Serving customers across North America and as far afield as Manila, Philippines, Ambico Ltd. offers customers around the globe unique, highly-engineered door, frame, and window assemblies—and there is precious little this formidable team has not achieved in setting the production standards of bespoke, safety-focused doors, frames, and windows. Supplying its products through local specification division 08 distributors focused on serving general contractors, Ambico ensures that its products reach every corner of the continent.
Supplying the fast-changing worlds of architecture, engineering, and construction mainly in Canada and the United States with specialized performance-rated and decorative doors, frames, and windows made from a range of sophisticated materials including steel, stainless steel, bronze, brass, and wood, Ambico Ltd. has its work cut out. But as the employer of around 115 people, over 30 of them engineers, in a firm creating custom, high-performance solutions to tough window and door opening challenges, the company has firmly established—and is supremely confident in—its “Winning Aspiration: to be the leading supplier of opening solutions that keep people, information, and property safe.”
Ambico offers products and solutions in a number of verticals: Acoustic; Safety & Security (blast, bullet, attack, radio frequency, lead-lined); Climate (flood and tornado); and Decorative (bronze- and brass-clad, stainless steel, recessed panel).
Partners in performance
Founded in Ottawa, Ontario in 1955, Ambico still shines after almost seven decades in the industry. Serving some of the biggest corporate names in the world, this second-generation family-owned and operated company treats its customers like part of the family.
In addition to its North American operation, Ambico has licensing agreements with like manufacturing firms in other countries where North American specifications are required. In such cases, licensees fabricate products in their countries according to Ambico specifications and directions. To ensure that installation of its products is fully supported, it also offers free installation certification courses to train installers on the best installation methods to ensure that products are correctly installed at the jobsite.
“I don’t know any other door manufacturer in North America that has that number of engineers on staff that work toward creating the best tested and certified solutions for this type of product,” says Steve Peterman, Director of Marketing.
Meeting new needs
With a marked increase in the need for environmentally resilient design driven by climate change, the company relieves the pressure designers face in finding precisely the right doors, frames, and windows by providing quality products that match their aesthetic and performance goals. This is no small contribution to an industry under severe pressure to pivot and adapt at blinding speed during trying times.
Ambico’s climate-sensitive engineering includes meeting FEMA 361 standards, which define door assemblies so capable they are typically installed in tornado safe rooms. These are tornado-resistance tested to the International Code Council’s ICC-500 standard which outlines the requirements for impact resistance, pressure, and windspeed, which all help determine the safety of hurricane and tornado shelters.
“The need for these products is increasing. It’s at levels we’ve never seen before,” Peterman says, emphasizing that the regions traditionally prone to tornadoes across the continent are experiencing an increase in the number of events and surface areas affected.
Flooding of all types is also on the rise. To ensure that the door assemblies it supplies are resistant to the hydrostatic loads of flooding, the company must adhere to another range of unique requirements and tests. As these phenomena are not new, they are occurring with growing frequency and intensity and Ambico has cornered a niche part of the market populated by few competitors. “There are very few companies out there looking to develop products for these types of climate challenges,” Peterman says.
Indeed, Ambico’s high-performance products remain its open-market all-stars. Enhancing its offering further are capabilities that support the value-added, next-level requirements of its customers, such as leadership in energy and environmental design (LEED), where life-cycle analysis plays a key role in environmental product declarations. In addition, for wood products, ensuring responsible and renewable techniques are used for harvesting wood, AMBICO offers Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification.
All these Ambico products go above and beyond, doing much more than simply meeting the head-on challenges presented by changing weather patterns or demanding performance requirements. The company significantly enhances its customers’ ability to provide project owners with superior solutions that meet the most challenging demands of discerning architects.
Improving the end-user experience in all areas, Ambico’s diverse range of solutions allows the team to lead the industry with novel solutions that stand out from other products on the market. “Our products offer building owners and designers options to meet some of the changing demands like acoustic abatement, safety and security demands, and climate change,” Peterman says.
The highest quality
Typically hitting the ground running with its products, the company’s speed to market is driven by its impressive engineering capabilities supported by collective expertise to match. These skills are in especially high demand in high-security fields like the U.S. DoD and DoS, as well as other government departments. As a result, Ambico delivers a large percentage of its output to the government, adding an extra layer of trustworthiness to the already sterling reputation and high demand for its products.
Designers also enjoy working with the team as its engineers are seasoned in collaborating across disciplines, providing doors, frames, and windows that aesthetically blend into their designs. High performance does not automatically mean prosaic products with the look and function of practicality above all else; Ambico’s products are strong, durable, and highly engineered, but also beautiful when appropriate. And, because its products are labour-intensive to the core, all units receive the same level of personal attention to detail.
Due to these high standards, this labour-intensive process prevents the company from becoming highly automated, demanding that it retains its human knowledge and artisanal craftsmanship at all costs. The outcome is knowledgeable employees with lengthy tenures at the company, as leadership creates a pleasant working environment where people enjoy coming to work every day.
“We emphasize the artistry some of our factory workers can produce. The quality they produce is at the leading edge of manufacturing in our space,” Peterman says. Naturally, adding a high level of repeatability to the equation also adds to the level of craftsmanship and precision demanded by these products.
As the engineering of these designs can become quite complex, doors that may appear to be ordinary wood doors from the outside—complete with hardwood edges and crossbanded veneer finishes—contain complex fortified steel cores, undetectable to the naked eye. One of Ambico’s proudest projects includes a blast-resistant entrance door assemblies with wide, arched historic design requirements installed at the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York. Achieving outstanding results on this project remains a moment of great pride for the entire team.
Then there are the recessed panel door and frame assemblies at the Bronx Community College in New York. A retrofit project intended to spruce up the building from circa 1959 into the 21st century, the team employed modern technology to bring the makeover to life, while meeting today’s demanding building and accessibility codes.
Finding passion in the puzzle
With Peterman describing most of his colleagues, including himself, as “not setting out to be in this industry,” it is impressive to see the power of bringing such a diverse range of professional backgrounds together in such a focused niche—and its effect on the success of a company like Ambico as a result.
As there is, to date, no specialist post-secondary trade training program to prepare prospective employees specifically for this field, much of the knowledge is shared inter-generationally, on-the-job, and through dedicated industry-specific education courses. Despite the industry being an unlikely field for many working in it, Peterman describes it as one that challenges and rewards people who find enjoyment in problem-solving. Firm in the belief that doors are one of the only elements with high safety ratings that move on new constructions, the team understands its mandate. To deliver doors, frames, and windows that not only function optimally and are durable, but also keep people, information, and property safe, means that everyone on the team takes great pride in the importance of their work.
With the most recent non-residential construction trends pointing toward continued annual growth, the year ahead is focused on continued customer support through reduced lead times and on-time and complete shipments, as well as continued R&D to enhance and expand the company’s product offering. “There’s a high demand for these products in the marketplace. Often, we are leading their development,” Peterman says of the company’s reputation for being the first to introduce many products over its history.
The team’s love of developing new, quality products that keep people, information, and property safe, means that project owners and end users are guaranteed a steady stream of innovation from Ambico—where the team will surely continue to enjoy meeting such challenges for decades to come.
