Managing director and founder of Test Machines Australia (TMA), Paul Cibotto, explores the company’s material testing systems that help businesses assure quality and prevent malfunctions.
While only being born in 2016, Test Machines Australia (TMA) has roots in the manufacture of materials testing systems that date back more than two decades. These roots involve the company’s managing director – Paul Cibotto – who has been at the centre of the specialised testing machine industry for over 25 years.
“TMA started in 2016, but I’ve been in the industry since 2000,” said Cibotto.
Cibotto said the company has grown since its foundation to design solutions for specialised tests in various industries, including manufacturing. Based out of Melbourne, TMA grew to this prominence by selling tailored, not standard solutions.
“We don’t have a catalogue, we custom manufacture machines to suit your application,” said Cibotto. “We avoid customer dissatisfaction by making it exactly the way you want. We found a hole in the market where nobody was willing to design things to suit certain applications.”
A range to meet a diverse industry
To address the broad applications, TMA offers a suite of material testing machines that service an array of industries. At the top of this list is the company’s Tensile Testers, which – in sizes from 50 newtons all to 5000 kilo newtons – measure the strength of a structure or material and identify where its failure point is.
“They test simple things like plastic and packaging, to more complex items like train, truck and ship couplings,” said Cibotto. “It can be important for safety. For example, a chain or a strap might be holding a human.”
Another important TMA offering is its Torsion Testers, which are offered from 10 Newton metre to around five thousand Newton metre and are used to test the strength of a rotating lock – including its bolts and screw heads – that would hold something in place.
“It’s vital to build something to meet a certain torsion standard so the item is safe and usable,” said Cibotto.
Then there are the company’s strain gauges, which are available from half a millimetre in size up to about 200 millimetres. These gauges measure strain and forces that are often invisible or unrecognisable, making them suited for testing the materials of structures that are built to move, like a large building.
“It’s incredibly hard to work out if something’s going to crack or fracture, for the right or wrong reasons,” he said.
Another diverse TMA offering is its Melt Flow Indexes, which are sold to moulders and recycling plants to ensure their plastics products are up to standards. TMA also has a load cell offering – ranging from five newtons up to 5000 kilonewtons – that is vital to measure the force, whether it be in tensile direction, compression direction, or both.
TMA’s coefficient of friction testers measure the potential slip of any material, including plastics, timber and concrete.
“If you’ve got two pallets stacked up, you don’t want a pallet slipping off, you want friction,” said Cibotto. “On the other hand, if you’ve got plastic bags, you want them to be slippery, so you can access them easily.”
This adaptability is also seen within the company’s pressure and displacement transducers which can remotely measure the pressure and the displacement of liquids, air and gas material. Its impact testers range from 50 to 800 joules and are designed to measure a materials’ strength.
“Sometimes you need something of a certain strength, or you need it to be weak and break in a certain way,” said Cibotto.
TMA’s ASTM Cutting Dies are all billet tool steel cutting dies that are manufactured to suit various shapes, ensuring samples used for testing are consistent and repeatable.
A material specific range that TMA offers is its concrete compression testing machines that test the strength of concrete by testing samples. This is necessary as there is different concrete for different applications, which have different strengths, qualities and temperature adaptabilities.
“This system offers tests that make sure the concrete meets these certain applications,” said Cibotto.
Aside from its testing systems, TMA manufactures data acquisition and displays that are provided in many multiple channel loggers. These systems allow measurements from sensors to be recorded, displayed, replayed and studied.
“You can take measurements, study them and act upon them,” said Cibotto.
TMA also has a range of made-for-purpose accessories that link back to the company’s focus of manufacturing to order. Cibotto said the accessories allow people to test exactly what they want to make the system more simple, effective, efficient and repeatable.
“This gives more repeatable and accurate results. That’s why we have a full workshop design team for it,” he said.
Additionally, TMA has a repairs and servicing offering that is born from the company’s expertise and motivation to fix and re-calibrate not only its own machines, but even those from other brands.
“A big misconception is because you didn’t buy the machine from us, we’re not going to help you. This leaves the customer unhappy and with a broken machine,” said Cibotto. “We will repair their machines and look after them because later on in life, they will feel more confident with dealing with us.”
This emphasis on service extends throughout the entire operations of the business, according to Cibotto. While the pricing of things is sometimes fixed, TMA believes that an aspect businesses can control the most is the quality of service.
“That can be taking a phone call at seven o’clock at night, or a five-minute phone call on the weekend. It’s five minutes of your life that can save someone three days of production,” he said.
Testing a testing machine?
This quality of service extends to quality assurance and testing of TMA’s own product. After manufacturing its machines, TMA runs the customer’s sample on its machine and application before it leaves the factory. The company has a guarantee that if it doesn’t work, you don’t pay.
“We video it and send it to the customer. The machine does not leave the factory until the customer has seen it operating the way that it was promised,” said Cibotto. “We do everything to ensure the customer is happy, so the next time there’s another machine needed, people remember that it was such a smooth transaction.”
A company who has witnessed this service is Jenmar, who manufactures steel reinforcements for the mining industry. With branches all around Australia, the company’s operations – which are critical to the nation’s economy – must not stop. To address this, TMA supplies, services and maintains its machines to ensure everything goes to plan.
Going forward, Cibotto said TMA is looking to expand with more servicing and concrete testing, as well as a renewed focus on more custom procedures. Despite rapid growth being a positive indication, he said that the company is trying to do so without sacrificing what the businesses core.
“We have to be careful not to grow too fast because service is our number one thing, and if we let that fall, then we ruin everything we’ve earned,” he said. “It’s all fine to say I want to take over the world, but I would rather we look after our people.”