Product Innovation and Design

Brickworks partners with architects and builders to create innovative products and support the construction of highly efficient homes.

Brickworks’ goal is to remain Australia’s leading building products company. Brickworks continually strives to improve quality and product integrity, while investing in product innovation. During FY20, Brickworks’ Australian operations formed a crossfunctional, national technical team and conducted a strategic review of Research, Development and Quality functions. The review identified opportunities for alignment and collaboration across Brickworks Building Products to help create unique products with unrivalled quality. Improvements have been made to our monitoring and tracking of a range of quality indicators, including waste and reparations. As a result, our teams have focussed on quality projects that have shown substantial product improvements and increased customer satisfaction. Customer aspirations will continue to be monitored throughout FY21.

Product Design Clay Brick Improvements

Brickworks continues to make incremental improvements to our clay bricks through ongoing research into increasing the core percentage volume to make clay bricks lighter weight. Development of new core patterns will reduce the amount of clay, the energy needed to fire the bricks, the fuel required for delivery and will make the bricks lighter for bricklayers. The addition of reclaimed or recycled materials into our clay bricks has lowered the energy demand during manufacture, reduced product weight and minimised the amount of virgin raw materials required.

Product Re-engineering

High void bricks manufactured in Queensland have reduced raw material requirements by 11% and energy requirements by 15%. Trials are underway at Austral Bricks Wollert, Vic, and Golden Grove, SA, with good initial success.

Case Studies Austral Precast Double Wall

The new Austral Precast Double Wall product consists of a pair of precast reinforced concrete shells, connected by reinforcement trusses to form a cavity that is core filled once installed on site. Double Wall is factory-made offsite and delivers savings in both installation time and costs, while improving safety on site. Through rigorous testing, the precast concrete panels of Double Wall are proven to be fire resistant and are non-combustible.

Glen-Gery Wall System

Glen-Gery Wall Systems powerfully extend the options of designers, architects and builders by providing products and solutions which extend beyond just the brick. Glen-Gery systems have been developed to overcome antiquated limitations of space, time, and budget while simplifying installation. Systems include Thin Tech, Tru-Brix, Precast and Tilt-up and Terracade Façade System.

Panel Brick

Panel Brick was released and is a prefabricated brick panel that combines the low maintenance and strength of clay bricks with precast construction technology. Panel Brick is factory-made offsite under controlled conditions, ensuring minimum wastage and maximum quality. Panel Brick is manufactured with custom Dovetail bricks that provide mechanical engagement into the precast concrete ensuring long term performance. Panel Brick is the fastest way to build with brick using the installation methodology of panel construction.

Research and Development Cement Reduction

Bristile Roofing partnered with Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne to optimise the mix design of concrete roof tiles with a focus on reducing cement requirements.