Bendix will continue to manufacture components, including brake pads, in Australia, with news of an upgrade of its Victoria factory
May 22, 2012
Brake manufacturer Bendix will continue to manufacture components, including brake pads, in Australia, with news of an upgrade of its Victoria factory.
Employing 280 staff and making more than 13 million brake parts annually, the Ballarat factory recently underwent an $8.8 million upgrade, with the Victorian Government tipping in $2 million from of its Industry Transition Fund.
The upgrade includes a $3.5 million pressing machine, which is expected to improve the factory’s annual output.
FMP Group Australia General Manager Graeme Dixon says the new press will allow factory technicians to “develop and bring to market the most advanced products to secure our future as Australia’s and the region’s leading brake component manufacturer”.
“This high-tech press coupled with investments in other advanced equipment totalling $8.8 million is the largest made in this business in the last decade and demonstrates our commitment to our shareholders, our employees and to Australian manufacturing,” Dixon says.
The new fully automatic press centre is capable of handling various friction material compounds, automatically weighing, apportioning and compressing material to metal backing plates in a technically advanced hot pressing and curing process with 16 pressing and ventilating cycles.
Press and ventilating cycles as well as temperature divergences are controlled by microprocessors which automatically calculate and control the required cycle time.
FMP Groupis a joint venture company owned by Honeywell International and Pacifica Group Limited. It is the technical engineering and research and development centre for Asia Pacific.
In addition to the extensive Australian manufacturing facilities in Ballarat, the company operates manufacturing plants in Malaysia and Thailand.
