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Austeng – The Geelong arc of manufacturing advancement Things have never been more interesting for Geelong’s manufacturing community, with the industry in Victoria’s second city currently going through a start-up revolution, and at the forefront is innovative engineering company Austeng. By Brent Balinski.
Geelong... Ford. Alcoa. Shell. If you’re a long-time follower of manufacturing in Australia who just read those words, it’s possible your mind just skipped to a difficult period over the last decade. “But I actually wonder if history will show the departure of these big companies will ultimately provide a better outcome,” offers Ross George. And who is Ross George? Some Productivity Commission type? An ultra-dry economist looking at Geelong from hundreds of kilometres away, convinced that the jobs that were lost at those companuies were just crummy old jobs anyway, part of some inevitable “transition to a service industry”? An academic who has spent too much time reading textbooks by long-dead economists, and too little time looking up close at the very real unhappiness caused by closures and layoffs? No, no, and no again. Ross owns and runs Austeng with his wife Lyn. The boutique engineering company goes back to Ross’ grandfather, who started it after finishing up at International Harvester in the 1950s. And the Georges, aside from their deep ties to and love for Geelong, are not just thinkers but doers. They have a long-term view of both manufacturing and their region, and are confident that it’s a little way into an exciting new chapter. No longer fighting over the same work from the same major players down the road, Ross says the city’s companies are more willing to work together, and towards something that makes much more sense in terms of modern-day manufacturing. “When I first started my career in Geelong, when those companies existed, there was no collaboration and everyone considered everybody else a competitor,” says Ross. “Because, in fact, that’s what they were. Because there are no longer those big customers everybody is fighting over, there’s been a mindshift, where we really needed this collaboration and a willingness to look at new industry sectors.” Lyn points to additional factors such as the Federal Government’s Automotive Industry Package and the State Government’s Skilling the Bay initiative, which have provided
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impetus. She is also of the view that a crucial nudge was provided by nearby Deakin University to turbo-charge academic/industry engagement under the trailblazing approach of then-Vice Chancellor Jane Den Hollander. “This was combined with a realisation that we couldn’t keep doing what we always did,” she explains. “And the availability of highquality engineering and trade resources meant that opportunities were being created from a number of sources that previously weren’t even being considered.” The Georges work with a handful of early-stage Geelong-based manufacturers, each with the potential to transform the categories they operate in, and each based on a high degree of specialisation rather than a focus on undercutting a hometown rival by a couple of bucks on a job. They make everything from waste-to-power heat engines, to origami-like folded sheet metal, to high-value nutraceuticals from wine waste. Then there’s a consortium whose world-first work in fibre-reinforced geopolymer bridges was featured in The Economist in late-2019. All featured Austeng as their technology enabler, and all serve as an example that things have never been more interesting for Geelong’s manufacturing community. The Georges believe there’s a lesson for the rest of Australia there too. If manufacturers, research institutes, governments and investors can work together, great things are possible.
Start-up city Austeng’s role as an enabler and manufacturing partner for hightech start-ups has its origins in the automotive industry’s demise. When Ford announced in 2013 that it would end car assembly in Australia, it was no small deal for Austeng. The company earned more than half its revenues from automotive work, designing and making production equipment. “We had to look at what our value proposition was, which was really in that one-off-type specialised equipment,” remembers Lyn. “Probably a sweet spot for us was working with start-up companies
