Biessa has a 25-year partnership with Melbourne-based stair maker, Slattery & Acquroff. The company had the first five axis CNC machines in Australia and became experts in the technology

Biesse transforms stair business

Slattery & Acquroff Stairs is renowned for making distinctive, high end staircases. Its 25-year partnership with Biesse has seen the company implement the first five axis CNC machines in Australia and master the technology in the years that followed.

The story of S&A Stairs is about family and craft. It was established in 1920 as a small, local stair builder that serviced a market for the exclusive areas located primarily in the eastern. Today it is Australia’s only national stair builder, making and installing stairs in more than 9000 homes a year.

It is a business that has a culture of learning and invention. In factories around the country, S&A Stairs are doing things that many furniture makers and stair builders have not imagined, taking mere minutes to make pitched handrails, cappings, scrolls and wreaths that would have taken weeks just a generation ago.

The company’s approach to innovation means it always invests in the latest machinery and more importantly, people with the ability and dedication to program those machines.

Just a few of the talented staff working the Biesse machines at S&A Stairs

Valuable people In the programming area, S&A Stairs have excelled, carving out an idiosyncratic design and manufacturing process that has set a benchmark for other stair builders around the world. According to director of operations, Tom Acquroff, S&A’s entrepreneurial DNA and a desire for innovation is a “lived culture” rather than something the company has enforced. It all began with Tom’s forefathers. “When the Great Depression came along, my great grandfather and his business partner would pack up a wheelbarrow and then walk

everything to site. Sometimes in the next suburb,” he said.

At the time, Ted Slattery and Alec Acquroff, two migrants from Scotland, had gone out on their own to start a business and rented abandoned horse stables in the back streets of South Yarra, a inner Melbourne suburb. When times got tough, they spent the latter part of the 1920s doing whatever they had to do to survive. By the 1960s, during the post-war boom, S&A became the stair builder of choice for many architects.

“We had a very cosmopolitan workforce,” said Tom. When it needed new staff, S&A found an incredible resource in migrants arriving from Europe, Germany and Italy who completely changed the skillset and dynamics of S&A.

“We developed this new culture of quality and ingenuity, and many of those families who started with us in the 1960s are still permeating through the business today. They are the second and third generation families that are the lifeblood of our business,” he said.

This attitude has developed into a strong work ethic and company culture that demands quality, according to Tom, when recalling the story of his great grandfather. It is also a way of protecting yourself from your competitors. “Quality is our point of difference. Quality and complexity are the tools we use to create barriers to entry. Innovation is safety,” he explains.

Arrival of machines While there had always been an emphasis for craft at S&A, the requirement and respect for technology came later. Led by Tom’s father, Robert Acquroff, and current managing director, Robert Beard, S&A began working with Australia’s largest home builder in the early 1990s, Henley Properties.

Before long, they realised that a family business with 20 or 30 staff was desperately under-equipped to deal with the kind of quality and scale that Henley demanded. Tom remembers his father visiting William S&A is known for producing tailor-made stairs

Russell Doors with Rob Beard, where they saw their first Biesse CNC machine in 1996.

Rob famously remarked, on first look, that the machine was very impressive, but doubted it could be applied effectively to stair building. Six weeks later, they bought their first Biesse CNC machine from Allwood Machinery. It is widely recognised that Allwood and Biesse changed the landscape for furniture manufacturers in Australia, and with the purchase of their first machine, S&A were about to become a big part of that change.

Over the next two decades, S&A Stairs became not only the biggest but probably the most well-regarded stair builder in Australia. By implementing CNC technology from Biesse, the company became known for its ability to manufacture elaborate stairs at scale, a reputation it still holds today. The new Biesse CNC machine cut lead times dramatically and improved the quality of the work.

Stair supplier S&A Stairs have become a major business that supplies eight out the 10 biggest residential builders in Australia, with 14 Biesse CNC machines across Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland and South Australia.

“The Biesse CNC machines make a unique product very quickly but more importantly to us, very consistently,” Tom said. “We have to work to the timelines of major builders and with Biesse, we know what we are going to get that. Stair making is a highly complex business, but it is intensely rewarding.”

While furniture making is often repeatable, the stair making process is for S&A Stairs is still largely custom. Thirty five percent of S&A’s output is still for tailor-made stairs, so the challenge is to make bespoke products with both precision and efficiency. To achieve its distinctive set of production constraints, S&A Stairs rely on the Biesse Group to supply machines that can produce intricate components quickly, while maintaining the standards that the business has set for their customers.

“Biesse has transformed our business. We currently build and install 150 stairs a week, from split-level stairs to those in Toorak mansions. With the consistent product produced on the Biesse CNC machines, our time spent installing stairs has been reduced enormously.

“We are not a Toyota production line; we are still artisans, specialists, and the Biesse product fits our

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S&A Stairs is based in the Melbourne suburb of Braeside

needs very well. We are crossmaterial specialists using a range of Australian and imported hardwoods, softwoods, stone, acrylic, glass and stainless steel,” Tom said.

S&A Stairs use many forms of software including AutoCAD©, 3D stair software and freeform 3D modelling software and they all interact with the Biesse CNC machines. “We also use bSolid for our 5-axes machining. It is a visual process that simplifies the set-up for our most complex parts. Some components that took several hours to machine are now made in as little as twelve minutes!” Tom said.

S&A continue to work with Biesse because it provides a good mix of hardware and software.

“It is a mix that has really worked for us,” he adds. “It appeals to us from a value proposition. The everimproving service is fundamental in our decision to continue our long partnership with the Biesse Group. One of the hardest things to achieve is high quality at scale. High quality at low scale is achievable due to our talented individuals. High volume without detail is achievable through processes and machines. High quality and scale are a mixture of both these things.” There are many capable stair makers in Australia, so Tom is focused on growing the business and gaining more customers, and Biesse is fundamental to this goal.

“Biesse [machines] are both flexible and powerful and produce high-quality work that is repeatable. Biesse is an excellent workshop tool for us,” he said.

“In our work we find a balance between design, craft and technology. We produce stairs for some of Australia’s largest and most wellrespected builders, ten of these for over 50 years. We look for technology that makes our processes easier and provides a competitive advantage and Biesse certainly does both those things.

“If we got a new Biesse CNC machine tomorrow, we would be running product on it ten minutes after it was commissioned. Our team understands the Biesse product very well and the people at Biesse have invested in us to provide the right outcome for us. We don’t feel like Biesse machines are anything but excellent.” n

Story from Phil Ashley

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