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East West Manufacturing Quebec: Mirabel - a Centre of Excellence for Rapid Prototyping
Eric Laroche, Senior Director of Operations, East West ManufacturingShifting Development Trends in North America
Across North America, companies are reshoring or regionalising early-stage hardware development to reduce supply chain vulnerability and shorten development cycles. This shift has increased the need for rapid prototyping facilities that operate in close proximity to engineering teams and can respond to design changes with speed and agility.
At the same time, many organisations are developing more complex electronic products, including systems that incorporate advanced sensors, higher-layer count PCBs or compute and edge processing elements. These products require fast iteration, controlled processes and close coordination between engineering and manufacturing. Mirabel’s capability set aligns with these emerging requirements.
Inside the Mirabel Facility
The Mirabel rapid prototyping facility offers 25,000 square feet of capacity, comprising a 3,000-square-foot protected component warehouse and a 5,000-square-foot storage warehouse. The site is designed specifically for rapid prototyping and quick-turn printed circuit board assembly. It supports moderate to high complexity assemblies, including 4 to 24 layer PCBs, fine pitch BGA and package on package assembly, along with processes such as nanocoating, advanced cooling approaches and overmoulding.
Mirabel focuses on predictable turnaround, engineering collaboration and manufacturability and test considerations, reducing early-stage development risk and
preparing products for smooth progression with its NPI Express service.
Canada as a Platform for Advanced Manufacturing
Canada offers stable business conditions, a skilled technical workforce and cost-competitive access to major global markets, including the United States. Its reliable infrastructure and clean energy supply support efficient and sustainable production. Mirabel, located in Quebec, benefits from these conditions, providing its customers with a practical base for both development activity and ongoing production. This environment supports EWQ’s focus on predictable prototyping, controlled process and high reliability production.
How Mirabel and St. Hubert work together
EWQ operates a two-site structure in Québec. Mirabel supports rapid prototyping and early-stage development, while St. Hubert manages NPI and low to mid-volume production. St. Hubert provides surface mount technology for standard and oversized PCBs, as well as conformal coating, overmoulding, testing and reliability assessments. The internal transfer process between the two sites has been refined over time to ensure predictable movement from prototype to production.
This combined operating model maintains continuity across engineering, materials management, test development and process control as products mature, and is suited to organisations with sensitive technologies, high-reliability use cases or complex design and environmental requirements. Rather than fitting products into fixed workflows, EWQ collaborates with engineering teams to tailor processes to the product and the customer’s objectives. The focus is on creating a clear path from prototype to production with appropriate engineering, test and supply chain considerations built in.
Meeting the Needs of High Reliability Sectors
Companies operating in technically demanding sectors, such as agri-tech, defence, clean energy, and critical minerals, face considerable pressure to bring products to market quickly while maintaining quality and reliability. The ability to prototype, test, validate and scale efficiently is often what separates commercially successful innovation from concepts that fail to progress. EWQ’s two-facility structure is designed with these pressures in mind and supports a defined progression from early design and prototyping to the production line and volume transfer.
Support across the full Product Lifecycle
Across both facilities, EWQ provides design and engineering input, joint product design, design for manufacture and design for test analysis, component engineering and test system development. This is supported by supply chain planning, supplier localisation assessment, import and export expertise and total landed cost analysis. The objective is to offer customers a clear and predictable progression from concept to prototype, from prototype to NPI and from NPI to scaled production within East West’s broader manufacturing footprint.
Canada as a Platform for Advanced Manufacturing
Canada offers stable business conditions, a skilled technical workforce and cost-competitive access to major global markets, including the United States. Its reliable infrastructure and clean energy supply support efficient and sustainable production. Mirabel, located in Quebec, benefits from these conditions, providing its customers with a practical base for both development activity and ongoing production. This environment supports EWQ’s focus on predictable prototyping, controlled process and high reliability production.
How Mirabel and St. Hubert work together
EWQ operates a two-site structure in Québec. Mirabel supports rapid prototyping and early-stage development, while St. Hubert manages NPI and low to mid-volume production. St. Hubert provides surface mount technology for standard and oversized PCBs, as well as conformal coating, overmoulding, testing and reliability assessments. The internal transfer process between the two sites has been refined over time to ensure predictable movement from prototype to production.
This combined operating model maintains continuity across engineering, materials management, test development and process control as products mature, and is suited to organisations with sensitive technologies, high-reliability use cases or complex design and environmental requirements. Rather than fitting products into fixed workflows, EWQ collaborates with engineering teams to tailor processes to the product and the customer’s objectives. The focus is on creating a clear path from prototype to production with appropriate engineering, test and supply chain considerations built in.
Meeting the Needs of High Reliability Sectors
Companies operating in technically demanding sectors, such as agri-tech, defence, clean energy, and critical minerals, face considerable pressure to bring products to market quickly while maintaining quality and reliability. The ability to prototype, test, validate and scale efficiently is often what separates commercially successful innovation from concepts that fail to progress. EWQ’s two-facility structure is designed with these pressures in mind and supports a defined progression from early design and prototyping to the production line and volume transfer.
Support across the full Product Lifecycle
Across both facilities, EWQ provides design and engineering input, joint product design, design for manufacture and design for test analysis, component engineering and test system development. This is supported by supply chain planning, supplier localisation assessment, import and export expertise and total landed cost analysis. The objective is to offer customers a clear and predictable progression from concept to prototype, from prototype to NPI and from NPI to scaled production within East West’s broader manufacturing footprint.
