About MRO Magazine

MRO Magazine

Overview

MRO Magazine is Canada's national trade magazine for industrial maintenance, reliability and asset management professionals. Published by Annex Business Media in print and digital editions and supported by a continuously updated website at mromagazine.com, it serves the plant maintenance managers, reliability engineers, millwrights and operations leaders responsible for keeping Canadian factories, mines, utilities and process plants running. Its name comes from the industry term MRO — maintenance, repair and overhaul, later broadened to maintenance, repair and operations — and the magazine bills itself as "Canada's Industry Voice for Maintenance and Asset Managers Since 1985" and as "MRO Canada's Maintenance Voice."

The magazine's purpose, set out in its first issue and restated throughout its history, is practical: to help maintenance professionals do a better job in less time at lower cost to their companies. Its content mixes technical features, management articles, maintenance tips, industry news, association coverage and product information, and the brand extends to an email newsletter, a podcast, webinars, videos and events listings for the Canadian industrial community.

History

MRO began in December 1985 under the name Machinery & Equipment MRO. According to the magazine's own 20th anniversary account, the first issue was distributed to 18,000 plant maintenance and engineering professionals, and to the industrial distribution community, across Canada. Its founding editorial stated the mission plainly: "You are reading the first issue of a magazine that's designed to help you do a better job in less time at a lower cost to your company." At the time, the anniversary account recalls, the term MRO itself often had to be explained; the magazine helped popularise it in Canada as it published six issues a year, added supplements for the electrical and lubrication markets, and produced special issues for companies and associations.

The title evolved with its readers. Over the years it shortened its name to MRO and built long-running fixtures, including the Taking Control column series, introduced in the February 2005 issue, following a fictional maintenance manager's work through serialised instalments, and columns such as Maintenance 101 and What's Up Doug. An earlier editor who took over the magazine in 2018 led a gradual modernisation, including a logo update in 2020. In September 2022 the magazine underwent a complete rebrand — new logo, tagline and layout in print, with the website, e-news and social channels updated to match — retiring its unofficial mascot, Mr. O, in favour of a more professional MRO Pro Tips feature, and renaming its podcast from In Conversation with Mr. O to In Conversation with MRO.

In July 2024, Annex Business Media announced Kirstyn Brown as MRO's new editor. Brown, who also edits Annex's Plant magazine, brought almost 15 years of media experience, including serving as editor-in-chief of STRONG Fitness Magazine, and a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism from Toronto Metropolitan University. She works with Senior Publisher Paul Burton, and under her editorship the magazine has continued its mix of in-depth features and daily industry news into 2026.

Content and Coverage

MRO's editorial content is organised around the disciplines its readers practise. Its topic channels cover business operations, engineering, environment and sustainability, facilities maintenance, health and safety, human resources, lubrication, machinery and equipment maintenance, manufacturing, operations, preventative maintenance, technology, and women in manufacturing, alongside a Cleantech Canada stream shared with its publisher's other industrial titles. In-depth features address the field's current questions: predictive maintenance strategies built on Industrial Internet of Things sensors, generative AI in maintenance planning, kanban systems for spare-parts control, safe work in hot environments, shutdown planning, and the capability gap in the maintenance workforce.

Regular features anchor the magazine. MRO Pro Tips collects practical advice from industry experts; the MRO Roundtable convenes practitioners on workforce and technology questions; long-running columns such as Maintenance 101, What's Up Doug and the Taking Control series provide continuing instruction in serial form; and a From the Editor column opens discussion of the profession's problems, such as chronic downtime. The website's Top Stories stream reports daily Canadian industrial news — plant investments, labour agreements, government funding and supplier developments — while product news, webinars, videos and an events calendar round out the service. Features from the print magazine, such as the Winter 2025 issue's reliability coverage, are republished online for digital readers.

Audience and Reach

MRO's readers are the people accountable for equipment uptime in Canadian industry: maintenance and reliability managers, plant engineers, asset managers, maintenance supervisors and skilled tradespeople, working in manufacturing, food processing, mining, metals, energy, utilities and transportation. The magazine was launched to a distribution of 18,000 such professionals, according to its own anniversary account, and it has served that defined professional audience continuously since 1985 through paid and controlled circulation in print and digital form.

Its reach within the profession is reinforced by its association and events coverage, its podcast and webinar programming, and its position inside Annex Business Media's industrial portfolio, where it sits alongside Plant magazine and other manufacturing titles sharing news, topics and events. The magazine describes itself as Canada's trusted maintenance voice since 1985; no independently audited circulation figure is asserted here, and its influence is best measured by its four decades of continuous publication and its daily presence in the working lives of Canadian maintenance departments.

Digital Presence

The mromagazine.com website carries the brand's daily news service, publishing Top Stories and In-Depth features throughout the week — its homepage was carrying news dated August 11, 2026, and features dated through late July 2026 at the time of review. Readers can browse by topic channel, read the magazine's features and columns online, watch videos, register for webinars, consult an industrial events calendar and subscribe to the magazine and its email newsletters. The In Conversation with MRO podcast extends the brand into audio, with episodes taking deep dives into topics listeners request.

Within Annex Business Media, MRO sits on the publisher's shared digital platform alongside dozens of other Canadian B2B brands, sharing some content streams — such as Cleantech Canada and Women in Manufacturing coverage — with sister titles while maintaining its own editorial identity for the maintenance and reliability community.

Ownership and Organisation

MRO Magazine is published by Annex Business Media. Annex was founded in 1997 and began as a small collection of local newspapers and industry trade magazines with a printing press in Simcoe, Ontario; it sold its newspaper division to Sun Media in 2003 to concentrate on trade publishing, grew through acquisitions — including the 2015 purchase, with Newcom Media, of dozens of trade titles from Glacier Media's Business Information Group — and in 2024 began a transition to an employee-management partnership under which 50 per cent of its shares are owned by a broad management team. Founders Mike and Sue Fredericks serve as co-chairs of the board, and Scott Jamieson is chief executive officer. The company describes itself as Canada's largest B2B media company, with 60 media brands and about 160 employees.

The magazine is produced by Annex's industrial brands team. Kirstyn Brown has been editor since July 2024, also editing Plant magazine, with Paul Burton as senior publisher; regular contributors include reliability consultants and practising maintenance professionals who write its columns and technical features, supported by audience development, design and account staff shared across the company.

Contact and Availability

MRO Magazine is available by subscription in print and digital editions, published six times a year, and subscriptions to the magazine and its email newsletters can be arranged through its website, mromagazine.com, where readers will also find the current issue's features, the podcast, webinar registrations and advertising information. The magazine's editorial office is at Annex Business Media, 111 Gordon Baker Road, Suite 400, Toronto, Ontario M2H 3R1, with the publisher's main telephone line at 416-442-5600. No public business email address is listed here, in line with this directory's policy; enquiries should be directed through the website's contact facilities.