Pipe fittings manufacturer invests in machinery to expand its offerings globally.
Innovation
INVESTING in machinery to expand its range is paying dividends for an Australian irrigation company with customers across the world.
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Philmac is a multi-million dollar manufacturer of polyethylene pipes, fittings and valves, exporting to 30 overseas markets.
In May the South Australia based company announced a $7 million upgrade to their manufacturing assets, assisted by an additional $2.4 million boost from an Australian government grant.
Philmac’s international marketing director Jason Mitchell said the money is being invested by upgrading more than half of their 55 manufacturing machines to enable the company to create new product lines.
“We looked at our capacity and business model and made the decision to increase our manufacturing capabilities which will allow us to offer new products,’’ he said.
“This will allow us to tender and quote for jobs that were previously outside of our existing product range.
“New injection moulding machines, with greater capacity, are due to arrive in October and will allow us to create an entire new line of export products for our domestic and export customers.
“As a result of our imminent upgrade we expect to ship an additional $1 million of products annual to one of our sister companies based in Italy.
The Italian company, which has been a trading partner with Philmas, will now source its entire range of large diameter compression fittings, valued around $1 million annually, from Philmac.
“We are expecting this is just the beginning as a result of our new capacity and our continued focus on research and development.’’
The companies currently exports plastic pipe fittings around the globe with their main markets including South Africa, North America, the Middle East, France, Chile and Italy.
“Providing irrigation systems for the mining and farming sectors is a large part of our work while we also concentrate on mains water to meter connections for major cities around the world,” Mitchell said.
“We deal regularly with civil water authorities around the globe who come to us wanting solutions regarding water movement on a very large scale.
“Often we are able to provide stock solutions but there are also many that need to be custom made and that’s what really sets up apart.
“Tailor making solutions for unique requirements and an extensive and competitively priced product range really helps attract a lot of international interest in our product.”
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