Matrix Composites & Engineering

EXPORTING AUSTRALIANMADE ADVANCED MATERIALS THE WORLD OVER

MATRIX COMPOSITES & ENGINEERING

2 | Asia Outlook issue 41

MANUFACTURING

THE LEAN

Machinist Matrix Composites & Engineering is exporting Australian-made advanced materials all over the world, its lean production principles adding a competitive edge Writer: Tom Wadlow | Project Manager: Thomas Arnold

A

ustralia is a nation with a proud record of ingenuity.

Whether it is the bionic ear, ultrasound scanner or black box flight recorder, Australians’ knack for innovation has helped propel the country onto the global advanced manufacturing stage.

Indeed, of the nation’s A$100 billion total annual manufacturing output, the advanced subsector accounts for nearly half, driven by the adoption of cutting-edge technology and commitment to investing in research and development.

This rings true for Aaron Begley and his company Matrix Composites & Engineering.

Co-founding a business with his father in 1999, it was a case of sensing an opportunity to innovate and plug a gap in the market which saw it break away from the family’s more traditional engineering background.

“We saw an opening in the marketplace to diversify away from what we were doing in the heavy engineering manufacturing space, and that was presented to us by a materials technology from North America,” CEO Begley recalls.

“This prompted the development

Aaron Begley, CEO (pictured above) helped set up Matrix Composites & Engineering more than 20 years ago. Prior to this, he worked as the Sales & Marketing Manager of Begley International in Perth, Australia

of our own version, which gave the company entrance into the oil and gas space.”

The composite material in question is called syntactic foam. Lightweight with high compressive strength, it is used in marine environments predominantly to provide flotational buoyancy for oil and gas drilling operations. Matrix is gearing itself up for a boost in the industry’s fortunes and anticipating greater volumes of demand from these clients.

A LEAN ENTERPRISE As with Australia’s advanced manufacturing sector, much of Matrix’s revenue derives from export sales all over the world, key markets being North America, South America, North Asia, Southeast Asia and Europe.

The key to its global appeal? For Begley, it is twofold.

“Our strength is in the field of materials technology and advanced manufacturing,” he says. “We have the ability to tailor material properties to particular requirements and the manufacturing capability to produce them consistently and competitively in Australia.

Asia Outlook issue 41 | 3

MATRIX COMPOSITES & ENGINEERING “Our competitors are European but one of our major advantages is that we have very low levels of labour input, meaning we are extremely competitive in the area of efficiency and cost.”

Central to this is a steadfast commitment to processes and systems which are set up around lean production principles, an approach which Begley reveals was initiated around a decade ago when its plant in Henderson, Western Australia, was being assembled.

“This is designed to reduce waste between processes, and we have a system in place called ‘one piece flow’

through the plant here,” he adds.

“A lot of this is down to the physical layout of the facility, along with introducing automation where appropriate.

This lean approach has allowed us to reduce working capital and increase the quality and consistency of product output.”

Underpinning this is the fact that Matrix’s plant is SCADA-controlled, the real-time data it collects enabling the company to monitor, record and analyse all processes, meaning if there are any issues, it can respond quickly and effectively.

INTRODUCTION

ABOUT MATRIX COMPOSITES & ENGINEERING Matrix Composites & Engineering specialises in the design, engineering and manufacture of composite and advanced material technology solutions for the civil and infrastructure, resources, oil and gas, defence, and transportation industries.

Using advanced composite and polymer materials technologies alongside leading-edge manufacturing processes, the company produces products which are stronger, lighter and longer lasting within shorter timeframes.

In 2011, Matrix opened the largest composites syntactic manufacturing plant in the world, spanning 20,000 square metres in Henderson, Western Australia.

The company’s products meet international quality standards such as ISO 9001, API 16F, API 17L and OHSAS 18001. The company’s service offering is divided into six main strands: advanced materials including large composites structures, deepwater drilling, downstream, surf and marine, subsea testing and well construction.

4 | Asia Outlook issue 41

Baker Onsite Health Baker Onsite Health is an Australian owned, specialist medical services company based in Perth.

We have extensive experience in providing tailored medical and health surveillance services across all industries including mining, construction, manufacturing and oil and gas.

We provide a unique, cost effective and efficient model of medical screening solutions tailored to your companies specific OHS requirements. We provide specialist medical assessment services conducted in our offices in Perth, onsite or ‘in-house’, utilising our purpose-built medical vehicle on an ‘as required’ or regular service contract with additional injury management services.

www.bakeronsitehealth.com.au

New capabilities have also been added in recent months, for instance a large rotational moulding machine which produces hollow plastic products very accurately and in high volumes, serving clients in the oil and gas and the civil and infrastructure markets.

Matrix has also added the capability to manufacture lightweight composites for transportation and defence applications, the former representing a promising line of business thanks to an agreement with a major bulk freight company to develop and manufacture composite bulk transport system prototypes.

“In terms of the defence work, we are limited in what we can say here but it is an exciting avenue for us,” explains Begley. “We’re part of a defence science and technology collaboration with the University of Melbourne, RMIT University, and QinetiQ to make or investigate new materials for naval applications. This will be a long-term

MANUFACTURING

The overriding feedback that we receive from Companies in WA is one of dissatisfaction of the Medical services they received due to a number of key factors including; • Long delays in booking medicals and receiving results.

• Poor quality of medicals, lacking attention to detail including personalized result reporting.

• High cost of services and inconvenience with little or no reduction in workplace injuries!

If you are experiencing any of the above, Baker Onsite Health will be able to assist you in achieving; Baker Onsite Health understands your business, the risks and the restrictive time constraints placed upon it, recruitment can be a costly and time consuming process. Consequently the importance of identifying the most suitable candidates who are appropriately skilled, ‘medically fit’ and a ‘low risk of injury’, in the shortest possible timeframe is pivotal to your Organizations success.

Our innovative Medical screening solutions will enable your Organisation to achieve a significantly faster ‘turn- around time’ in the recruitment processes.

Our aim being to prevent the costly delays in recruitment by providing an efficient, comprehensive, convenient assessment of your candidates health status and risk of injury, resulting in a reduction in workplace injuries, ill-health and subsequent costs, due to employing ‘low risk, quality candidates’ in preference to ‘high risk’.

“Baker Onsite Health have been our Company’s preferred supplier since 2014, Fiona and her team are fantastic to work with. We often provide short notice for bookings, with tight deadlines, and the flexibility and dedication we receive is always remarkable.

• Faster medical results ‘turn around’ time (same day or within 24 hours) • Significant reduction in medical assessment costs (hourly rate option Or invoiced per service), with the additional convenience of booking availability 7 days a week from 6am until 10pm.

• Significant reductions in number of injuries, claims and LTI rates, reducing your Insurance premiums.

• Maintaining a healthy, efficient and productive workforce by providing Specialist Onsite or ‘In-House’ Medical assessment services, avoiding the lengthy delays and inconvenience that occurs when workers attend GP Clinics that prioritise their Patients over Medical bookings.

• Detailed, Comprehensive medicals tailored to your specific OHS requirements conducted within our Offices in Perth or Onsite as well as Nationally utilising our trusted affiliated network of Medical providers.

• Your ongoing compliance with your Health Surveillance requirements including WorkCover Compliant Hearing testing Onsite with yearly recall reports for Clients.

• Onsite Drug and Alcohol Testing (AS4308 compliant) to reduce your exposure to risk and to assist you in protecting your Organisation from the impact of Drug and Alcohol related incidents occurring in the workplace.

• An increase in overall Workforce quality, Client satisfaction and convenience.

We utilise both the mobile service, as well as their facility in West Leederville, for Pre-Employment Medicals, Drug & Alcohol testing, Workcover Audiometry assessments and other specialist health surveillance. Baker Onsite offer professional and cost-effective solutions and I have no concern in endorsing their services.”

E: admin@bakeronsitehealth.com.au W: bakeronsitehealth.com.au T: 08 9388 4730 F: 08 6313 0969

Outlook Creative Services

Liz Hodgson HR Manager

Outlook Publishing’s award-

Protective Coatings that deliver long lasting protection in the harshest of conditions

winning in-house team is now utilising its extensive production skills to offer a full and bespoke range of editorial, design and marketing services via its new Outlook Creative Services division.

We are proud to support Matrix Composites and Engineering Limited, by providing high performance coatings for the manufacture of subsea buoyancy systems to the oil and gas industry.

This kind of protection helps deliver a great platform for business, but doesn’t come easily! It involves collaborative development work, extensive field trials and performance characteristics verified to ensure that all application criteria and product specifications are achieved.

Whatever the conditions, we innovate and adapt coatings that work for you as you expect - In all types of conditions, all year round.

F O R M O R E I N F O R M AT I O N V I S I T: www.outlookpublishing.com/creative-services

26 Paramount Drive, Wangara, Western Australia 6065 T: +61 8 9302 2577 | E: email@cameleon.com.au www.cameleon.com.au

Asia Outlook issue 41 | 5

MATRIX COMPOSITES & ENGINEERING

SUPPLY CHAIN FOCUS

THE POWER OF PARTNERSHIP Q: How critical are your suppliers to your success?

Aaron Begley: “We have a number of collaborations and supply chain partners, most of these being our raw material suppliers which are predominantly based in Europe, North America and Asia. Some raw material suppliers have been with us for over a decade.

“We are reliant on them to provide quality products and materials technologies that we can then apply into our finished products – without them we couldn’t operate.

“Beyond this, we’re investigating the possibility of collaborating with big businesses which have skillsets that are complementary to ours, skills that we can combine with our product offering. This is designed to expand our scope of products which we can provide to our clients without having to invest in duplicating the capacity that somebody else might have.”

project for the business. There has also been great interest in establishing our subsea test facility, containing the Southern Hemisphere’s largest hyperbaric test capability, as a sovereign industry capability for defence.”

READY FOR THE REBOUND The processes and cutting-edge technology detailed by Begley would count for little if it were not for the 100-plus employees adopting and using them. For the CEO, finding and 6 | Asia Outlook issue 41

Pictured right are a selection of the company’s Max-R low friction composite drilling and completions centralisers. They have been designed to convey well screens, completion tool strings and typical casing and tubing strings into highly deviated and challenging horizontal wellbores

developing the skills of competent engineers is paramount to the longevity of the company.

Matrix partners with local universities in a bid to identify the next bright sparks in the industry, while substantive in-house training and development programmes ensure such potential is maximised.

“It is always a challenge to find the right people,” Begley says. “In our case, we need a whole series of skills from a manufacturing and solutions standpoint.

“There are three tiers of skills that our company needs, the first being materials development engineering like industrial chemists and plastics engineers. We also need manufacturing engineering experts which is all about the process side of the operation and operating in a lean environment. The third capability is taking our technology in front of clients in an industry

MANUFACTURING

specific way – i.e. we need people who know the oil and gas sector, the defence industry, and so on.

“We anticipate the O&G sector getting busier, so these skills may be harder to find in the near future.”

It is this prospect that excites Begley moving forwards, the CEO eager to express that Matrix Composites & Engineering is ready to serve the upswing in the oil and gas industry.

He concludes: “We’re already starting to see the beginnings of this recovery, so it is vital that we maintain our capability in the oil and gas space.

However, we will also continue working on our diversification plans which will ensure a sustainable future for our company.”

MATRIX COMPOSITES & ENGINEERING Tel: +61 894 121 200 matrix@matrixengineered.com www.matrixengineered.com

Asia Outlook issue 41 | 7

MATRIX COMPOSITES & ENGINEERING Matrix Composites & Engineering 150 Quill Way Henderson, Western Australia, 6166 Australia Tel: +61 8 9412 1200 matrix@matrixengineered.com www.matrixengineered.com PRODUCED BY ASIA OUTLOOK MAGAZINE