Australia’s trucks’ builders survive

[kscarbel2]

Big Rigs / December 4, 2015

SOMEONE should have told the people mourning the death of the Australian automotive manufacturing industry about the three truck factories currently operating in Australia.

Plus, of course, the Nissan Casting operation in Dandenong that supplies parts for the global Nissan group.

With a market that is tiny compared to overseas juggernauts such as the US and China, Australia hosts three truck manufacturing plants that are each providing specialist commercial vehicles to a wide range of applications.

The profitability of these plants is clearly not totally dependant on mass production volume.

As a contrast to Australia's tiny market, 10 years ago there were 1.12 million six-tonne GVM and over trucks manufactured in China alone.

In 2010, that figure had exploded to 3.92 million.

In 2012 it had shrunk back to a "mere" 3.02 million.

It kind of puts our 2014 total truck market of 31,325 in context.

One plant has production lines that build Volvo and Mack trucks, as well as pre-delivering UD trucks from Japan, which are imported fully built-up.

Paccar builds Kenworth trucks on 45 acres at Bayswater, about 35 kilometers due east of Melbourne, and the plant has been in production since 1971.

About 65% of every Kenworth built is local content and more than 750 people work onsite, with a lot more at associated suppliers.

The local specialist engineering team has enabled Kenworth to build the massive C540 mining truck for Australasian delivery on the existing production line.

In 2012, Paccar Australia was inducted into the Victorian Manufacturing Hall of Fame and has now delivered its 50,000th Kenworth manufactured in Australia.

That's why you see so many of the iconic rectangular grilles filling your rear-vision mirror.

Iveco inherited the 63-year-old International Harvester plant in Dandenong, Victoria, back in 1992 and then dropped International from the product range.

Now the plant is used for final preparation of the imported Eurocargo, Stralis and Daily but builds the perennial Acco from scratch.

Interestingly, Acco competes in the same market as imported trucks built in their hundreds of thousands overseas and is still price and quality competitive.

Bang goes the "it's too expensive to build here" argument.

The brand models that these three truck plants produce for Australia totaled 7,609 units in 2013, dropped 5% to 7229 units last year, and are heading towards 6,901 for the full 2015 year.

Despite a downward trend, the factories are continuing to support domestic Australian manufacture and although there are several reasons for that, the most significant is the level of custom features and components that are required in the range of applications in Australia.

For example, the development of Iveco's conventional cab Powerstar would have never happened if it was left to the Italian production line, where space is allocated according to market volume.

The recent road train version, the 7800, is a classic example of a European truck maker "Australianising" a series production truck for a local application - multi-trailer road trains in the Australian Outback.

The Australian automotive manufacturing industry is not dead.

For the trucking sector, which is the lifeblood of our country, it's alive and thriving.

[mrsmackpaul]

YES YES AND YES as I have been saying on here for some time a lot can learnt from your Australian cousins but and its a big BUT the US have to stop telling customers what they want and start to listen to what the customer is asking for end of the day the only time we look at getting something different is when what we have doesnt suit us any more

The big lesson to be learnt is if you cant sell what you are making dont blame everyone else maybe you just arent making what they want

Paul