About IRCO: Company History
Founded by two partners in Brantford, Ontario, over 50 years ago.
IRCO Automation Inc. (IRCO) is a Burlington, Ontario based company that designs and manufactures its own line of weld positioning equipment. For over 40 years, IRCO has been providing knowledgeable service and dependable products to customers in a wide range of industries. As a testament to the company’s success, the relationship between IRCO and many of its customers can be traced back almost to the inception of the company itself.
The company began life as Brantford Tool Company, founded by two partners in Brantford, Ontario, over 50 years ago today. Production of press brake dies, and tooling contributed to the majority of the company’s sales. Additional sales were generated from the manufacture of pre-fabricated building and irrigation equipment sold to local farmers under the name Irrigation Company Ltd.
The company began manufacturing weld positioning equipment in 1963 under a licensing agreement with an American firm that would provide the designs for the products. By 1969, the company had acquired sufficient product knowledge in the industry to buy out the licensing agreement with its American partner and begin to design and manufacture its own line of improved weld positioning equipment. The company name was changed to Irco Industries Inc. (an acronym derived from “Irrigation Company”) to better reflect its new business focus.
The following three decades saw IRCO’s workforce slowly expand and move into progressively larger facilities, and eventually moving to Burlington, Ontario in effort to meet the demands of a widening customer base. In the midst of an ownership change in the early 1990s, the company name was changed to the present-day IRCO Automation Inc. During this time, business continued to expand with an increasingly international customer base, including many well-known multi-national companies. Orders for the company’s equipment began coming in from such distant countries as Mexico, Brazil, South Korea, and Zaire.
In 2008, IRCO became part of the RoMan Manufacturing Group, when RoMan purchased a controlling interest in the company. The RoMan Group consists of five entities: RoMan Manufacturing (transformer manufacturing), RoMan Engineering Services (weld engineering), Quality Brass (non-ferrous foundry), DAS Industries (transformer recycling), and now IRCO Automation Inc (weld positioning equipment). This inclusion into the RoMan Group provides IRCO with additional support and resources to serve our customers every need - we’re well positioned to serve your weld positioning needs!
