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Endeavour Award winner profiles – Technofast Industries

Following considerable investment in time building relationships with key personnel in South Korea's power generation industry, Technofast's products are now being used on one of the country's major hydro power projects.

"This is fantastic achievement for us," said John Bucknell, the company's CEO and founder.

"We are a small company, based in Brisbane, but our innovative products, which are all developed and manufactured in house by our dedicated team, are now being recognised around the world for their quality, reliability and time-saving ability."

The Technofast method resulted in an installation time of around thirty minutes using two personnel, compared with eight hours and four personnel using the previous method.

Bucknell explained that time savings of this order, and better, were possible using the EziTite fasteners instead of conventional methods involving sledgehammers, stud heaters and multi-jackbolt tensioners.

Technofast Industries is a worldwide leader and specialist in bolt tensioning, providing innovative and effective technical solutions along with uncompromising customer service.

"We found our niches through innovation and development of intellectual property, Bucknell told Manufacturers' Monthly after winning the award. 

"I think, we've seen with the death of the automobile industry and the loss of things like tyre manufacturing in Australia that we have to be smarter, we have to find our niches, and we do rely on science, advanced manufacturing techniques and the like, to find those niches." 

By using Technofast's innovative EziTite hydraulic bolts, the Korean hydo power facility was able to reduce its maintenance downtime by 80%. The hydraulic bolting system has proved to be so successful, saving both time and money, that funds have now been allocated to change all other water turbines onsite to Technofast's EziTite hydraulic bolts.

Technofast has recently moved into a new, purpose-built premises, allowing the company to expand its manufacturing capability for export markets with major distributors in international markets.

At present, the company has 16 employees, however that figure will double in the near term once the new factory becomes fully operational.

Technofast also has an office in Rockingham WA to service the company's West Australian customers.

Training and ongoing education for employees was an important part of the business, said Bucknell.

"We like to put our guys through apprenticeships, even some of the more mature guys that've come on board have done adult apprenticeships," he said.

As a specialised manufacturer of unique bolt tensioning products, Technofast is not able to establish and maintain regional offices and support staff internationally, instead the company has been very successful in building productive relationships with international marketing and joint venture partners to best exploit its technologies globally.

Affiliations such as those with Westinghouse Electric, Curtis Wright Corporation, Mitsubishi Electric, Jaques Terex, Siemens Electric' Korea Electric Power Company, East West Power (Korea) and DSME (Korea) have allowed Technofast to introduce products which are now in use on equipment such as that used in power generation, mining and shipbuilding in many countries.

The building of international relationships is a necessarily costly exercise, with a great deal of travel and consultation with partners in foreign destinations.

These relationships are critical to the acquisition of critical design data, as well as access to customer lists, machine populations and location data.

Many of the OEM relationships have included sales and distribution of Technofast products to their customers by the OEM directly.

Technofast does make considerable budget allocation for such costs annually. These expenses are necessary as, in its experience, foreign businesses are generally very receptive to efforts to establish close relationships with Australian suppliers.

Technofast has continued to integrate itself with supply chains internationally, and is currently engaged in negotiations for specialised and general product supply and distribution with companies located in the United Kingdom, Korea, Russia and the USA. This Endeavour Award follows Technofast's success in 2014 in the Australian Steel Innovation category.

(Pictured: John Bucknell, CEO, Technofast Industries, and Derek Lark, Executive Director, Industry Capability Network.)

Technofast Industries  

07 3375 1431  

www.technofast.com 

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