NAICS 327214Canadian industry · 6-digitlocal market

Glass manufacturing

This Canadian industry comprises establishments primarily engaged in making glass from sand and cullet. — Statistics Canada, NAICS 2022A

Establishments · CanadaA: 82
Under 10 employeesA: 55%

Size and shape

How many businesses there are and how small they are. Fragmentation is the first thing an entrant — or anyone selling software into this industry — needs to know, and it is one of the few things that is actually measured.

Canadian establishments by number of employeesA

1–42429%

5–92126%

10–191113%

20–491417%

50–99810%

100–19922%

200–49922%

500+0—

Of 82 Canadian establishments with employees, 55% have fewer than ten — mostly small operators.

Where they areA

Ontario3644%

Quebec1822%

British Columbia1721%

Alberta67%

Largest four provinces by establishment count. Establishments with employees only — sole operators with no payroll are not in this table, so in trades and personal services the true number of businesses is higher.

How many new establishments are still tradingA

Manufacturing, US · opened 2020

86.2%

1 year

70.8%

3 years

58.4%

5 years

45.3%

10 years

opened 2015

Measured, not forecast: the share of US establishments opening in one year that were still active later. It counts good operators and bad ones together, which is exactly why it is the honest answer to “what are the odds”. It is for the whole sector rather than this market, and the ten-year figure comes from an older cohort because no younger one has reached ten years.

No US figure is shown. County Business Patterns is coded to the 2017 US edition of NAICS; this code either does not exist there, names a different industry, or is outside the programme's coverage (most of agriculture, rail, postal and public administration are). A figure is attached only where both the code and the title agree.

How businesses here compete

The structural profile of subsector 327, which every industry beneath it inherits. This is analyst judgment from how the subsector is organised — not research into this industry, and not a measurement.

local competitionhigh capitalUNVERIFIEDinherited from 327 Non-metallic mineral product manufacturing

Concrete and aggregates do not travel, so each market is a haul radius and often a local oligopoly. Entry means a permitted site, which is the scarce thing.

Who sets the price: Whoever owns the nearest pit or plant.
The software it runs on: Batching, dispatch and ticketing.

Market screens and studies

Market-entry records filed along this branch of the hierarchy. A record at or beneath this code is about this industry; one above it is about something wider that contains it.

Screened one level up. Nothing is filed at this exact code; the screen for 3272 Glass and glass product manufacturing covers it.

Operating businessScreenedfiled at 3272

Glass Fabrication Shop (Tempering & Insulating Units)One thing must be true

binding constraint: defensibility

Making glass is a float line or a container furnace that never shuts off, and nobody enters that with ordinary resources. But most of this group does not make glass. Of 298 Canadian establishments, 55% have fewer than ten employees [A] — they are fabricators working from purchased glass: cutting, tempering, laminating, and assembling insulating units for window makers and glazing contractors. That is enterable. A tempering furnace and an insulating-glass line are a serious equipment loan, not a plant. The cut is that the fabricator stands between a supplier it cannot choose and a customer who buys on bid. Its one input is float glass, which it buys rather than makes. Apogee — far the larger buyer — names float supply as a risk in its own filing, warning that stronger demand for float glass could leave it short or paying more [A]. A shop with no leverage over that input buys the same glass as the shop across the city and sells the same tempered lite. What separates them is delivery time and price. Apogee's Architectural Glass segment — Viracon, the premium name in North American fabrication, with proprietary offerings an entrant will not have — shows how little shelter even that gives: net sales of $283.7M in fiscal 2026, down 12.0%, after falling 14.9% the year before, with adjusted EBITDA margin dropping from 22.2% to 16.1% on lower volume and price [A]. Its own filing says it competes with regional glass fabricators and international competitors. If the specified, branded leader gives up a quarter of its sales in two years when non-residential building slows, the unbranded shop has nothing to hold price with. A full study would test a captive niche instead — a fabricator tied to one window maker or one glazing contractor.

NAICS 32725 vendors named10 sourced figuresOpen →

Filed above — wider than this industry

Operating businessScreenedfiled at 327 Non-metallic mineral product manufacturing

Ready-Mix Concrete & AggregatesStructure decides

binding constraint: entry cost + regulatory drag

Aggregate pits are among the best local businesses that exist — a haul radius is a natural monopoly and the product cannot be imported economically — which is exactly why the permit is the whole business and takes years, public hearings and reclamation bonding to obtain. Buying an existing permitted pit means paying for that moat in full. Ready-mix without owned aggregate is the low-margin half of the same industry, buying its input from the competitor.

NAICS 3276 vendors named11 sourced figuresOpen →

Software serving this industry

The vertical software markets filed along the same branch — who sells to these businesses and who they would have to displace — and then the generic categories every business buys whatever it does.

No vertical software market has been recorded along this branch. What the subsector typically runs on: Batching, dispatch and ticketing.

Catalogued categories — named, not analysed

Discrete manufacturing ERP SaaS 31-33

And what every business buys · 25 generic categories

Sold to every industry rather than this one, so they are filed against the software industry's own code. The same few vendors recur across most of them.

Who works here

The occupations employed in Manufacturing, most concentrated in it first. The share is measured against the whole sector, not this industry — the published cross-tabulation stops there.

Concentrated in this sectorA

Aircraft assemblers and aircraft assembly inspectors One industry 91.3%

Supervisors, assembly and fabrication One industry 88.3%

Machine operators and related workers in pulp and paper production and wood processing and manufacturing One industry 86.1%

Managers in manufacturing and utilities One industry 84.4%

Machine operators and related workers in chemical, plastic and rubber processing One industry 82.7%

Mechanical, electrical and electronics assemblers and inspectors One industry 82.3%

Machine operators and related workers in food, beverage and associated products processing One industry 79.1%

Machine operators and related workers in mineral and metal products processing and manufacturing One industry 77.7%

Furniture, wood, plastic and other products assemblers, finishers and inspectors One industry 73.9%

Machine operators and related workers in textile, fabric, fur and leather products processing and manufacturing One industry 70.8%

These jobs are mostly done here. An operator in this industry is competing for them against others in the same industry, not against the whole economy.

And the jobs every business has

Other technical trades Across the economy 20%

Technical occupations in electronics and electrical engineering Across the economy 16.3%

Shoe repairers, shoemakers and upholsterers Across the economy 15.2%

Administrative and financial supervisors Across the economy 11.6%

Technical inspectors and regulatory officers Across the economy 10.7%

Administrative services managers Across the economy 9.6%

Legislative and senior managers Across the economy 9.2%

Building maintenance installers, servicers and repairers Across the economy 8.3%

Financial, insurance and related administrative support workers Across the economy 7.7%

Technical occupations in computer and information systems Across the economy 4.8%

Found across at least fourteen of the twenty sectors. In a small establishment several of these are usually one person, or an outside provider.

All 162 occupations →

Alongside this industry

This is the most specific level NAICS defines. The other industries under 32721 are its nearest neighbours.

Code	Industry	Establishments · CA	What is known
327215	Glass product manufacturing from purchased glass	216	screened at 3272