By LACHLAN MOORHEAD
RAY Keefe is here to tell Australian manufacturers that the industry they have devoted their careers to is not dead.
The managing director of Successful Endeavours, based in Berwick, was buoyed by the recent national Endeavour Awards which was held this month in Sydney at which his business was lucky enough to have an exhibit and where innovation was the buzz word.
Mr Keefe said his company received an extremely favourable response from the exhibition, while his confidence in the Australian manufacturing industry had been re-affirmed.
“The general picture you get from the federal level is that manufacturing is dead, but manufacturing is the fourth largest sector of the overall Australian economy, only a little smaller than mining, and it’s the largest industry sector in Victoria still, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics,” he said.
“Decline is expected for a number of reasons but nobody expects us to make low grade products in Australia.
“What we definitely can do is niche and high value products that are highly sophisticated in a number of sectors.”
This is where Successful Endeavours comes in.
Founded in 1997, and with a strong foundation in audio engineering and analogue signal processing and design, Mr Keefe’s company is at the forefront of electronics and embedded software development.
It is the kind of innovation that saw Successful Endeavours crowned a finalist at the recent Endeavour Awards held this year at the Sydney Showgrounds, an annual event which recognises the high achievers throughout the Australian manufacturing industry.
While the team at Successful Endeavours were no strangers to the awards, they were also invited to hold an exhibit at the event with the Casey Cardinia Region group for the first time.
“We went up to represent the Casey Cardinia stands and if you know what the two councils are doing in terms of cooperating for economic development it’s an innovative move,” Mr Keefe said.
“We were going to be up there anyway for the Endeavour Awards and we had thought about exhibiting but decided the whole cost and week weren’t worth it. Casey Cardinia then offered to give us some of their stands.
“The interesting thing is that we were the only product development company there, the only electronics manufacturers from Australia.
“We came back with roughly 10 industry contacts, six leads and already a new client. Within a week, we’ve already landed a new client.”
Mr Keefe said it was an opportunity his company would definitely jump at again – anything to reassure manufacturers about a bright future that is still attainable within the industry.
“There are companies that are growing, but where we’re seeing doom and gloom is in traditional manufacturing sectors and automobile manufacturing,” he said.
“I think that you can do better in manufacturing if you re-think the whole thing.”
