Billion dollar contracts the norm for small Kitchener company

Massive construction projects in energy, oil and mining mean big business to a Kitchener company. Coreworx Inc., with about 85 employees in an office on Frederick Street, specializes in mega projects. The company builds enterprise software for large capital project control and management, essentially supporting information and cost control.

The customers that Coreworx deals with are not big "news hounds" according to Brett Shellhammer, senior vice-president of marketing for Coreworx. But that doesn't mean Coreworx lacks in contracts. On the contrary, the company is currently involved in some 500 projects in 40 countries around the world worth a combined $500-billion. "Travel is definitely our biggest expense line," admits Shellhammer, explaining that Coreworx has two employees in Australia right now and CEO Ray Simonson just returned from a trip to Norway. "We're all over the world on a regular basis and that's one of our greatest challenges. But these projects are global, the companies we deal with are global and we go there when they need us to."

But that doesn't mean Coreworx feels it's at any sort of disadvantage with its headquarters in Kitchener. "We don't face the sort of stigma that some companies face being a Canadian or Waterloo-based company," says Shellhammer. "People really see Canada as a leader in energy and natural resources. We are embedded in this community." Coreworx also partners with local post-secondary institutions, working on research projects with the University of Waterloo and providing co-op placements for students there as well as at Conestoga College.

The growing energy sector provides great opportunity for Coreworx. "Energy is becoming much more of a focal point," explains Shellhammer. "(We look for ways) to do some of these clean energy projects and these massive energy projects to help power the world." The size and scope of these projects is what sets Coreworx apart. "The things that we do on an individual basis are relatively straightforward and lots of people can do that," Shellhammer says. "But when you multiply that by 400,000 or 800,000 or 1.2-million moving parts, the way you organize that information and present it to users becomes the key." Shellhammer says presenting information in real time allows users to make large-scale decisions quickly.

In the nuclear industry, by the time a project is 24 months old it can be 12 months behind and that can be costly. A refurbishment project alone costs $1-million a day.