BUSINESS FOCUS
11 - August 2012, TIMBERMAN
Multinail fabricator, BB Truss & Timber had to dodge traffic in Bendigo for years just to meet its production schedules. Today the company has one of the most up-to-date facilities in Australia.
Purpose built for BB Truss & Timber I
MAGINE HAVING to forklift to transport roof trusses and wall frames materials across a busy road 16 hours a day. BB Truss & Timber did that for years until owners Geoff and Tania Baxter decided enough was enough. “We had forklifts going back and forth across the road, and it was a busy road. There were OH&S issues, the forklifts had to be registered because it was driven on a road. Then when B-doubles started to deliver our materials we could not accept them,” said Geoff. “We had to unload trucks in the street.” Surprisingly they endured the situation for 14 years running double shifts. “I never want to run a second shift again,” said Geoff. “It’s too hard to monitor at night, OH&S and efficiency issues.” Geoff has had a change of heart when it comes to the amount of time he wants to have his factory working, originally he felt that it should run a double shift but later when he moved to his new site he wanted it to operate 38 hours a week. “I used to think that because I had all this equipment it should run all the time,” he said. “I’ve changed my mind, we run a 38 hour week. The idea is to be efficient that’s how you make gains.” But back in the 1990s Geoff was sold on double shifts and doing well, but it was getting very cramped in a single factory. So when the factory next door in Thistle Street, Bendigo, became available he leased that too, taking down the fences between the properties. However, there was still not enough room onsite to store materials. These had to be stored across the road but that site was not large enough to take B-double trucks. That’s when it was decided to bite the bullet and design a purpose built facility for BB Truss
& Timber on a Greenfield site in an industrial zone in Bendigo. That was around 2002, but it’s worth going back even further to discover how one of the most impressive truss companies in Victoria began. BB Truss & Timber started as a two-man team – Geoff and brother Kevin were the original two Baxters in BB. Both were builders in Castlemaine when they started the company in the 1980s, moving the business to Bendigo in the early 1990s. “We had planning problems with the local council at the time and Bendigo was a prime focus for us.” In 1999 Geoff’s brother decided he wanted to do something different and sold the business to Geoff and Tania, who by then had been working in the business with Geoff for a few years and so the moniker BB still held true. “In 1993 I moved to Melbourne to set up an office, originally we had it set-up in our house in Essendon,” said Geoff. “We moved the office to Albion Street in 1998 and we were there until mid 2011 when we moved it to Keilor where we are now.” It makes sense to have a Melbourne office, as that is where 90 per cent of BB’s finished products end up. “We’ve got to be here,” said
Geoff. So 11 of the 65 staff that BB now employs are based in Melbourne including Geoff and Tania. “Tania runs the Melbourne office,” said Geoff. “She does a lot of things including the scheduling for all the guys and she’s the ‘go to person’ for everyone.” In Melbourne the staff consists of estimators, detailers and two full-time site measurement specialists who go out to check that what has been ordered has been specified correctly. With Geoff and Tania in Melbourne the company has to have a good manager to run the manufacturing operation and that’s Dean Connell, who has been with the company since its early days in Castlemaine. Originally BB Truss & Timber was a fabricator for Pryda but transferred to Multinail in 1998. “At the time everyone wanted metal webs in their floor trusses,” remembers
then did some sums and it worked out. They made me a lot of promises. “I started with multi struts and then I transferred
said. “We need to be flexible and change our production from one machine to another and know where we are with everything.”
We went to see as many plants as we could before we designed ours. Sometimes you learn what to do and sometimes you learn what not to do. Geoff. “Longreach floor trusses took too long in the manufacturing process. I got a brochure in the mail from Multinail; I didn’t even know about them. “I met with them and
everything over to them. They’ve never broken a promise. “I’ve been with them ever since; it’s a real partnership, it’s like a marriage it’s got to be a two-way street. It’s a really happy marriage.” Another thing that has impressed Geoff with Multinail is that they have been receptive to his ideas on the type of machines he has needed and have built some to his specifications. Lots of people in the industry are not aware of the quality of Multinail’s software, according to Geoff, who says it is right up there with the best. He uses Multinail’s Factory Management System (FMS) to run the plant. “You need a good FMS to run a plant of this size,” he
BB is one of the largest truss manufacturers in Victoria and has been a multiple national winner of the Frame and Truss Manufacturers Association’s Best Truss Plant award – taking it out again in 2012. Taking out such an award was not good luck; it was definitely good management. “We went to see as many plants as we could before we designed ours. Sometimes you learn what to do and sometimes you learn what not to do,” said Geoff. “We knew Ross Raynor of Nortruss in Queensland; his operation stood out because it was so efficient.” The main thing that struck a cord with Geoff was building a new plant that not only took away all the pain associated with two factories
and a materials site across the road but one that reduced the amount of manual handling needed. One look at the current BB plant shows the flow through arrangement that has materials coming in one side and finished product pushing out the other. Once the plant layout was sorted, Geoff and Tania wanted to fit it out with better machinery. “We found out about equipment that was being sold in Canberra, I organized Ross and a team from Multinail to look at it and they said ‘buy it’. So we bought it on the spot. It took nine semis to get it to delivered to Multinail in Wauchope,” said Geoff. Multinail refurbished the equipment for BB while the new factory was being built and had it ready for installation when the facility was opened in 2005. Since 2005 the operation has been very successful. “Two years ago production peaked and it has come down slightly but there’s no problems,” said Geoff. “I think the industry is okay. You see ups and downs; it’s a fact of life. You make it when it’s good and you tough it out when it’s not so good.”