Technology leaders ThinkData Works Inc. and Palantir Technologies Canada have partnered with Martinrea International to develop an industry-wide platform for supply chain resiliency that will help manufacturers predict, prevent, and mitigate disruptions.
Hamilton, Ontario – Next Generation Manufacturing Canada (NGen), the industry-led organization behind Canada’s Advanced Manufacturing Supercluster, has announced $8 million in collaborative funding, featuring over $3.5 million in co-funding, for a project led by Canadian technology company ThinkData Works Inc. (“ThinkData”), in partnership with Palantir Technologies Canada (“Palantir Canada”), and auto parts leader Martinrea International (“Martinrea”) to address the urgent supply chain crisis impacting manufacturers and consumers worldwide.
“At a time when the world’s supply chains are under pressure, this is exactly the type of project that will help Canada remain at the forefront in terms of resilience, reliability and innovation,” said the Honourable François-Philippe Champagne, Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry. “The partnerships developed through Canada’s Innovation Superclusters, such as the one between ThinkData, Palantir and Martinrea, will continue to flourish in the years to come and provide economic prosperity and thousands of well-paying jobs across the country.”
As the global supply chain crisis continues to dominate as a critically disruptive factor for every business operating in 2022 and beyond, ThinkData, Palantir Canada and Martinrea will develop and launch a Supply Chain Resiliency Platform solution that will enable any organization to introduce a digital representation of their supply chain and combine it with global supply chain events data and alternative-supplier catalogues from ThinkData’s External Data Management Software. Working with Martinrea, this solution will enable a centralized overview of Martinrea’s supply chain operations, prediction of and alerting to potentially disruptive events, recommended mitigation actions, and ultimately prevent production delays.
The perspectives go far beyond the initial use case. “We [ThinkData, Martinrea, and Palantir] want to transform the way manufacturing companies operate by making it possible for them to not only react better and faster to global events that impact the supply chain, but to begin to predict these types of events before they even happen” said Bryan Smith, CEO, ThinkData. “The value manufacturers and supply chain-dependent businesses will unlock through this solution will be life-altering – using AI to analyze your complex supply chain alongside global events data through this solution will make organizations feel as though they took the red pill in the Matrix. They will wake up with a much deeper knowledge and understanding than they ever thought was possible”.
At Martinrea, Megan Hunter, Executive Vice President of Procurement and Supply Chain Operations, expects to unlock more than $40 million of estimated annual value from avoided disruptions, realized savings, and operations optimization. “Supply chain challenges affect not only delivery times and financial margins, but as seen during the pandemic, have real-life day-to-day impacts for all Canadians. We are very excited to develop this platform in collaboration with ThinkData and Palantir Canada and to solve concrete problems through digital innovation.”
Martinrea, ThinkData, and Palantir Canada will make the supply chain resiliency platform available for all Canadian manufacturers to unlock similar value. Canadian manufacturers can leverage the underlying data foundation to rapidly develop, test, and deploy applications and AI models to be shared or monetized within the industry. “We are excited to be part of this initiative with Martinrea and ThinkData Works,” said David MacNaughton, President of Palantir Canada, “Palantir has helped some of the world’s most complex organizations transform their supply chain operations, with positive industry impacts. We are eager to collaborate with a Canadian start-up and a leading industry company and leverage our unique expertise to benefit Canadians and Canadian companies.”
Aside from the current supply chain crisis, the resiliency platform will leverage the data foundation and Palantir Foundry application-building tools to enable rapid prototyping and innovation to help the manufacturing industry solve challenges urgently as they arise. “This initiative highlights NGen’s focus on enabling transformative advanced manufacturing projects,” said Jayson Myers, CEO, NGen. “By using proven underlying technologies, the project will enable the industry to innovate, test hypotheses, and deploy solutions to pressing challenges faster than ever before, supporting digitalization and ensuring that future crises can be met head-on”.
This project is funded by NGen under Canada’s Innovation Supercluster Initiative. To date, NGen has approved 135 projects with 306 industry partners, investing $209.8 million of Supercluster funding and leveraging $515 million in total project investment. NGen investments have led to $305 million in new R&D investments by industry, created 15 new companies, supported 63 new products in development and enabled the creation of 200 new IP assets and subsequent licensing opportunities for NGen members.
About NGen – Next Generation Manufacturing Canada
NGen is the industry-led not-for-profit organization that leads Canada’s Advanced Manufacturing Supercluster. Its mandate is to help build world-leading advanced manufacturing capabilities in Canada for the benefit of Canadians. NGen works to strengthen collaboration among its membership of more than 4,500 manufacturers, technology companies, innovation centres, and researchers, and provides funding and business support to industry-led initiatives that aim to develop, apply, or scale-up transformative manufacturing solutions in Canada for commercialization in global markets. For more information, visit: https://www.ngen.ca.
About Martinrea International Inc.
Martinrea International Inc. (TSX: MRE) is a leader in the development and production of quality metal parts, assemblies and modules, fluid management systems, and complex aluminum products focused primarily on the automotive sector. Martinrea operates in 57 locations in Canada, the United States, Mexico, Brazil, Germany, Slovakia, Spain, China, South Africa and Japan. Martinrea’s vision is making lives better by being the best supplier we can be in the products we make and the services we provide. For more information on Martinrea, please visit www.martinrea.com. Follow Martinrea on Twitter and Facebook.
About ThinkData Works
ThinkData Works Inc. is a Canadian technology start-up based in Toronto, Ontario. ThinkData enables enterprise organizations to discover, govern, and monetize the data that powers their business. ThinkData offers a flexible enterprise data catalog designed to ensure data quality and regulatory compliance at every stage of the data lifecycle. For more information, see www.thinkdataworks.com.
About Palantir Technologies
Palantir Technologies Inc. builds and deploys operating systems for the modern enterprise. Additional information is available at www.palantir.com.
MEDIA CONTACT:
Deanna Lorincz, Global Director, Communications and Marketing
Martinrea International Inc.
[email protected]
Tel: 248.392.9727
Mobile: 586.634.1766
INVESTOR RELATIONS:
Neil Forster, Director, Investor Relations and Corporate Development
[email protected]
Tel: 647.210.2385
