Why Made in Canada Matters for LAVA

By: Adam Swimmer

3 Min Read

May 15, 2023

LAVA Computer is a proud Canadian manufacturer – all of our products are made and tested in Canada. Today, we will discuss why this matters to LAVA and how it is an important part of what makes us who we are as a company.

What Made in Canada means

On the surface, the label is pretty straightforward – Made in Canada means all of our products, from PC cards to mobile adapters, are both designed and manufactured in-house. We do our best to source the parts we don’t make ourselves from other Canadian companies. For example, our biggest supplier, S&P Flex Inc., which provides us with our printed circuit boards (PCBs), has its factory in Markham, On. This allows us to have better control over our supply chain and provide peace of mind at the same time, as S&P Flex adheres to the same strict health and safety regulations as we do.

Reducing our carbon footprint

Manufacturing in Canada reduces LAVA’s carbon footprint, because instead of having to ship the parts on a container ship from overseas, S&P Flex is less than a half hour drive away from our Toronto headquarters. This means we can both get the PCBs faster when our stock is low and the impact on the environment from close-distance shipping is low.

Experience driving production

Our two-storey headquarters is roughly 26,000 square feet and includes both the manufacturing plant and sales office. Manufacturing in-house gives us greater overview over the production process and allows us to maintain the quality of the final product. We have been manufacturing computer and mobile devices’ cards and adapters for 39 years and have a track record for quality and efficiency.

Our highly skilled Toronto-based workers can deliver products in a timely fashion. Because we do the manufacturing ourselves, we can generally fill an order in 1-2 weeks unless the quantity of units is extremely high. This gives us another advantage over competitors who don’t manufacture their products in-house or suffer from long supply chain lines. If they need to order more stock or parts from their factory or supplier overseas, they may need to wait several weeks for the items to come in. Our shipping time for parts is significantly shorter and our small team can build our products efficiently and quickly. So if we run low on stock for an order, we usually build more units right away.

Our production has an extremely low failure rate. Less than 1% of the units produced turn out to be defective. Our engineering and design team is also a stone’s throw away from the production space, which isn’t common these days. This helps them see new (or even older) products come to life from concept to final build, and remain close by should any need for troubleshooting come up. Being this close to production also allows our engineers to see the trials and tribulations of manufacturing. They can see where production gets hung up and make improvements to the next design. This leads to lower costs for customers, better efficiencies for manufacturing, and overall a better product.

Quality checks through product testing

LAVA employees test every individual product before it leaves the factory floor to ensure it is working properly. If our employees find a defective unit during testing, they will repair it, if possible, which helps to reduce the electronic waste we produce.

With our mobile adapters, we also provide compatibility testing to determine if the products work with a variety of Android tablets and smartphones, including the top-selling devices from Samsung and Lenovo.

We even offer a free device testing program for mobile devices. So if the tablet or smartphone you intend to use for your mobile installation hasn’t been previously tested, loan it to us. We will determine whether it is compatible with our different adapter lines. We are able to do this because we build all the products on our premises.

Made in Canada means we are in control

Made in Canada is more than just saying our products are Canadian-made. It means we can manage everything from start to finish. We manage R&D, innovation, design and production. In addition to this, our sales and service team provides superb customer service to help you through purchase, installation, and any further questions or upgrades. If problems arise after the installation, we can help find a solution to them.

To learn more about LAVA’s products, check out the website or contact our sales team at sales@lavalink.com or 1-416-674-5942.

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