A new electronics hardware and software manufacturing facility has been set up in Brisbane, Queensland, to meet the rapidly growing demand in Australia for locally-based world class facilities. The new company, Oz Electronics Manufacturing Pty Ltd (OEM), is a joint venture involving a number of local indigenous information technology and electronics companies and industry identities.
The establishment of Oz Electronics Manufacturing is the outcome of the Brisbane Electronics Network (BEN) program, initially spawned by the Information Industries Board to look at local manufacturing needs and encourage local information technology and telecommunications (IT&T) companies to get together to find local business solutions.
This resulted in the amalgamation of local technologists who saw the need for a world class local manufacturing facility. Over half a million dollars has been spent establishing the OEM joint venture. This investment has largely been in capital equipment, including ultra fine-pitch pick and place facilities, automated surface mount and plated through hole assembly and cable looming.
Services offered by OEM include advice on design to manufacture, affordable prototype assembly and testing, component sourcing, PCB loading and automatic machine soldering of PCBs, cable looming and final assembly and testing. OEM maintains an accredited quality system meeting the requirements of ISO9002:1994.
The managing director of OEM, Max Rose, claims that the new company's presence will provide great assistance to Australian IT&T developers seeking to become internationally competitive.
"Traditionally, large economies of scale have been the prime determinate as to whether a manufacturing model will succeed. But three recent trends have reversed this traditional way of thinking," he said.
"Firstly, the emergence of the Information Superhighway has removed all geographic, time and financial barriers to a company marketing its wares to a global audience.
"Secondly, as technological development accelerates, the trend towards increasing specialization is opening up new, lucrative niche markets in which even the smallest developer can compete.
"This has led all developers, from large multinationals to small regional players, to focus on their special areas of expertise. This is because the rate of change within the industry prevents any organization, regardless of size, to offer a wide spectrum of technologies. For the first time, this enables innovative Australian operations with relatively small marketing muscle to compete in the international arena."
Asian Parts Sourced
Max Rose said that one of OEM's current aims is to make direct links with Southeast Asian component suppliers. "From our perspective there are two sides to our relationship with this area of the world: firstly, providing we can find suppliers who can offer us quality parts at the right price-in small to medium quantities-then we will be purchasing from countries in our region. Hopefully, later we can sell our finished products into this same region.
"We are contract manufacturers and the type of products we will be manufacturing in the near future will be add-ons for computers-computing hardware-and things like navigational instrumentation, environmental instrumentation, water quality instruments, communications equipment. We also manufacture a lot of electronic control equipment for things like roller doors, windows and so on."
OEM Managing Director Rose
Rose claimed that outsourcing manufacturing is the most effective business model for the vast majority of Australian developers and by providing this locally, OEM would ensure companies did not suffer the pitfalls usually associated with outsourcing.
"Our focus is on high tech, small- to medium-niche production runs and I think this is where we as a country are competitive. We are not likely to be successful in trying to manufacture ten thousand VCRs. But if an Australian designer or inventor comes up with an innovative interface product which works with a standard product, then I believe we should make that here for at least a few years to make some money out of it, then maybe license it for mass production overseas."
Rose said that finding start-up money in Australia is still a major problem, so good ideas often "float around for years" before they get off the ground.
"We offer a fast turnaround so that our customer can get his innovative product onto the market so that he can make his money before someone steals his idea," he said.
"What we are doing is providing a site where people can get things made fairly quickly without too much hassle, and we can provide advice on design for the most cost-effective manufacture," he said.
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