Trailer manufacturer Peki wins the coveted Australian Industrial Product of the Year Award with Fluidsentry and HI Fraser highly commended.
PEKI, who took out the 2009 Endeavour Australian Industrial Product of the Year Award, designs and manufactures quality trailers and truck bodies at the company’s Dandenong facility, South East of Melbourne.
In November last year, Nolan’s Interstate Transport, celebrating their 100th year of operation, required a special commemorative semi-trailer which would not only further enhance its operational efficiency and provide great on-road performance and handling, but would communicate and promote the collaborative achievement between Peki and Nolan’s transport.
The Peki Sub Zero semi-trailer was built using carefully specified and sourced components to ensure every mechanism contributed to the overall performance and presentation of the trailer.
It was also designed to operate at temperatures down to -18°C and provide Nolan’s with added capacity to distribute a range of frozen products daily to its customers located in all the capital cities on the eastern seaboard.
The trailer features fully insulated walls, floor and doors, with the side wall thickness combined with the high profile airflow aluminium floors making the trailer particularly suitable for the loading and transportation of palletised frozen products whilst maintaining a low temperature performance.
As part of the compliance process, Peki engineers carefully evaluated all equipment including load restraints, door mechanism and hardware to ensure they exceeded minimum Standard’s requirements. The trailer is also certified comply with all relevant regulations.
Despite challenging economic times, through collaborative, ongoing partnerships and a commitment to service and delivery, the sub-zero trailer represents a testament to Australian manufacturing.
Peter Kleins, Peki’s Manufacturing Manager, said winning the Award was a great endorsement for the company.
“It reflects on the business as a whole and naturally those who are a part of our business.
“We have made a lot of changes over the last period to encourage team work and improve our flow of product and information, starting with our customers, flowing through to the design team, our production and to those who support our product in the market,” Kleins told Manufacturers’ Monthly.
“This award reflects well on the progress we have made and has been an honour to receive it.
“It is always a pleasure to be acknowledged for your efforts and this achievement at the Endeavour Awards becomes another element of recognition for the business.
“This is a prestigious Award – one which we acknowledge will assist us in the market – it reinforces our status and credibility,” Kliens said.
Highly Commended
Specialising in the research, development, manufacture and application of a range of monitored valves for installation onto hydraulic and pneumatic industrial machinery, Melbourne-based Fluidsentry’s products are designed to provide the interface between man and machine to allow safety operation and access.
The company’s monitored hydraulic valves caught the attention of the 2009 Endeavour Award judges, who awarded the company highly commended in what is one of the most strongly contested categories in the Endeavour’s award program.
The valve design permits integration into existing systems of fluid power by simply placing the devices in the supply lines to new or existing machinery and fulfil Australian standards which require the detection of single components faults to be identified and systems to be safely shutdown to prevent operator injuries.
Developed as an alternative to lockout tagout procedures which can be time consuming, the Fluidsentry valves eliminate the requirement for manual isolation, removing the possibility of incorrect isolation. It also moves up one level on hierarchy of control table to engineering.
The company’s monitored hydraulic valves are said to be the only valve in the world with independent third party safety certification.
Highly Commended
HI Fraser is an Australian-owned custom design and manufacturer of high pressure gas and fluid components.
The company was highly commended for its industrial gas double swivel coupling, which offers operators adaptability and flexibility when connecting gas bottles to other devices, in the 2009 Endeavour Australian Industrial Product of the Year category.
The coupling has been designed to increase the efficiency of the process of filling by allowing the filling process to occur from the side or the top. This coupling swivels in two planes and is therefore without peer since competitive products do not have this feature.
Other design innovations include: a swivel securing nut that eliminates the potential possibility that it could become undone; a sealing mechanism that ensures that metal to metal wear is eliminated; and a combination of seal materials including EPDM and PTFE to achieve the appropriate non reactive gas seal.
The company distributes the product to several high profile gas companies and has already exported several units domestically and overseas.