Bringing highly skilled manufacturing back on shore is practically unheard of in contemporary Australia. We’ve become accustomed to the narrative that we can’t compete, that the market is too small and our cost base is too expensive. But there is nothing inevitable about the loss of Australian manufacturing. Rebecca and Cain at RotoMetrics’ Melbourne precision rotary tooling factory spoke with Print21 magazine.
Making solid metal and hardened steel rotary dies for the packaging industry is not easy. Neither is the manufacturing of flexible dies for label converting. These are difficult, technically demanding manufacturing processes requiring enormous capability in metallurgy, chemistry and IT. They need expensive proprietary infrastructure, a skilled workforce and considerable investment. Above all in Australia, they depend on the grit and determination from committed management.
RotoMetrics in Broadmeadows, Victoria, is a US-owned die maker for the Australian and New Zealand label and packaging industries. It is the sole Australian manufacturer of any scale, meeting most of the market’s requirements in tooling. It is the only enterprise in its field that employs the workforce and has the capacity to service the industry with locally produced flexible and solid rotary dies; on demand.
The business has endured a turbulent history ever since it was founded in 1959 including a near-death experience for its manufacturing capabilities in the past decade. Now, thanks to a change in management, along with a realization in HQ Missouri that the Australian label industry puts a high value on its local die-maker, RotoMetrics Australia is once again a vibrant manufacturer.
Survival – now investment
In a significant milestone, the company is about to introduce the local industry to RD300, an industry leading precision machine sharpening, vacuum through-hardened, rotary die. The new products will come online in September and according to Cain Harper, general manager Australia and New Zealand, will provide the Australian and New Zealand, label and packaging industries, along with a burgeoning Asian export market; with a world class machine-sharpened product in a shorter time frame.
The RD300 is set to replace the arduous and expensive hand sharpening process that currently fulfills up to 80 percent of orders. Hand sharpening dies is one of the few manual skillsets remaining in the industry, a trade to which it is becoming increasingly difficult to recruit young people. Hand sharpening dies requires endless patience, intense concentration and hours spent peering through a powerful microscope in a darkened cubicle. Additionally, hand sharpened dies are not as consistent resulting in uneven cutting and excessive dust. Currently the firm manufactures approximately over 50 new solid dies per month, 70 percent of which are exported to Asia. This is set to rise with the arrival of the new RD300 product capabilities.
That it survived at all
It should come as no surprise that a go-ahead manufacturer providing a much-needed product to a loyal customer base should be thriving. What is surprising is that the local RotoMetrics manufacturing plant exists at all. Due to the vagaries of previous management ambitions, five years ago the factory was in the process of being shut down with most of its manufacturing machines shipped off to a newly opened plant in Thailand while the rest were returned to Missouri, USA.
Almost all the skilled manufacturing workforce were let go, with only a sales force remaining to handle customer orders. The heavyweight CNC rotary die-making lathes were mothballed and an all too familiar silence fell over yet another Australian manufacturing industry.
However, when the previous manager moved on, the mantle was passed to Cain Harper, a printer by trade who was operating as manufacturing manager. He had ambitions to restart manufacturing and was fortunate to be joined by Rebecca Cane, an industry professional from the UK. She arrived in Melbourne just as the company was starting to again fulfill some urgent flexible die orders with a small, revived workforce.
Together, the pair and many other key employees have overseen a remarkable renaissance in the company’s fortunes, in the process transforming the dynamics of the local label and packaging industry for the better. RotoMetrics Australia is now a growing business, employing 58 staff in real-world worthwhile production jobs, many of them highly skilled.
It competes on a global scale with die makers – in Australia and New Zealand most notably with Jet Technologies, which has a sophisti-cated import service from Germany. It fulfills a majority of the industry’s annual demand, balancing its quicker delivery and service aspects, against its higher price, an inevitable outcome from Australian manufacturing.
The revival is all the more remarkable when you realise the company had to again ship the massive tooling manufacturing machines back from Thailand to Melbourne. How often has that happened? Harper also tells of one piece of highly specialised equipment that was shipped back to the USA. When he realised it could play a valuable role in the new production setup it had to be rescued from the dump bin in a scrap merchants yard in Missouri, refurbished, and shipped back across the Pacific. It is currently about to go into operation at the factory.
Highly prized industry resource
The success of RotoMetrics depends almost entirely on the custom and goodwill of Australian and New Zealand label manufacturers. These customers, who include some of the largest in the industry, recognise the value of having a local manufacturer with high quality and significantly shorter lead times; one or two days as opposed to four to five. The presence of such a reliable, world-class supplier is something the local industry has undertaken to support in the most practicable way, by buying its product. This expression of support has provided the wherewithal for Cain and Rebecca and the entire RotoMetrics team to develop and grow the business.
There is a remarkable straight-forward enthusiasm about their management style. Obviously pleased with their success so far, they share a recognition that there is still a long way to grow. Recognising the new value in their Australian manufacturing operation, the company’s paymasters in Missouri are investing in new equipment, not only the RD300, but also in a laser plate maker that will significantly reduce the file-plotting process in flexible die-making.
The label industry is notoriously secretive about its processes and until recently RotoMetrics was no different. Customers, let alone journalists, never got past the doors onto the manufacturing floor. Production processes were regarded as top secret.
It is a testament to the new wind blowing through the company that nowadays sales staff are encouraged to bring their customers to tour the plant, to see what it takes to fulfill their orders and meet the staff. Most are amazed at the complexity of the operation, the skilled operation of rotary die-making lathes and the use of chemicals in scouring and cleaning the flexible dies. (It’s worth noting that the Broadmeadows plant enjoys a high recycling rate for its by-products, despite using highly hazardous chemicals, and even has its own internal waste water treatment facility.)
Most visitors, are impressed by the commitment of the workforce, a unique group of tradespeople and process staff – along with four apprentices – that, but for a dedicated and far-sighted management team, could have so easily have been lost forever to Australian manufacturing.