London is scoring a Canadian first, with a global centre to test new industrial products for market,The Free Press has learned.

Fanshawe College — which chased after the deal — will be the backdrop Friday, when a federal economic development agency will announce London as the home of the Canadian Centre for Production Validation.

This research centre is bigger and different than common consumer product testing centres.

Run by Fanshawe, it will evaluate products from around the world — consumer goods as well as aerospace, automotive, military and building products — to find their strengths and weaknesses and ways to make them better.

The only other centres like it are found in Germany and Texas.

For London, a major exporter of products ranging from the auto to defence sectors, the centre could strengthen its industrial muscle, Gerry Macartney, chief executive of the London Chamber of Commerce, said Thursday.

“It will establish London as a centre of excellence for manufacturing technologies,” he said, adding, “If companies see London as a centre for that, then they may look here for other opportunities.”

For Fanshawe, which has programs in transportation and manufacturing engineering technologies, it means helping businesses become more productive and profitable and faster to market.

The announcement will be made Friday at Fanshawe with London-area MPs and business and political officials joining Gary Goodyear, the minister of state for the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario, also known as FedDev.

“Fanshawe has been pushing very hard for this. It will be great for the city,” said Conservative MP Joe Preston of Elgin-Middlesex-London.

“Since we have been in government, we have focused on the issue of commercialization of research, research that turns into jobs. This is a big win for jobs, for employment.”

London West MP Ed Holder, minister of state for science and technology, wasn’t available for comment, his office said, saying he welcomes “any investment to strengthen business competitiveness” in the area.

How much the centre will cost and how many researchers will work there wasn’t immediately clear.

The 20,000-square-foot centre will be located in Innovation Park, at Bradley Ave. and Veterans Memorial Parkway, near the Fraunhofer Project Centre, a joint German-Western University research centre that specializes in lightweight materials, or composites, widely used in industry.

Macartney said the new complex won’t just be for final product testing, but even a step before that.

“This is not just testing; validation is the step before testing,” he said. “It validates whether the product is good enough to go to market.”

Once the centre is working closely with business and industry testing products, it will be easier to pitch them on manufacturing in London, Macartney added.

FedDev has had more than 60 applications for funding from London and has given more than

$100 million to local businesses and agencies over the past four years, Goodyear has said.

Western’s Collider Centre and the Fraunhofer Project Centre, which together cost about $37 million, were among the funded projects.