CREDIT: PROVIDED BY DR. BEN CECIL, CHIEF BUSINESS OFFICER FOR CCPV
The Canadian Centre for Product Validation (CCPV) opens its new building on a 10 acre plot of land donated by the city of London, to Fanshawe.

On Friday Sept. 16, Fanshawe celebrated the grand opening of the Canadian Centre for Product Validation (CCPV).

According to a Sept. 14 media release, this is one of Canada's most unique product development facilities, the release said.

This is a 25, 000 square foot centre that houses the leading edge validation technologies and equipment. It's located at the Advanced Manufacturing park, where a 10- acre parcel of land was donated by the city of London to Fanshawe.

The CCPV was an idea that came about in 2014 by a small group of individuals including Dr. Ben Cecil, chief business officer of CCPV.

The idea was to have an innovation lab facility directly connected with the college for the purposes of supporting the industry and bringing new products to the market faster than they could in the past. It has not yet been done at another Canadian college at this level, according to Cecil.

“It's a great opportunity for students to gain experience when they're on their co-ops, students from the London Oxford location as well as all of the regional campuses,” he said.

The partnerships the CCPV has are extremely important because they can help companies directly advance their products through an innovative process that allows them to get the products to the market faster.

The idea of the CCPV was to see how the Fanshawe community could actually use the land that was provided to them from the city of London.

There was a proposal for the land made, and after submitting it to the federal government, the government provided the group with an $8.11 million grant which Fanshawe matched.

The building broke ground in May 2015, and opened their doors on June 1, 2016 for a “soft launch” to make sure the building was up to complete standards. The grand opening on Sept. 16 was the real opening, and included local and municipal government, the mayor and senior level people from Fanshawe among others. The Federal Economical Development Corporation (FedDev Ontario) was also present, since they are the federal funders of the project.

All, according to Cecil, have been “great supporters and advocates for the creation of CCPV”.

“It's a fantastic opportunity, not just for Fanshawe to take a very bold and unique approach to serving our communities and the industries we support through our community, but it's also a fantastic opportunity for our students and faculty to engage in research… [and] theoretical course work that they've learned throughout classrooms on their various campus locations, and then finding a way through their co-ops or as employees of CCPV to actually engage in those very skills that they've been taught in the classroom and now find a way to see application,” Cecil said.

“I think it's a great opportunity for folks who really engage at a completely new level of activity with our industry partners.”

Cecil said the building is really cool and is a controlled goods society, the first of its kind for Fanshawe. It's also trying to become a green building too.

CCPV has also partnered with IMAGINiT.

“We are a fantastic facility with great equipment [but] we can't do everything for every sector,” Cecil said.

Wanting to be a one stop shop to “help businesses achieve their goals”, Cecil said CCPV recognized they can't do it all and were on the hunt for players in the marketspace to complement the offerings to support the businesses that connect with CCPV.

“IMAGINiT brings to the marketspace incredible capabilities in software and computational fluid dynamic simulation. They are without a doubt one of the leaders [in simulation] and we want to establish our partnership network with the best in the business,” Cecil said.

“It is wonderful to be able to work with a group that is as professional as IMAGINiT because they have not just the best software, but an incredibly deep talent pool to assist us helping firms in simulation at software simulations.”

This partnership allows firms to have lower costs and get products much more cost effectively than in the past.

This partnership is a collaborative one and acts like an ecosystem for not only the two main parties, but also the clients.

The biggest win is to the client they both serve, which is what is important in the end, Cecil said. The partnership will also help new grads obtain better job opportunities.

“The partnership allows [us] to continue to bring business to and solidify the existing business network that we have in Southern Ontario.”