Carleton Place sits at the crossroads of Highway 7 and Highway 15 in Lanark County, about 40 minutes west of downtown Ottawa along the Trans-Canada Highway. The town developed around Edmond Morphy’s mill on the Mississippi River. Carleton Place’s manufacturing base has roots that go back to the textile and lumber operations that once lined the riverbank, including the Findlay Foundry. Carleton Place’s industrial history didn’t appear; it evolved. Many of the old mill buildings now house high-tech and precision manufacturing operations, and Carleton Place’s proximity to Kanata’s tech corridor helped attract a wave of electronics and components manufacturers during the high-tech boom, a legacy still visible in the mix of manufacturing and technology businesses operating out of the town’s four serviced business parks today.

Carleton Place’s legacy in the precision-manufacturing sector and a labour market that competes directly with Ottawa and Kanata for skilled workers creates a specific set of pressures for local operators. A components manufacturer here isn’t just competing with other Lanark County businesses for staff; it’s competing with tech employers 40 minutes down the highway. A facility working out of a converted mill building often has to fit automation into a footprint that wasn’t built for it. And with easy highway access to Ottawa, Perth, Smiths Falls, and Almonte drawing daily freight pickups from FedEx, UPS, and other carriers, production has to keep pace with delivery schedules set by customers well outside the immediate area. Capital Automation designs custom automation systems for Carleton Place manufacturers dealing with exactly these constraints. Every project starts with a free, no-obligation consultation, and because we’re based on Fallowfield Road in Ottawa, our engineers and fabricators are a short drive away for fast, hands-on installation and support.

Helping Carleton Place manufacturers improve efficiency.

Every facility runs differently; however, the obstacles tend to repeat. You may be trying to fill skilled technical roles in a labour market where Kanata and Ottawa employers are offering comparable wages just down the highway. A packaging or assembly line built for an earlier stage of your business may now be the step that slows everything behind it. Older equipment in a converted mill or legacy industrial building may need frequent maintenance that eats into production time. Rather than replacing an entire line, custom automation lets you target the specific stations creating the bottleneck, built around the equipment, floor space, and production goals you already have.

Automation built around your production line

Off-the-shelf automation rarely fits well into a converted mill building, a legacy manufacturing floor, or a precision components operation with tight tolerances. Every system we build is engineered specifically for your facility, your products, and your production targets.

Our custom automation solutions include:

• Automated packaging systems
• Conveyor system design and retrofits
• Material handling automation
• Product sorting and inspection systems
• Pick-and-place automation
• Robotic integration
• Custom assembly automation
• PLC programming and HMI development
• Motion control systems
• Machine safety upgrades

Conveyor and packaging automation that removes bottlenecks

For manufacturers shipping daily via the carriers that service Highway 7 and Highway 15, packaging and material movement are often where time gets lost. Product accumulates between workstations, manual handling slows throughput, and older conveyor equipment struggles to keep up as order volumes grow. Capital Automation designs custom conveyor systems and modernizes existing lines with updated PLC controls, automated feeding, product indexing, sensors, guarding, and improved conveyor controls without requiring a full rebuild of equipment that’s still mechanically sound. For food producers in the area, including operations connected to Lanark County’s agricultural and harvest-driven economy, we also build washdown-ready systems designed for hygienic operation and easier maintenance.

Automation that grows with your business

Carleton Place has added more than 7,000 jobs to its local economy and continues to grow as one of Lanark County’s key employment centres, but growth in a tight labour market means production capacity can’t always scale by hiring alone. We design modular automation systems that let you add conveyor sections, robotic work cells, or assembly stations as demand increases, so your system expands with your business instead of being rebuilt from scratch.

Why Carleton Place businesses choose Capital Automation

With more than 15 years of automation experience, our in-house team manages every stage of your project, including:

• Mechanical engineering
• Electrical design
• PLC programming
• HMI development
• Custom metal fabrication
• System integration
• Installation and commissioning
• Ongoing technical support

Managing the full project under one roof means fewer handoffs and clearer communication, and because we’re based close by in Ottawa, Carleton Place businesses get fast, responsive service whenever on-site support is needed.

Off-the-shelf automation vs. custom automation

Our process

Every project starts with an on-site consultation to evaluate your production process, identify where time and product are being lost, and understand your goals for growth. From there, we design a custom solution, build the equipment in-house, install and integrate it with minimal disruption to ongoing production, and provide operator training and continued technical support.

Get started with custom automation in Carleton Place.

Whether you’re upgrading equipment in a legacy mill building, automating packaging and material handling, or preparing your facility to compete for the next stage of growth, Capital Automation can help. Contact us today to schedule your free consultation and find out how a custom automation system could improve productivity, reduce downtime, and keep your Carleton Place business competitive for years to come.