Green is chair of the Innovation Recognition Programme Advisory Board and says innovation is essential for Australian manufacturers to thrive.
“The key ingredient of productivity is innovation, we are not just talking about science and technology innovation, we also have to include non tech innovation such as new business models, design thinking and system integration and also high performance work and management practices, all of those contribute to a high productivity and high skill economy,” he says.
It’s a sentiment Pat Boland, co-owner of precision tool manufacturer ANCA, agrees with.
“Keeping on the pace of innovation is an absolute treadmill,” Boland says.
“We spend a lot of money in research and development of a product and innovation, but it’s a race you can’t afford to relax in or suddenly you’re running at the back of the field.
ANCA turns over $160 million a year and Boland says the manufacturer started exporting because Australia was such a small market for technology and so he wanted something to sell on a global scene.
Boland has kept ANCA’s head office and the majority of its manufacturing in Australia but has recently opened a factory in Thailand.
“We keep our head office in Australia because we’re already here. We’ve got a very good infrastructure, we’ve got very good staff, and although it’s expensive, it just makes sense to stay here,” he says.
Boland says having local manufacturers with their head offices and “roots” in Australia brings significant benefits to the community but ANCA has opened a factory in Thailand to take advantage of the free trade agreements between Australia and Thailand and then China and Thailand.
“There’s a free trade agreement between China and Thailand, so we’re able to ship goods into China duty free,” he says.
“There’s not many free trade agreements between China and the rest of the world, so the one between China and Thailand’s been quite significant.”
Clipsal is a brand of Schneider Electric based in South Australia and is Australia’s number one brand of electrical accessories.
Clipsal has been around since 1920 and makes over 50% of its products in Australia.
Alex Beltrame, spokesperson for Clipsal, told SmartCompany a lot of Clipsal’s competitors can’t say that.
“It is very core to the Clipsal promise. We are all about quality and we don’t want to let the electrical contractor down, we want to make sure we have a product that is quality and safe and meets all the standards,” he says.
Like Textor and ANCA, Clipsal’s workforce is highly qualified with 100 of the 800 employees at its South Australian site holding engineering degrees.
“You have to in order to be competitive, you have to add a lot of value to what you are doing,” says Beltrame.
“They strive to add value to a product and you sort of live and die by that, you need to constantly innovate and add value and the minute you stop doing that you are going to start dying.”
Cara Waters is the editor of SmartCompany. Cara was previously a senior reporter at the Financial Times website FT Adviser in London and has also worked for The Sunday Times.
