local workforce.

“We’re a very cost-driven company, customer driven and quality driven,” says Simpson. “We started processing our own copper – we now do it ourselves at a greatly reduced cost. We can also control the quality and reduce the lead time – we just take the wire off the shelf. This also created delivery flexibility, reduced inventory levels and allowed us to create employment.”

In aerospace applications, commutators are used in the starter/generators of smaller aircraft like the Cessna and commuter airplanes. In commercial jets like the 747, they’ll power the auxiliary power unit.

Industrial Commutator also works with the pulp and paper industry (“the big strippers out in the woods,” for example, says Simpson), on ships (“fishing trawlers from Russia” or the Canadian frigates), and with oil companies to stabilize the rigs on the ocean. There is also the military, public transit and mining industries, to name a few more.

“A large application is the 400-lb component within a locomotive’s traction motor,” adds Simpson, who says these are a regular feature on his factory floor.

Commutators are constructed of sheets of copper separated by insulating mica all tightly compressed around a steel core “wheel.” When installed in the motor or generator, it is exposed to changing magnetic fields that either attracts or repels the copper. By channelling and directing the energy produced by the spinning commutator as it works to move toward or away from the magnet, mechanical force is created and can be harnessed.

Quality assurance is an important component in the service the company provides, says Simpson.

“We can’t afford to make a mistake,” he says. “We can’t test it until it’s put back in.”

He tells of one job where a hole had to be cut in the deck of a ship and the unit was moved along the hull to the hole. Once the commutator had been repaired and reinstalled in its housing, it had to be put back into the engine room of the ship. The testing only came after the ship’s deck was re-sealed.

A mistake would have been disastrous.

“We’re the only North American commutator supplier to be approved by the (Federal Aviation Association) FAA and Transport Canada for the aerospace industry,” he says.

A Shanty Bay native, Simpson started working at the company right out of Georgian College, where he trained in electrical technology. The firm was owned by a neighbouring family who knew him as a child, he receives a phone call and gave him a job.

He’s been there every since. He was instrumental in taking the company international and travelled extensively for several years to build overseas relationships. When it was time for the former owner to retire, he was given an offer he didn’t refuse.

For more than 10 years now, he has headed a company that has built a solid reputation based on more than 30 years of experience – for those who are directly involved in the industry. Most others, however, continue to be unaware of a component that does so much to make life easier.

“Nobody goes through life without being in contact with commutators, they just don’t know it.”

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