Business View Oceania | January 2021

33 34 BUSINESS VIEW OCEANIA JANUARY 2021 BUSINESS VIEW OCEANIA JANUARY 2021 WWW.PRIORITYPOWDERCOATING.COM sales@prioritypowdercoating.com | (02) 4355 1666 13 Reliance Drive, Tuggerah NSW 2259 | 4A Burnet Road, Warnervale NSW 2259 Providing high quality powder coating finishes for aluminum, steel and galvanized metal products. APPROVED POWDER APPLICATOR FOR INTERPON & DULUX ISO 9001:2015 ACCREDITED SPANTEC SYSTEMS PTY LTD a great deal of additional cost in the manufacture. By far, the most significant aspect of that is having non-flammable components.” The company culture at Spantec is one of inclusiveness and opportunity. Beaumont notes, “We are continuously improving and our team sees that. We’re also very keen on listening, so that they have a real input into the improvements we do. It’s amazing – these guys have such great ideas. The other aspect is improving the products and the process itself. That’s been my main interest as the business has developed. We have a General Manager who runs the business and it leaves me free to work on those items. That’s my passion. I work with a mechanical engineer who turned 80 in 2019 and we do most of the plant development together. I believe that people who are interested in keeping active should stay at it. We have a number of people in the factory who are over 65, I’m over 65 – but if you’re good at things and passionate about them, then it gets you up in the morning.” concept has been driven by owner builders. They were the early adopters of steel building systems and needed the most help, so it was good for the Spantec team to work with them because the target has always been to make the system work with the least capable owner builder. By getting those people comfortable with using the product, the company anticipates it will be easier to satisfy the wider customer base. In 2020, Spantec business was up 39 percent up on the year before. According to Beaumont, “Some of that is COVID-19 related. Surprisingly, in Australia the market for construction work has increased. But we’re very satisfied with growth and a lot of that growth is through suppliers to the industry – hardware chains, steel framers, timber framers. We supply some of the components like the Ezibrace and the Ezipier and then we find customers are asking for the other components like our decks, and then whole floors. It’s been an interesting way to develop by the Ezi products that go on the shelf and that leads to other products that we design and supply, ready to go.” Spantec products have many benefits. They are about 40 percent lighter than the equivalent thickness of timber products and can be left out in the weather, which often creates problems for timber joists because an engineered product can delaminate or twist. Foundation piers are an expensive part of a project and the Spantec system reduces the number of piers, so there’s a saving on costs and the time of installation. The other aspect is that every piece is cut to length – no waste onsite. Since they are manufactured to the required length, in a very automated process, there’s no waste in the factory either. As building continues to increase in rural areas, bushfires are a growing threat for homeowners. “We have a lot of projects specified in those areas,” says Beaumont. “And through the National Association of Steel-Framed Housing (NASH), which is the Australian association of steel framers, we have developed our own standard for construction that will allow the design and building of a house to survive a bushfire without